New news for a new year
I know I said it in our January email, but happy New Year, YeahWriters!
I don’t generally do resolutions, but this year I’m hoping to rediscover the joy of writing. I’m going to write what makes me happy (or satisfied – sometimes my favorite writing is stuff that makes me, well, not happy). I’m going to scribble out some flash, maybe enter a competition or two. I’m going to lean into my favorite tropes (*sobs* omg the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one). And I’m going to work on getting to know you all just a little bit better, because this community is the thing that keeps me going, most days.
A couple notes for the beginning of the year:
- We’re only running two Super Challenges this year (one for creative nonfiction, one for flash fiction), and they both open for registration today!
- We’re only running two Super Challenges because the rest of the year, we’ll be putting together our first ever anthology!
- This year’s Scarlet Quill Society workshop is focused on tropes! We’d love to see as many of you as possible at our first meeting on Wednesday, January 18 at 2pm US Eastern time. (It’s free!)
That’s it for now. Cheers to the beginning of a great new year.
~Christine
This Week’s Writing Prompt is:
Genre: epistolary + word: adrift
This week, your job, should you choose to accept it, is to write a story, essay, or poem incorporating the above prompts. Stuck? Check out our post on combination prompts! You can go a little deeper by reading about how to incorporate a prompt word into your work or what, exactly, an epistolary is.
Share your response in the Coffeehouse, located both on Facebook or Discord, by linking your blog post, Google Doc, or other file. Check out your fellow YeahWriters’ responses, and don’t forget to leave them some love in the comments!
Looking for our weekly grids? After nearly ten years, they’ve been retired. Read more about the latest changes to YeahWrite in the #500 Weekly Writing Challenge Kickoff Post.
The Schedule
We will release a new prompt on our blog every Friday at 12pm Eastern.
Then it’s up to you! Write your response to the prompt on your own blog or website and share the link in the Coffeehouse, located both on Facebook or Discord. If you prefer to keep your work under wraps (and away from the eyes of potential publishers), you can still ask for beta readers in the Coffeehouse and share your work privately!
Every Monday, we’ll check in to see how you’re doing and what your writing goals are for the week.
Wednesdays are “Work-in-Progress Wednesdays.” Share a few sentences or even a paragraph or two in the Coffeehouse (no more than 250 words, please). Even if you’re not done writing, this could be the boost you need to stay motivated.
Did you publish a book? Do you have a story in a magazine? The First Friday of every month is for self-promotion, where you can share commercial links to your work for purchase. (You can always share the news that you’ve been accepted for publication, though!)
And of course, the entire community is here 24-7 to share your victories and setbacks, challenges and accomplishments. So come on in, pull up a chair, and say hello. We’re all writers here.
Upcoming and Ongoing
Sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any upcoming classes, workshops, or competitions.
Scarlet Quill Society (Free Workshop w/ Optional Paid Benefits)
Welcome to the secret back room where the Scarlet Quill Society meets. In this year-long workshop, we’ll be focusing on tropes! Love ’em or hate ’em, you can’t avoid ’em. For the purpose of this year’s workshop, we’re defining a trope as a building block of storytelling. It’s a device or pattern of events that is used to solve plot or character problems or communicate meaning efficiently and effectively. Read the January post, and then join YeahWrite’s Managing Editor Rowan Becket Grigsby as she helps us understand how tropes can help or hurt our writing.
January’s meeting is free and open to all! We’ll go over what is and what isn’t a trope, and we’ll start to delve into the positive and negative aspects of using them. It should be a lively discussion, so please join us on Zoom on Wednesday, January 18 at 2pm US Eastern time. RSVP ASAP to get the Zoom link.
Scarlet Quill Society workshop posts are always free. In addition, we are offering a couple add-ons that we think you’ll find exciting and worth a few bucks a month: face-to-face (okay, virtual) monthly meetings to delve into the topics and answer your questions, and an editorial backroom on Discord!
Sign up for a membership today to join the Scarlet Quill Society and automatically receive the Zoom link and password for every meeting. One-off monthly meeting tickets can also be purchased on Kofi. At YeahWrite we believe information wants to be shared. If you can’t afford to join us for society meetings, we post the recording about a week later, and you’re welcome to leave the tip you can afford (even if that’s just a nice thank you comment). Check out our YouTube channel for more.
Super Challenge #27 (Nonfiction) AND #28 (Fiction)
Did you hear the news? You asked, we listened. YeahWrite is publishing its first anthology for both fiction AND creative nonfiction, and the top three winners of Super Challenge #27 and #28 will be automatically published! With all this excitement in the air, we opened registration for both contests a tad earlier than usual. Register today!
Register for Super Challenge #27 (Nonfiction) Register for Super Challenge #28 (Fiction)
Don’t want to miss out on all the fun? Be sure to sign up for our mailing list so you don’t miss out on any future Super Challenge updates.
WIP Write-Ins, AKA Co-Working Hours
Join Christine every Wednesday from 9:00am – 11:00am Pacific Time for regular WIP Write-ins. Other sessions will be scheduled in the future, so keep an eye on our calendar and we’ll be sure to post announcements of pop-up sessions in our Discord and Facebook groups. See you there!
If you’ve been meaning to join us but can’t do Wednesdays, we’re checking our calendars now so make sure you’ve responded to the Discord poll for times!
[Ed’s note: if you add that calendar to your own Google calendar, it’ll change the times to match your time zone automagically. No more searching “what time is 9am Pacific in Warsaw?” You’re welcome. /RBG]
Spontaneous Writing Challenges
About the author:
Christine Hanolsy is a (primarily) science fiction and fantasy writer who simply cannot resist a love story. She joined the YeahWrite team in 2014 as the microstory editor and stepped into the role of Editor-In-Chief in 2020. Christine was a 2015 BlogHer Voices of the Year award recipient and Community Keynote speaker for her YeahWrite essay, “Rights and Privileges.” Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies and periodicals and her creative nonfiction at Dead Housekeeping and in the Timberline Review. Outside of YeahWrite, Christine’s past roles have included Russian language scholar, composer, interpreter, and general cat herder. Find her online at christinehanolsy.com.
