Do you post fiction online, or want to? Join the WeSeWriMo challenge.

(Posted with permission from Marley23 and the other kind Cafe Society mods.)

Announcing WeSeWriMo 2012 – the Sixth Annual Web Serial Writing Month

Hey guys. I wanted to let Dopers know about a very cool project in which I’m involved (well, more than involved, admittedly) that I thought might be of interest to some of the many fiction writers here.

In addition to being a ‘regular’ author of print romance novels, I’m also the author of an online serial – and more to the point, the admin/co-founder of the EpiGuide webfiction and webseries community, which has been around since 1998. The EpiGuide is about to launch our sixth annual month-long writing marathon, called WeSeWriMo for short, starting on August 1 and running until August 31, where creators of online serialized fiction in any form are challenged to write like you’ve never written before. Yes, it’s like NaNoWriMo, but with a big difference: this time you are in charge of setting your own ambitious goal.

If you write or are interested in developing anything from webserials to ebooks to webcomics to video webseries to Twitter fic to chapbooks to internet radio plays to serialized novels and anything else created regularly for the entertainment of the online and mobile audience, this is the marathon just for you.

As I mentioned above, befitting a project as individual as yours, with WeSeWriMo you pick your own goal. 1K words a day? Two installments a week? 40K words and a set of new character biographies or other extras? It’s totally up to you. Our forum celebrates the ingenuity and variety of writing for the web, and we wouldn’t dream of imposing a strict, arbitrary number on you.

Visit http://www.wesewrimo.org for complete details. FYI, there are a couple of ways to participate:

  1. Unofficially. Being an online writer often means you’re an individualist, so you might not feel like signing up at another message board to register or post your goals. That’s fine! Maybe you can post your goal here instead, or on your own blog if you have one – or just keep it in your brain as a private project.

  2. Officially. The official version is obviously what we’re hoping you’ll prefer, but it’s entirely up to you. What it means is just registering a free EpiGuide forum account, then [posting on our official sign-up thread to add your series/project to the list, as well as your goals. You can link to your site, if you have one, and also take advantage of the extra benefits: group motivation, your own blog on the EpiGuide (we call it the Eppy for short) where you can chat about your progress, and–if successful–your own little award banner and even a certificate showing you’ve met your goal.

During the month, we have weekly check-ins where people can discuss their progress so far, and even (if they like) post a snippet/teaser of what they’ve written to strut your stuff. But that’s optional. There’s also a progress tracker you can add to your site or blog (or forum sig, for forums that allow CSS/html in their sigs) and a boatload of banners you can use to proclaim your participation to the world. And naturally we all encourage sharing of resources if you have any great tips, or–if you’re finding yourself stuck–you can seek out some inspiration from your fellow participants. It’s a tiny group of people – seriously, fewer than 50 usually participate in the official thread, though many more do so unofficially – but we’re all enthusiastic and psyched for this year’s event.

The deadline for registration is August 1.

I know Camp NaNo is going on and many are taking part in that. But hey, we owned August first! :smiley: And besides, they have stricter rules than we do about what kind of goals they encourage. WeSeWriMo is about breaking a new path in a new world of entertainment and publishing. Don’t play by the rules–make your own!

Hope you guys consider participating. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. We also have a [url=http://www.wesewrimo.org/faq.php]FAQ](Official registration thread for WeSeWriMo '12 - EpiGuide) that answers a lot of the basics, and we’ve also just recorded a podcast in our EpiCast series that not only explains WeSeWriMo but interviews writers of webserials, serialized novels and even a webcomic who’ve participated (or are about to for the first time). You can find the podcast at our podbean EpiCast site. The first part of the podcast focuses on webserial previews, but the majority of the hour consists of our WeSeWriMo overview. There’s also this terrific blog explanatory post over at 1889.ca, a publisher of ebooks, serials, and print books, by the author of a funny, fresh superhero webserial called “Special People.”

Full shameful disclosure: as you’ll hear on the EpiCast (yes, I’m one of the co-hosts of that too, the less-funny half), I myself haven’t signed up yet–I do every year, but I always hem and haw and wait until last minute because I’m a major procrastinator. But as an example, my goals have included four installments and 31K words at a minimum. (My serial’s installments are kinda long… just like my posts here, no big surprise!)

Ooh: just to confirm one question that Marley asked that I think others might be wondering as well: you don’t have to post your actual writing on the EpiGuide or WeSeWriMo sites; in fact, we discourage that, because we want your writing to go where it belongs, on your own blog/site/fiction community/e-publisher/wherever you prefer to publish it.

Again, if anyone has any questions, please let me know. Or as I said, if you want to take part and post your goals here rather than in the official thread, that’s cool too. :slight_smile:

Thanks! And many thanks again to the CS mods for allowing me to promote the project.

Color me interested. I’ve had an idea for a “web series” writing concept that I keep wanting to start on but haven’t gotten around to. I even set up a (currently empty) web site for it. Maybe this will spur me to do something.

Awesome, tanstaafl. Go for it! As my co-host says in the interview, even if you don’t meet your goal, you’ve gone farther toward your true, ultimate goal in setting up the webseries.

Hm. I’ll check this out when this darn headache subsides, but it looks promising!

taanstafl’s already been sucked into the abyss, join, join, join!

(Try not to mention my username here though; I’d like to keep these worlds a bit separate. I don’t mind you guys knowing who I am there, but as far as the other way around goes, I’d prefer a bit more of a Chinese wall. :smiley: I’ve shared more RL stuff here than there, oddly enough.)

Oops. Sorry. I removed the reference to here from there. Since I try to use the same name on every forum I frequent it didn’t occur to me that others were trying to keep their on-line selves separate.

No problem at all! Anyone searching for WeSeWriMo (if they do) would find this thread and my massive secret would be out, so it’s not a tragedy if my “worlds collide” as it were. But thanks for removing it! And most of all good luck & thanks for signing up. :slight_smile:

Hey, just wanted to make a final announcement of the upcoming deadline to sign up for Web Serial Writing Month. August 1 is both the last day to sign up and the first day of the marathon. If you’re a writer who’d like to participate in WeSeWriMo – the month-long marathon where you set your own writing goal and race to reach it – don’t wait any longer to register.

Visit the official site at http://www.wesewrimo.org to learn all the details, and sign up at the thread here: http://bit.ly/R0jdyJ.

As mentioned above you can participate in the marathon without signing up for anything. However, signing up lets you participate in the community support and spirit, grab useful writing resources, express yourself in your free Eppy blog, and show off your progress via widgets and badges.

Good luck to everyone who joins. The last day to register is August 1 (also the first day of the challenge) so if you’re up to the challenge, jump in fast!

And if you want to hear more about the marathon straight from folks who’ve participated in it, we have a podcast devoted to WeSeWriMo, packed with writer interviews and discussions about the month-long challenge (and writing marathons in general). We also have some webserial summer previews, so you can hear what to expect in the weeks ahead.

Visit the podcast at http://epiguide.podbean.com or http://bit.ly/MHLPIL

Thanks again and I hope more folks join this unique challenge. If you have any questions, I’m always happy to help out.