FAQ & Guidelines

I have writer’s block. What should I do?

It always makes me laugh when I get this ask, but I get it a lot! Since one of YW’s main purposes is to help people with their writers’ block by way of the prompts, it seems a bit like emailing Amazon and asking them where a good place to buy books is. But here are some other things, besides our prompts, that help me:

• Read read read read. And then read some more. I never feel more inspired than when I’m reading something great. And when I know I have to write something for a deadline, I’ll reread some of my favorite stories first. Usually I can’t even finished them before I’m itching to go!
• Write anything. Usually I find that I have writers’ block when I’m trying to write a story, or something for class. Sometimes the overwhelming-ness of having to create something cohesive and complete is what blocks me. So I start just writing stream of consciousness just to get my brain and my fingers going. I write about what I had for breakfast, and what I’ve been thinking about that day, and what I hope to do in the next couple of days. That usually gets me going so that I can eventually start writing what I originally wanted to be.

I sent in a prompt idea/writing ask/bookgasm. When will I see it posted on Yeah Write?

Everything follower-submitted gets tagged with your username, so you can check what prompts, asks, etc. of yours have published on YW by going to yeahwriters.tumblr.com/tagged/yourtumblrusername.

How quickly something publishes just depends on the volume of submissions we have at any given time, so we hope you’ll be patient!

Can you read my story and give me some feedback?

I just get too many of these questions to be able to do all of them! But we do have a list of workshoppers, who are other Tumblr users willing to peer review work.

You said that you know nothing about poetry. Can I still submit poems, poem prompts, or questions about poetry?

Yes, yes, and yes! If I can’t answer a question (ie, a poetry-related question), I just open it up to the followers to answer.

Can I submit a story that isn’t based on a prompt?

Since I post story/poetry/etc. submissions directly to the prompt posts, I’d have nowhere to post a “rogue” story. That being said, there are 3 things you can do:

• Say your story is about a cat being stuck in a tree. Submit a prompt that says “Write about a cat being stuck in a tree”, with a link to your story attached to it.
• I’m not the submission police—I don’t read stories in detail before I post them to make sure that they’re relevant to the prompt. Say there’s a prompt that says “Write about New Year’s Eve”, and last New Year’s you were in London, which makes you think of Queen Elizabeth, and you ended up writing a story about a long lost British princess. You can still submit that story to the New Year’s prompt; I don’t care.
• We publish a fair amount of “Write a story in under x amount of words” prompts. If you have some shorter stories lying around, keep an eye out for those!

Can you help me with my essay?

We’re a creative writing blog, not a homework help blog! And besides, I wouldn’t want to advise anyone to do anything on their homework when I’m not 100% familiar with the assignment, the teaching style, the course, etc. Sorry!

How did you do this, that, or the other thing in your layout?

I only answer creative writing and publishing related questions, since that’s the purpose of this blog. However, I’ve never taken a computer/graphic design class or anything—when I want to know how to make/do something, I usually just Google it!

Where do you get your photos?

Exclusively from weheartit.com and reblogs—pretty much just like every other Tumblr, haha.

If you don’t see your question answered here, I also highly suggestion that you scroll through our advice tag. I also am pretty good about tagging categories within the advice tag, so if you type in, for example, “yeahwriters.tumblr.com/tagged/inspiration”, you might find something!

Stilllll have a question? Send an ask!