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