The II Writing Challenge

Want to be featured on IndieInk? It’s really easy. All you have to do is participate in one of the weekly challenges we run with our fantastically talented group of artists.

Writing Challenge

Here’s how it works:

1. Sign up on the form at the end of this page.

One of the questions on the form is to provide a prompt for your challengee. A “Challenge” is your version of a writing prompt. Be creative, but be mindful of the fact that, while we want to have fun, don’t be an ass. We want to be challenged and that doesn’t include being asked to describe anything pervy or lame. Be interesting and give your person the gift of a creative challenge that you might like to receive yourself.

By clicking “yes” at the end of the form, you’re giving us permission to post your challenge response on IndieInk. This is for our lawyer; you’re not giving up your rights. If you’re still concerned, contact us. It’s no different than our previously standard publishing rules.

2. Every Friday, we will go through the list and pair up the participants randomly. Each person has already issued a challenge, and that person will also receive a challenge from someone else (not necessarily the person he/she is challenging).

3. Participants will get access to a list of that week’s assignments in the IndieInk Forum. You can read what prompts other people got, and you can also find links to the challenge responses in the forum as well as on the main IndieInk site.

As you write your post, we are going to ask that you adhere to a few standards. The first is that you title your post with something that has to do with the subject of your work. “IndieInk #3” or “My First IndieInk Challenge” will not be accepted. If you’re challenged to write, say, about the mating habits of dogs, your title will either be (HYPOTHETICALLY!) “Doin’ It Doggy Style” OR, if you prefer, “Doin’ It Doggy Style [IndieInk Writing Challenge].” Basically, give your work a real title. You’re a writer, dammit.

Second, you MUST include a standard header/footer to your post (you can put it either at the top or the bottom; it’s up to you). The HTML looks like this (bold text should be changed):

This week’s <a href=”http://indieink.org/writing-challenges”>IndieInk Challenge</a> came from <a href=”http://challengerwebsite.com“>Challenger</a>, who gave me this prompt: [insert prompt here]. I challenged <a href=”http://challengeewebsite.com“>Challengee</a> with the prompt [insert prompt here].

Works that do not adhere to these standards will not be published on IndieInk. Here’s where we are going to get insistent, so to repeat: You must, for every challenge, include the standard HTML before or after your post content. If you don’t, you won’t be published. We won’t contact you to remind you, we won’t insert it for you. We will not publish it.

This is important: if you do not include this HTML with your post, we WILL NOT publish.

4. When you are done writing your post, you need to do two things:

• Add the URL to the IndieInk Forum to tell the people on the Forum (forum.indieink.org) about your post (we will no longer be using Google Groups) in that week’s topic
• tweeting your link to @indieink and use the hashtag #IIChallenge so all the participants can see how you responded to your challenge for the week;

If you do not post to the forum, your work will not be published on IndieInk.

If you can’t update the spreadsheet please let us know at tech@indieink.org.

5. Once you’ve posted to the forum, your work will be added to the publishing queue, and an IndieInk Editor will proof your post (Chicago Manual of Style, if you care) to make sure it’s free of any grammatical or other errors, and schedule it to be published on the IndieInk main site. If your piece is submitted on Thursday, it may not be posted until Friday or Saturday, as many people wait until the last minute. We want to give everyone their due time to shine and be front and center for readers. We also reserve the right not to publish anything that we find offensive (but it really takes a lot to offend us, so if we get to that point, it’s got to be REALLY awful and you should be ashamed of yourself).

6. The Friday Round-Up will be eliminated. Because you’re being published, everyone can read your work as you finish your challenge; it’s no longer the case that folks will have to wait for the links to be posted on Friday. Whee!! Instead of a Round-Up, and to further promote your work, we will have an Editors’ Choice award for the week. Awards will not necessarily be for the best-written piece; it could be for the person who was the most creative with their challenge, or who had a really hard prompt and did an amazing job (and KILLED IT DED)…it’ll be up to your faithful Editors to decide each week. Rest assured, we don’t give a rat’s ass about traffic or popularity, as that’s completely opposite our mission. We just think it will add to the fun. Winners will, of course, be announced on the site. Oh, yes. There will be a Hall of Fame. We’re going all out.

SCHEDULE OF DEADLINES (for your reference):

Posts must be submitted by Thursday 9:00PM EDT or they won’t be counted!

What it boils down to: being creatively challenged regularly and in different ways and helping each other grow as writers. We can help each other break through certain creative barriers and walls. And, you know, it’s always nice for the creatively constipated to have something to write about when they can’t figure it on on their own. Laziness FTW!

More questions? Read our FAQ.

Fill out the form below if you’re interested! We’d love to write with you.

Check out the IndieInk Writing Challenge Archive for past challenges