Community

Over the years Get Your Words Out has been in action, we’ve spread across social media. Below you can find out not only where the GYWO community is located but what we have to offer on each platform.

Dreamwidth

The Dreamwidth community is the hub of Get Your Words Out. Challenges, discussions, chatting, and check-ins all take place in this community. Monthly volunteer posts are supplemented by anything our members post about their writing interests, successes, or roadblocks.

Our big events for the year include GYWO Yahtzee; 7 Days, 7 Stories; and the Mid-Year Marathon.

Discord

On Discord, we host writing sprints, provide additional opportunities to chat with other writers, and post community announcements and reminders. We also host topic-focused discussion spaces and forums to give writers more opportunities to connect and find the support they need.

Tumblr

On Tumblr, we reblog the best articles, advice, picture and text prompts, music lists, research, and writing-related motivation. You can submit your own posts to us as well! We also post community reminders for monthly check-ins and other important events.

Bluesky

On Bluesky, you’ll find reposts of the best articles, advice, and quotes on writing our volunteers run across. We also post prompts, conversation starters, and community reminders, including the weekly schedule for Writing Sprints.

Share With Us

Posting to the Dreamwidth community is open to all members. Every month a cadre of volunteers post encouragement, challenges, prompts, and discussions, but we also want to hear from you! (On Discord, too!)

CONTRIBUTE TO THE COMMUNITY

Any posts related to writing and publishing are on-topic, including your personal writing woes or kudos; your advice; or articles, challenges, tools, or techniques you want to share. All posts must allow comments and no one but a moderator should delete or screen comments because this is a community! We want conversation in our community, so we also encourage members to write posts that will invite discussion and sharing.

Please appropriately credit writers and publications when quoting or linking to work. If you are posting an image, include alt text to ensure our community is as accessible as possible. To that note, use the default font provided in the community. If you are using Rich Text for formatting, make sure your font text and size match the community default.

The Dreamwidth comm operates with moderated posting. During check-ins, or when other posts are planned, it may take some time for your post to appear. Most posts are approved within 24 hours. If a post is not appropriate in some way, you will be notified and have the opportunity to make changes.

Information about participating on Discord, including a server overview and guidelines for the Discord forums are available in the #server-guidelines on our Discord server.

SHARE WRITING OPPORTUNITIES

During the year, you may come across writing challenges, exchanges, contests, or story calls you want to share with GYWO. Please include a description of the challenge or story call, any basic requirements for participation, and important dates and links.

We welcome announcements for any writing challenges or story calls, be they fandom, original, or located outside of Dreamwidth.

These opportunities can be shared by you directly on Dreamwidth or in the appropriate channel on Discord. (You can also submit directly to our Tumblr or direct moderator and volunteer attention to Tumblr or Bluesky posts for reposting.)

SHARE YOUR WORK

As this is a writing challenge, you’re welcome to share what you’ve written. Works of any size or type may be posted. When you share your work, follow these guidelines to help keep the comm neat and organized.

Each post of fanfic or original work must have a header with it. The header should include:

Title: we encourage something other than “Untitled”

Fandom or Original Universe: for fanfic, or if you have been posting numerous snippets from the same original universe

Rating: please use MPAA ratings (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17), AO3 ratings (General Audiences, Teen, etc.) or describe your rating (i.e., “All Ages”, “Mature”, etc.)

Word count: especially if you have a word count pledge!

Summary: one to three sentences

Warnings/triggers: as you see fit

Writing Prompt: (optional) if written to a challenge or prompt from the community

Beta: (optional) if you use a beta

If you are posting the text of your story to the community, the entire story must be behind a cut, no matter the length. Please place any extensive author’s notes behind a cut.

Links to your personal journal, writing journal, AO3 or another archive or website are fine, but please use the above header when posting on GYWO Dreamwidth.

Because we are not set up to be an archive, tag your work using only the tags provided for genre. If you need a tag made for a specific genre or subgenre, let a moderator know.

You can also share your work on our Discord server in one of our #promotions channels. If you are posting an unlocked link from AO3, our bot will take care of the header. If you are posting an archive-locked AO3 link or a link from anywhere else, please include a header with your link, similar to the above header.

We encourage writers to share samples of works in progress on Wednesdays in the #wip-wednesdays channel or in the bi-monthly Dreamwidth post. Other posts on Dreamwidth periodically invite you to share samples of works in progress, but sharing your work is entirely at your discretion.