The Jocose January Challenge!

[Hannah Faoileán]

Happy New Year, and welcome to the first OPS challenge of 2026!

As we are all stepping out of the shadows of 2025 and into the bright lights of 2026, the challenge is to include the words "stepping out" in your one perfect sentence.

The rules are simple:

• Each entry must be ONE sentence only, as defined by the basic rules of English grammar. We will notice if you squeeze unrelated clauses together and pretend it's a sentence, so please don't do it. Your entry will be disqualified and removed.

• Don’t comment on other people's entries – this makes the thread far less readable. If you’d like to make a comment – or if you have a question – then please do so in the Café Life thread under the “One Perfect Sentence” prefix. I will keep checking the thread to answer any questions. If you have a question you don't want others to read, please private message me directly.

• You can make as many entries as you want to, but only your entry with the greatest number of votes will win a place (and litbits).

• IMPORTANT: You MUST make your entry anonymous by ticking the “Posting as Anonymous?” box. Entries that don’t do this will be removed.

Good luck and get writing!

 

[Anonymous]

Stepping out onto the front porch in the middle of the night, I was blinded by the sun, which had hung in the same place high in the sky since last Tuesday.

 

[Anonymous]

"Try stepping out a bit more - putting yourself forward for new projects," said my manager, her sickening smile making me want to step out of the room and run until the soles of my shoes were bare.

 

[Anonymous]

Qin Shi dodged arrows, stepping out onto the narrow and rickety bridge, and prayed he didn't drop the lost Jade Seal of the Realm into the gorge below.

 

[Anonymous]

I was thinking of accepting young Billy's offer and stepping out with him, but then the silly sod went off to the war, and I went up to town for a cleaning job, and by the time he came back I was married to Wilfred with the gammy eye, and pregnant with the twins, which wasn't what I had in mind all them years before when Billy was whispering all about what he wanted to do to me in the back of the Picture Palace, but, well, Wilf and I did have our fun, after a fashion, and not least when we made all them babies!

 

[Anonymous]

Stepping out of my protective shell of grief for the first time since the accident, I finally acknowledged what I had done wrong.