B2MeM 2013 Is Coming!

[dawn_felagund]

Yes, that time of year is almost here again: time for our annual Back to Middle-earth Month event! Once again, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild, Many Paths to Tread, and Arda Inspired will be teaming up to bring the Tolkien fandom a month of fun, creativity, and community.

We are currently in the planning phases for this year's challenge, and we need help and feedback from our community to help us decide the challenge we want to run this year. If you have an idea for an event, please do share it in a comment here! (If you want to see what kinds of events we've run in the past, we have links to them all on the SWG site here: http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/specialprojects.php.)

Even if you don't have a specific idea for an event, if there's a past event that you loved (or a past event that you'd rather not see something similar to this year), please comment and let us know.

We have only one requirement for B2MeM events: They should be open to the entire Tolkien fan-writing and -art communities. Ideally, this should also allow people to participate whether they have one or thirty-one days free to work on challenges.

We look forward to hearing everyone's ideas and getting this year's event ready to roll!

Comments

[tarion-anarore.livejournal.com]

Okay, I had the honourable intent of reading all the comments but... I think I'll make a short reply and THEN keep reading!

Not ideas, but my favourites so far have been the Last Battle RPG one (definitely not enough time to put that together for this March!) and the passports. Even though I don't think I wrote a blessed thing, I stamped the heck out of those that did! ;) I can't comment at all on Bingo, since I think all I did was the little hotspot icon.
_{For a moment I could not remember why I had no recollection of how Bingo went down, then I remembered -- oh yeah, the dissertation! THAT thing that utterly consumed march and the first part of April...}

I do like the idea of trying to work in a reviews/meta goal in there for those who for whatever reason do not want to write/paint/etc!

Not-so-on-topic, but it amused me that when I picked up my hard copy of The Silmarillion to reread a few days ago, it was still littered with post-its with the quotes for the Circles of the World B2MeM!! (Terrible that it has been that long since I reread...)

I will try to think of some non-intensive, not-just-daily-prompts idea...and read the rest of the comments.

[dawn_felagund]

My Silmarillion is like a personal time capsule! I have little notes in it from my husband, the directions to get fingerprinted for my law enforcement job, all manner of notes, etc. It is amusing--and sentimental!--to look back on all the places that book has been with me! :)

The comments here are intimidating as all get-out (hey, it's B2MeM! it wouldn't be a B2MeM post if it didn't have at least two pages of comments!) but a few ideas are emerging that could be workable, given our mod-power for the year. I'm hoping to send out a post to us mod-types with a summary of the ideas proposed sometime, then we'll put it up for a community vote. If you actually manage to wade through what's posted here, I'd love to know what you think. ;)

[tarion-anarore.livejournal.com]

I also found 3 illicitly* downloaded and printed off fanart pictures in the back - including the Nelyo picture from your icon. ;)

*Not really, gazing at Nelyo pictures is ALWAYS fair use!

I did manage to get through them all! (At least, at that point last night. I'm sure there are many more now!) I confess I started banking on a summary to come later! Now my brain is trying to process all the information I've thrown at it...

[dawn_felagund]

Summary forthcoming this weekend! ;^D

ETA to change to a Nelyo icon, just for you ... ;)

[tarion-anarore.livejournal.com]

Hooray! On both accounts. ;)

Mmm, it's like old times. Speaking of old times...this icon.

_{And apologies for now veering completely off the topic.}

[dawn_felagund]

I love that icon! Ah, the memories ... Kinda makes me want to fire up ol' YIM for a revival of Canatics Hate This. :D

*veers with you*

[tarion-anarore.livejournal.com]

Ahaha! Good ol' Canatics Hate This! Funny times, funny times... Actually, for some reason the unbidden memory of a certain blonde Elf and balconies came to mind the other day... XD

[dawn_felagund]

Those were the days of our youthful abandon and irreverence.

. . .

Who the hell am I kidding. If I still had a balcony, Finrod would still pee off of it.

Now he pees on the compost. Good for the nitrogen content. :D

[tarion-anarore.livejournal.com]

Ah yes...now we have matured entered the days of our slightly-aged abandon and irreverance.

At least there are probably no unsuspecting passersby in your compost. ;)

[dawn_felagund]

There are lots of ants, at least in the summer. I'd imagine they don't appreciate Finrod much. ;)

[tarion-anarore.livejournal.com]

For Finrod's sake, I hope they aren't fire ants. ;)

[grey-wonderer.livejournal.com]

I have no suggestions whatsoever. I just wanted to say that I had a great time with last year's Bingo Cards. Last year was the first year that I was able to participate and I enjoyed the challenges. I am looking forward to this year's event and hope to be able to participate once again. : )

[dawn_felagund]

Hey, even a "I really liked this particular challenge!" comment is really helpful. :) Thanks for the feedback!

[marta-bee.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite BMEM challenge ever was when there was a single prompt or theme that everyone somehow replied to. The creative juices of seeing how others were handling the same thing I was writing about really got my creative juices flowing. I'd really like to get back to that.

If you want to make it Hobbit-themed in honor of the new month, how about this: every other day you give a prompt to reply to. Perhaps a scenario or a theme or even a quote, whatever. In order to "win" you need to write thirteen of the fifteen prompts, *and* review an entry by someone else from thirteen of the fifteen days. Thirteen entries/reviews for the thirteen dwarves.

Would something like that work?

[dawn_felagund]

Thanks for the feedback, Marta! We've seen a few concrete ideas crystallize from this conversation in the past few days. I'm going to try to contact the B2MeM mods this weekend with a list of options and then put them up for a community vote. I'll make sure there is a prompt-a-day option for you in there. :)

The only thing I'd change is that, while we've done games in the past, we've never set a minimum to win. We always have a good number of participants who can only do one or two prompts, and setting a minimum kind of tells them at the outset that they're not as welcome. So, if we ran something like this, I'd just recast that bit as collecting icons or stamps or something--one for each prompt fulfilled--so that those who want the whole set can try to accomplish that, but those who can only join us once or twice can also walk away with shinies. :)

[marta-bee.livejournal.com]

I like your suggestion about offering shinies to people who don't meet a threshold. You're absolutely right, their should be rewards for everyone who participates at all.

Thanks for considering my idea. I'm sure there are a lot of ideas floating around; I've read a few but certainly not all. I hope my preferences, what works well for me (and not) are a bit clearer, though of course I do know I'm just one fandom member out of many so don't expect a custom-built program...

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that is great news.I was amazed how many stories those cards prompted me to write!

[dawn_felagund]

I hope to have some polls up by the beginning of next week, then we mod-types begin to work in earnest and it's really almost here! :D

I enjoy it every year, although mod responsibilities rarely allow me to write much, if anything. It's awesome to see the fandom become so lively, even for just a month out of the year. :)

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I'll endeavour to vote in the polls. A very big thank you to you and all who run BTME.I ended up writing over 34,000 words, 23 Ficlets, 15 short stories and 16 drabbles or double drabbles last year thanks to the challenge! I doubt I can manage so much again, but I'm looking forward to trying to write some new stories this year all being well!

[dawn_felagund]

On behalf of all of us, you're most welcome. :)

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

I know that I will probably too busy to help with b2mem (let alone to participate, but who knows), but I know that one of the ideas we once bounced around was the alphabet challenge. Since the call for simplicity is there (then again how often have we not thought.. we want to keep it simply, not as crazy as last year and well... *coughs*), we could do the alfabet challenge still, but offer the letters in letter groups. abc- march 1st, def March 3rd ect. Or do a mix and match. azm for March 1st ect. You can add the element here that for those who want to write/draw, they can take the letters and Tolkien words associated with them (Arathorn, Bruinen, Celebrian as an example) and produce something. I just looked at the calendar, if you do it every two days that will be 16 days. But one can also use the community to take the letters in a larger set and every 4 days. One set of letters (about 4 letters) runs for 4 days to discuss (maybe even 2 days for that and leaving 2 extra days to finish creating things) & create. This way, for those who have to run it, there's less pressure, but you leave it up to the community to make something off it. For those who like to discuss and exchange thoughts about it there's room. For those who want to mix and match there's space to do so. For the reviewers and readers, the letter might encourage them to find a story with a title that starts with the letter. And for those who want to tackle one letter, hey there's your chance as well.

This being said, the alfabet challenge is one idea *grin*, but to do a spread of a challenge over 4 days will give the mods more breathing space.

[dawn_felagund]

I have always loved this idea, and although it's been proposed for multiple years now, it never seems to actually get selected. :( If it misses being selected this year, maybe it's time to run it as a separate challenge at some point! :D

I also imagine that this could produce some very satisfying shinies, like the passport stamps, that would be pretty with just one or two and quite spectacular for those who manage to collect them all. :)

I have a wee bit more to do on a paper for grad school, then I'm going to compile the ideas for all of us mod types, then I'm thinking a community poll to see where everyone's preferences lie.

[finrod felagund (from livejournal.com)]

Hello, Mirach here :) (with my twitter account, I still didn't get to making a LJ one...)
I just have a few ideas.
- I loved the RP event. There was also that important aspect that you could collaborate with others as a team. So something with a non-obligatory RP and/or collaboration would be really great for this year!
- What about making the number 13 the key element of this event? It is the year 2013, and the Hobbit with 13 Dwarves just came out. (Plus, my birthday is March 13th, but that's not relevant ;P) So there could be 13 prompts, each of the Dwarves giving one, maybe (plus a bonus Hobbit prompt). Of course, they don't have to be Hobbit-themed, it's just the form of their presenting.

[dolamrothdame.livejournal.com]

I found myself totally daunted by the Bingo last year and ended up for the first time not writing a thing. I don't know why. I liked the idea in theory and selected several cards that had prompts I thought would work, but when the time came to write, absolutely nothing happened. I adored the RPG and thought it was a blast, but it took so much work and I understand the desire not to repeat something that has been done before.. The passport thing was more low key and I enjoyed it and did write several stories for it, though I certainly didn't do every prompt.

Afraid I don't have a lot of constructive suggestions as to what to do next, but low-key and easy is certainly OK in my book. I appreciate the work that everyone puts into this.