Get Your Words Out is a writing community built to help writers write regularly and meet their writing goals. Writers have many different needs and many different goals, so GYWO offers a broad spectrum of tools, opportunities, and support to address many kinds of writing challenges.
Click through the five headers to read more about how we support each area of the writing life.
Many writers struggle with meeting their goals, whether that’s setting up a regular writing schedule, finishing a novel, or—ahem—getting their words out.
A yearly goal set in a community holds writers accountable, turning a writing wish into reality.
GYWO supports that accountability goal through monthly check-ins and guidance on how to divide a goal over the year and make steady progress to achieve it.
Our private trackers allow writers to individualize their progress by planning how to navigate their writing life and other responsibilities. They can manage their goals on a month-to-month basis to see how those changes will affect their yearly goal.
Other posts and opportunities are available to help writers set and meet goals beyond their pledge.
Beyond Pledge Goals
Beyond Pledge Goals invites writers to set goals for how many stories they’ll write or publish in a year, set research or planning milestones, or ask for other writers to hold them accountable for completing workshops, reading books, or any other goals related to the writing life.
Submission Soirée
The Submission Soirée is earmarked for writers aiming for publication. This multi-week event helps writers set aside time devoted to revision, polishing, and preparing a submission for an agent, editor, or publisher (including self-publishing).
Pledge & Pace Trackers
We offer three types of trackers—Pledge Trackers, customized to help you meet your pledge, either focusing on Habit or Word Count, and a Pace Tracker, designed to watch and adjust your pace over the year. All three trackers include project-focused tracking, allowing you to not only track your pledge, but also keep an eye on the progress of multiple writing projects.
Habit Tracker
Word Count Tracker
Pace Tracker
Get Your Words Out helps writers find reasons to write and provides structured time and events to encourage writing.
Official sprints on our Discord server inspire writers to write those words and not stare into space. Friendly competition against the timer, as well as casual conversation between sprints, are the perfect recipe for motivation.
At the Dreamwidth community, monthly challenges target motivation for different kinds of writers. Writers with busy schedules can find a reminder to write for five minutes, while writers inspired by competitiveness are asked to meet a word count within a time frame. The main challenge each month includes prompts, providing the spark to ignite a sputtering imagination.
Annual events provide motivation in the form of a deadline, offering another way to get your words out.
Writing Sprints
Our Discord Writing Sprints help writers dedicate time to writing. Conversation between sprints lets your brain relax, and camaraderie with other writers provides support when you’re struggling and a cheer when you\’re doing great. If a Sprint Leader hasn’t scheduled a sprint when you’re ready to write, no worry! Members are invited to start their own sprints when a Sprint Leader is not available.
Prompts: Bluesky & Tumblr
Inspiration can be found on our Bluesky and Tumblr in the form of original prompts written for our community and prompts reblogged to our social media feeds. Write something for any GYWO prompt and tag us, and we’ll share it with the community, too!
GYWO Yahtzee & GWYO Build-a-Bingo
Writers are invited to score points as they participate in GYWO Yahtzee & GYWO Build-a-Bingo, two prompt events designed for quick turn over with plenty of opportunities to write for only the most inspiring prompts.
7 Days, 7 Stories
7 Days, 7 Stories is a week-long initiative in the spring to inspire writers to get through their first drafts, providing fodder to finish, revise, and publish over the rest of the year.
Mid-Year Marathon
The Mid-Year Marathon is our mid-year push for writers to recommit to their goals and either get caught up or make a significant effort to not fall farther behind. Sometimes the real success of your writing life is not throwing in the towel.
Seasonal Word Crawl
A Seasonal Word Crawl each year allows writers to creep, hop, or even mosey their way to a few thousand words as a story unfolds based on your choices.
Writers develop their craft, process, and knowledge by reading articles posted to the Dreamwidth community or shared across our social media.
Posts made to Dreamwidth are written by volunteers sharing their experience and knowledge. Topics are suggested by our members, or are related to concerns and questions brought up within the community.
Subjects range from discussions of craft to resource recommendations. Writers share tips for navigating various aspects of the writing process, such as publishing, time management, and genre specific concerns (including fanfiction).
Articles shared on Bluesky and Tumblr include information beyond experience, like research links, submission calls, and other writing-relevant topics.
Our archive is a comprehensive resource for writers looking to grow!
Blocks & Inspiration
A common concern among writers is how to get unstuck. Every year our volunteers address new ways to find inspiration, excavate plot holes, and keep going even when your brain feels like molasses.
Craft
Craft discussions cover the mechanics of writing, from the benefits of different points of view to unique ways to develop character and worldbuild. We discuss more subjective writing elements such as style and tone, word choice, and pacing, as well as ways to develop your skills and add variety to your repertoire.
Planning, Plot, & Structure
Planning without outlines, plotting, and how to structure a story are regular topics on our Dreamwidth community as we share resources, tips, and our own explorations of how to go from idea to finished story.
Publishing & Marketing
From writing query letters to working with a freelance editor to how to best use tags on AO3, our volunteers share their experiences and best practices to demystify the publishing process and bring you confidence as you share your work with others.
Research & Resources
Many of our volunteers have experience working as librarians and researchers and are happy to share tips for researching writing minutiae. Other volunteers create, test, and explore writing apps, tools, and books to provide reviews, recommendations, and walkthroughs for our Dreamwidth community.
Writing is usually a solo-sport with many hours spent with your thoughts and an empty page. But joining Get Your Words Out connects you to a community of writers who understand what you’re going through.
While writers can engage independently through our Dreamwidth community, Discord server, or on any of our social media accounts, GYWO offers structured times to get to know other writers, connect with potential betas and editors, and find the support you need when you need it.
The Dreamwidth community offers a monthly pep talk targeting specific areas of the writing life. Other posts offer spaces in which to seek assistance and receive help, including brainstorming and feedback.
Frolic!
Each year the community opens with our Frolic post, meant for writers to get to know each other and connect. In addition to being the spot most likely to induce the words, “I didn’t know you were here,” it’s also where writers can indicate they’re looking to exchange work.
Open Response Posts
Throughout the year, the Discussion Leaders make posts dedicated to hearing from the community. In these Open Response Posts, we’re looking to hear about your writing life, process, struggles, and solutions.
Share Times & WIP Wednesdays
We invite writers to share works in progress on our Dreamwidth community, Discord, and on Bluesky every Wednesday, and at other times throughout the year when we think writers could use a little extra support.
Discord
Discord is a chat-based extension of the GYWO community with real-time interactions with writers. In addition to general chat about your writing life, forums are available for specific support such as accountability, brainstorming, cheerleading, and feedback.
Writers are also invited to share their finished works in our #promotions channels.
AO3 Collections
Our collections on AO3 connect GYWO fanfiction writers, providing a one-stop archive for all the stories written for GYWO Yahtzee, challenges, and other events over the year.
Get Your Words Out links a healthy writing life with a healthy mindset. While accountability is our founding principle, compassion is our cornerstone, and we seek to encourage writers to take care of themselves!
Many community posts on Dreamwidth center mental and physical health breaks as part of the writing process. Volunteers share their methods of dealing with various health issues that impact their writing life, including how they’ve been able to write (or resume writing) while dealing with anxiety, grief, chronic illness, and being a caretaker.
This compassionate outlook extends to our administration, which includes excused absences, a flexible policy for missing check-ins, and a no-penalty process for withdrawing. Members may leave for any reason at any time, and will be welcome back for a future year of GYWO.
Recharge
Each month writers are invited to relax in our Recharge post on Dreamwidth to chat about something wholly unrelated to writing. (Okay, sometimes we talk about our favorite books but in a totally different context!) The Recharge post is also where we celebrate birthdays and other good news.
Chronic Illness Support Post
The Chronic Illness Support Post on Dreamwidth connects our members dealing with chronic illnesses. A new reflection each month highlights the ways illness can impact the writing life and the comments allow space for writers to decompress, share, and support each other.
No Pressure Pledges
Even the best laid plans can run awry, so GYWO offers no pressure pledges. If you don’t meet your goal, we hope you’ll take what you learned and apply it to a future pledge.
Approachable Moderators
Our moderation team is here to listen. The GYWO moderators are available via the Membership Management form, email, an #ask-a-mod channel on Discord, and private message on Dreamwidth. We welcome all feedback and respond whenever possible. Many changes to our community over the years have been in response to noted needs of our members in an effort to make the community more accessible, friendly, and accommodating.