Tag Archives: 1889 Labs

WeSeWriMo (Written for 1889 Labs)

I put together a blog post for 1889 Labs on the topic of WeSeWriMo. Here’s a snippet from it, but feel free to head over there and read the full thing.


WeSeWriMo, which is run by the web serial community site EpiGuide, runs annually during the month of August. This will be its sixth straight year. WeSeWriMo was inspired by the ever-popular National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). But where NaNoWriMo challenges authors to complete a 50,000-word novel in a single month, WeSeWriMo is designed to be adaptable to the unique challenges and opportunities of web serialization. Just as web serials come in a wide variety of formats, genres, and release schedules, the goals WeSeWriMo participants can pursue are entirely customizable. The idea is that each participant can set their own targets, based on their regular output. The WeSeWriMo website suggests aiming for 150% of your regular output as an example target, so if you’re used to releasing 4 episodes of your series in a month, try to write 6 episodes, instead, and add them to your backlog. Another goal could be to write 1,000 words per day for the entire month, or you could come up with something completely different to try for, as long as your target is “ambitious yet realistic”.

In my own case, I’ve decided to set a couple of different types of targets. I normally write and post two 1,000-word chapters per week for Special People, but in my official registration post on the EpiGuide forums, I laid out the following three goals:

Goal #1: Write 15 chapters (15,000 words)

Goal #2: Outline the next story arc.

Goal #3: Prepare the first Special People book for release.


If you’re interested in taking part in WeSeWriMo yourself, check out the official website.

ULTRA by 1889 Labs

If you’re a writer of flash fiction or short stories, there’s an interesting new opportunity for you to put your work out there, gain some readership, and possibly sell your story to be featured in a print/ebook anthology.

ULTRA is 1889 Labs’ newest web fiction initiative. The essential nuts and bolts are as follows: you submit your 500- to 2,000-word story, it goes into “The Inbox”, and if it gets enough Likes on Facebook it spends some time featured on the ULTRA front page. When enough stories have been gathered, the best ones will be featured in an anthology, and the authors will be paid a professional rate.

One of my stories from a few months ago, Spiritual Taxidermy, is among the first batch of stories. There are a bunch of other stories to read, so check it out and submit your own!

If you aren’t familiar with 1889 Labs, this is a group at the cutting edge of online fiction. They publish my interactive series Losing Freight and lots of other novels and web serials. Pay attention to 1889; special things are happening there.

“A New Face in Town” – Interview at 1889.ca

My series Losing Freight is being published by 1889 Labs, and last week I did an interview with Terra Whiteman, 1889’s “Zine Chief,” about the series, my other writing, and my experience so far as a new member of the 1889 writing team.

Here’s an excerpt:

Working on [Losing Freight] has been a lot of fun so far. It’s very different from anything I’ve ever written before. Incorporating feedback from the readers after every single posted page means I have to take a whole new approach to my writing process. I can’t just let the story go where I want it to go: I have to write every single page in an open-ended kind of way, to allow the readers to have as much influence on what happens as possible.

Head on over and check out the full interview!

Thank you to Terra for putting this together.