It’s hard to believe how close we are to the end of 2016. While this year has been widely regarded as unforgettable—and not in the good way—The Writer’s Workout saw several changes for the better. We’ve been focused on the end-of-year housekeeping aspects of group administration and made a few discoveries.

Did you know that in 2016, The Writer’s Workout ran 19 contests? The Writer’s Games consisted of 14 weekly writing events plus two practice challenges. Cabin Wars was a quantity challenge to see which group of seven members could produce the most number of words on their own projects during July’s Camp NaNoWriMo session. In total, The Writer’s Workout wrote almost SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND words in just one month. That’s awesome!

In addition to Cabin Wars and The Writer’s Games, The Writer’s Workout implemented a Flash Fiction contest in early 2016. The contest ran four consecutive months before members were distracted by the intensity of the Games. These flash fiction challenges were timed and scored out of ten points—just like the Games! Members of The Writer’s Workout read and scored the entries with author names removed to limit bias. Let us know in the comments below if we should continue the Flash Fiction competition in 2017.

The 2016 Writer’s Games were the largest event The Writer’s Workout has ever held. Over 125 writers registered for the Third Annual (how has it been three years already??) Writer’s Games. Fan favorite Events like Creative Kill were revived and this third installment of the Games offered exciting new features to participants: a People’s Choice Event, private team pages, feedback on every entry, and a free copy of the anthology for winners. If you haven’t picked up your copy (really, what are you waiting for?) of the Games anthology, you can find it on Amazon. All the proceeds benefit NaNoWriMo, an amazing charity dedicated to helping people write novels. Check our Anthology page for details.

An even bigger—and obviously way better—competition is already in the works for the Fourth Annual Writer’s Games in 2017. In case you’re wondering, registration opens March 15. The event dates are already listed on our calendar. Can you believe it’s been three years?

As The Writer’s Workout continues to grow, we’re moving in a new direction for 2017. We love this group and what its members can and continue to offer each other in the way of help, support, and motivation. We want to highlight and expand this aspect of the group in 2017 because our members are our best feature. In the spirit of our new, professional expansion, The Writer’s Workout has placed an OPEN CALL for submissions for a new, non-Games-related anthology. Guidelines are available on our Publications page.

This New Beginnings theme exemplifies our plans for a bigger, brighter 2017 filled with learning, practice, and of course, even more competitions! We’ll see the return of old favorites: discussion topics and the prompt series as well as some fun new ideas from our members. Look for a monthly “short-short” competition centered around the discussion topic where you can practice what you learned in under 500 words. Thesaurus Thursday will debate a commonly misused word and introduce a new word to your vocabulary. In addition, Sprint Day will pop up monthly. This day will host six hours of sprints to help you finish your projects. We want to see you succeed!

This has been a difficult year for all of us but we look to 2017 with renewed hope for a better future. And just in case you're still not convinced that you CAN be a writer, look for our next featured post by member Rachel Kolodziej on December 25. She'll teach you her tricks to fight that paralyzing self-doubt monster in enough time to submit your story to the New Beginnings Anthology!

About the authors: Leigh Davis and Theresa Green are co-founders of The Writer's Workout. You can follow them both on twitter at @LeighDBooks and @Kuzitiz, respectively.