Music Challenge 2026 - Official Support Thread

[SissyBrandi19]

There are so many great songs that are about sex. The hardest part will be choosing one (or maybe two) to write. Maybe Peter Gabriel's (Genesis technically) Counting Out Time

For people who don't know it, here is a middle verse



It does not turn out well for the poor young man.

It does remind me of some sex scenes I have read here.

I started classical piano lessons at age 5 and grew up in an uber religious (baptist) household AND was the oldest kid AND adopted so when I started liking rock music that did NOT go over well but luckily my classical music background made me gravitate immediately to Genesis and my first taste (and a tribute to the old-school AOR rock stations who were free to play whatever shit they wanted) was when Genesis released "Lamb" and holy SHIT that opening by genius Tony Banks...chills. The story of Rael inside the double album - back in the days of actual album art - was captivating and thus my love of progressive rock begun. I'd have to call "Lamb" probably my overall favorite rock album ever, but whew...man...close maybe tied with Rush' "Hemispheres" because Cygnus X-1 Part 2? Masterpiece. Maybe the best single rock song in my eyes, well....eye...EVAR. And like pretty much 100% of my opinions, I'm pretty much alone, there, which is not a complaint - I'm built for solitude a.k.a. isolation. It's...best that way.

 

[SissyBrandi19]

This thread officially kicks off the MUSIC CHALLENGE 2026 for the summer of 2026. Submissions can be sent in between August 1st through August 18th, with a Tuesday August 25 go live date.

This thread is also to SUPPORT and ENCOURAGE veteran and first-time authors to enter stories in the MUSIC CHALLENGE 2026. This is an open challenge for everyone; it is not a competition and there are no scores or prizes. It is, however, an opportunity to write a story with a similar theme to what other authors will be submitting and the stories will be presented together at the end of the challenge. As a result, your story will have greater exposure to the readers.

The rules and guidelines are simple:

Use a song title as the title of your story.

The story should reflect and build on the song title. The spirit of the challenge is to craft your story around the words, meaning or message of the song - but the degree to which you do this is up to you.

Very limited use of lyrics is permissible in the story but lengthy passages should be avoided.

Minimum length 750 words.

Any category may be chosen.

The usual Literotica rules regarding prohibited topics, etc will be followed.

Use MUSIC CHALLENGE 2026 as a story tag.

Include the words ‘MUSIC CHALLENGE 2026’ in the ‘notes’ field when you submit the story.

A few examples to stimulate your creative juices:

“Thank God and Greyhound (She’s Gone)” (Roy Clark-1970) – Loving Wives

“We Are Family” (Sister Sledge-1979) – Taboo and Incest

“Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed” (Kinky Friedman-1973) – Humor & Satire

“Only a Girl” (Gia Woods-2016) – Lesbian Sex

“London Boy” (Taylor Swift-2019) – Gay Male

“I Will Always Love You” (Dolly Parton-1973 & Whitney Houston-1992) – Romance

“Innocent” (Taylor Swift-2010) – First Time



And there are so many more good songs to use as a basis for this challenge and you have many months until the deadline. So, get busy and start writing. We are looking forward to reading your contributions.

[Edited] AS RECOMMENDED BY Actingup, you are encouraged to include a postscript about the song. This could include the musicians’ names, date of original release, how the story relates to the tune and anything else that you would like the reader to know.

I almost hate to ask this and "no" is always a perfectly legal answer, since there's no reason to change the rules, I'm not special, but since this does not involve a contest or anything I'll ask anyway: What would be the response if someone - who knows who would attempt this - wrote an actual song? Just a question...

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I almost hate to ask this and "no" is always a perfectly legal answer, since there's no reason to change the rules, I'm not special, but since this does not involve a contest or anything I'll ask anyway: What would be the response if someone - who knows who would attempt this - wrote an actual song? Just a question...

I write tons of songs and one day I will write a music story and the songs to go with it and submit as an audio.

 

[Trionyx]

I almost hate to ask this and "no" is always a perfectly legal answer, since there's no reason to change the rules, I'm not special, but since this does not involve a contest or anything I'll ask anyway: What would be the response if someone - who knows who would attempt this - wrote an actual song? Just a question...

If the song were the only thing, it would have to be at least 750 words long, the minimum count for stories on this site. I see no reason why writing a song wouldn’t qualify otherwise. Might confuse people particularly since the melody would be unknown, unless you were using a common melody and writing your words to fit.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Trionyx, thanks for hosting this. I have one almost done that I think would fit this but I'm planning to submit soon since it's been so long since I completed and posted anything. I'll reread the criteria again when the story is complete and see if I should hold it for the event.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I almost hate to ask this and "no" is always a perfectly legal answer, since there's no reason to change the rules, I'm not special, but since this does not involve a contest or anything I'll ask anyway: What would be the response if someone - who knows who would attempt this - wrote an actual song? Just a question...

It's funny, I had almost the exact same question. I've been mentioning a fictional female symphonic deathcore band in a lot of my stories and actually wrote a few songs (lyrics only). I don't see why it wouldn't be allowed.

Also taking a look at Jinjer and Ignea to see if anything sparks an idea.

 

[SissyBrandi19]

If the song were the only thing, it would have to be at least 750 words long, the minimum count for stories on this site. I see no reason why writing a song wouldn’t qualify otherwise. Might confuse people particularly since the melody would be unknown, unless you were using a common melody and writing your words to fit.

Good point! 750 words is a lot of lyrics OR a very repetitive song! Hmmm, I wonder if there is a similar musical metric that one could use..750 measures? 750 notes in the melody? Now I am going too far - making people count-n-shit.

 

[old_prof]

Good point! 750 words is a lot of lyrics OR a very repetitive song! Hmmm, I wonder if there is a similar musical metric that one could use..750 measures? 750 notes in the melody? Now I am going too far - making people count-n-shit.

You could publish the lyrics as a poem.

 

[SissyBrandi19]

You could publish the lyrics as a poem

True, though my question as posed was about the musicality. I'd argue lyrics ARE poems and I was wondering about the use of actual music as in tones of varying frequencies as a type of entrant. I'm glad I asked given at least one other person had the question in mind. I thought to ask because of my personal project which is actually putting my entrance in the 750 word challenge from the prior-to-last contest (which was never even published to absolutely no surprise of mine given it is quite...weird) to music. That it was not even accepted bothers me zero, but is humorous to me as it is another piece of evidence to support my long held contention that few, if any, of those who celebrate "thinking outside the box" actually would accept any thinking outside of the box.

I hung up on a job interview, once, when the company stated that was something they sought. It never is. Companies who state this imagine that they'll hire someone who will be so innovative and yet they never consider that's only one side of the story - the other side is the acceptance of the "out of the box" idea which will never happen in any company, ever (unless the idea is by the founder or someone with enough power to dictate acceptance). Companies get ideas outside the box all the time whereupon they dismiss the idea because "that's not how we do things around here". Besides, how are you going to have an idea that is outside the box when as many have been told by their employers, you are "not getting paid to think"?

That is why this country has gotten so stupid. Thinking is hard work and I don't work for free. Yet when I'm at work I'm being told "we're not paying you to think". Well then, I guess I won't be thinking any time soon, if ever! I ain't doin' it on my free time and you're not paying me to do it. So really the entire mess we find ourselves in as a society has really only one contributing factor - employment. At least that's what I think...wait a minute...

 

[old_prof]

True, though my question as posed was about the musicality. I'd argue lyrics ARE poems and I was wondering about the use of actual music as in tones of varying frequencies as a type of entrant. I'm glad I asked given at least one other person had the question in mind. I thought to ask because of my personal project which is actually putting my entrance in the 750 word challenge from the prior-to-last contest (which was never even published to absolutely no surprise of mine given it is quite...weird) to music. That it was not even accepted bothers me zero, but is humorous to me as it is another piece of evidence to support my long held contention that few, if any, of those who celebrate "thinking outside the box" actually would accept any thinking outside of the box.

I hung up on a job interview, once, when the company stated that was something they sought. It never is. Companies who state this imagine that they'll hire someone who will be so innovative and yet they never consider that's only one side of the story - the other side is the acceptance of the "out of the box" idea which will never happen in any company, ever (unless the idea is by the founder or someone with enough power to dictate acceptance). Companies get ideas outside the box all the time whereupon they dismiss the idea because "that's not how we do things around here". Besides, how are you going to have an idea that is outside the box when as many have been told by their employers, you are "not getting paid to think"?

That is why this country has gotten so stupid. Thinking is hard work and I don't work for free. Yet when I'm at work I'm being told "we're not paying you to think". Well then, I guess I won't be thinking any time soon, if ever! I ain't doin' it on my free time and you're not paying me to do it. So really the entire mess we find ourselves in as a society has really only one contributing factor - employment. At least that's what I think...wait a minute...

Is there a good plain text description of music? I only know the standard staff notation. Not sure how to submit musical notation here.

Agree with you that people who say they want to think outside the box just mean outside some hypothetical box, but inside their box. Which may be smaller than the hypothetical box, but logical consistently may not be a strength there either.

 

[SissyBrandi19]

Is there a good plain text description of music? I only know the standard staff notation. Not sure how to submit musical notation here.

Agree with you that people who say they want to think outside the box just mean outside some hypothetical box, but inside their box. Which may be smaller than the hypothetical box, but logical consistently may not be a strength there either.

What companies want is that revolutionary idea that will help them break out, but companies are generally what I'd term "low trust". It's like my issue with "teams" versus the idea of the "wisdom of crowds". The latter came from the observation of those contests where you "guess the number of jellybeans in the big jar" where any single guess may be far from the mark but if you average the guesses, that average is remarkably close. But that completely breaks down in a team situation where the team performs no better than the single guesser.

Here's my personal "thinking outside the box" employment story and honestly, I wasn't even thinking outside the box, that is giving me way too much credit. But I was working as a statistical analyst for an engineering company, but oddly enough, was in the HR department. I was tasked with the following: The company wanted to save money on the whole compensation package thing, but what to reduce or eliminate and take the least hit on the perceived value of the package as a whole and keep the current employees not feeling "loss"? I immediately knew how to solve this, given my experience in market research and product development - use a conjoint analysis. Conjoint analysis is one of the most clever ways of discovering what people value (example: you are creating a new product or wanting to change an existing product as far as features) and is based on just a few key principles: 1) a product is not a single entity but rather a combination of features (e.g. a car is horsepower, sound system, seating comfort, fuel efficiency...PRICE), 2) the idea of trade-offs - more of one feature may mean less of another (greater horsepower means less fuel efficiency, or if you wish to "gain" by having every feature at the highest level, you must "give up" in price), and 3) if you ask people "what is important" you'll find that EVERYTHING is important. So instead of asking on a survey, conjoint uses the logic of a factorial analysis and by combining features and levels against each other you present alternate versions of the product and people simply pick one (or none). The person is presented, say, 3 alternate vehicles and a 4th option of "none" and simply selects their choice, then does this again for from 12-20 "choice sets". So I thought, hey, is not a compensation package similar - you have different features (salary, PTO, insurance in various forms, other components) and instead of asking people "what would you give up?" you simply present, say, 3-4 different packages and the person indicates which they would take (or "none") and again using factorial logic you can do this with a decent number of features/levels and have each person do that 12-15 times and get a very good idea of 1) which features are most valued (and by how much), 2) for any feature with levels (base level, mid level, premium level) you can determine where the point of diminishing returns is (maybe many people value the step up from base level, but few see the point in premium versus mid level) and 3) what are people willing to lose, in order to gain something else? So I presented this to the company and people were like "huh...interesting!" and then, nothing. So I'm sitting at my desk looking at porn onli...I mean, doing analysis, and my phone rings. It's the VP all excited and telling me to come to this other meeting I wasnt' invited to, being a plebe and all...turns out it's this major organization for HR and they're doing this presentation that is pretty much exactly what I presented but branded. Suddenly what I had presented had "credibility". So I had presented an idea that for them was "outside the box" and while not soundly rejected, I wasn't being swarmed with offers to join the C-suite but then what happened? It's not that my "outside the box" idea was suddenly great, rather the "box" just got way bigger wherein what was formerly "outside" was now "inside" the box...via this organization. Let me tell you - the amount of cred I gained that day? I mean, no, I didn't get a raise or promotion but man, did I ever get LAID! Not by anyone working there, no, I went home and had sex with my then wife. So yeah, no change in my life at all.

The point of this overly detailed story? Is that I'm awesome. No, the point is if you ever have an idea that is "outside the box" and you're wondering how to increase the adoption of that idea? Don't focus on changing the idea, focus on changing the BOX. How does one do that? I dunno...what? What am I, you're "idea monkey" now? Get outta here, I got por..stuff to "analyze"! Scram, kid!

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Is there a good plain text description of music? I only know the standard staff notation. Not sure how to submit musical notation here.

I can describe music in words, sometimes in great detail, but then the reader has to understand the terminology. If the reader does not know how to change to the minor on the two-and beat, no matter how well I describe the music they won't be able to imagine it.

 

[old_prof]

Go for it.

You've encouraged to me go big. I'm thinking about a short novel/long novella, with each chapter based around a different song. I think right now it'll be ten songs, but I still need to find an appropriate song for one of them. Tentatively called Love Notes