b2mem | B2MeM 2013 Is Coming!

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B2MeM 2013 Is Coming!

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!

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I have all the Kindle books that are out and lots of other wonky e-copies of the HoMe, etc. Locating a text takes me a couple seconds--not much of a challenge (not to mention that I have an almost photographic memory of LotR and the Silm). But I might be missing the point.

I brought that up too (in a private email with DF, I should add), since I also have searchable digital copies of all of Tolkien's books. The larger point is to create something based on that quote: either the scene it's from or the theme or ... whatever, I guess. We're never picky about this. :) I guess it's up to the individual participant how much they favor rereading through the books to actually do the scavenger hunt (since even those without the ebooks can divide and conquer and work together, if they want). The ultimate goal, though, is to create something from that quote.

Edited 2013-01-09 02:22 (UTC)

Well, if we have enough quotes to choose from maybe not everyone will be so tempted to try them all! LOL!

But sometimes plot bunnies are like potato chips...to be honest it's just to hard to leave some ideas alone! And prompt challenges of any sort are just organized plot bunny hutches.

That was partly why I thought it would be nice to include reviews and meta as well as writing and art. It would give those who write less another way to participate.

Since we ended up with 105 bingo cards last year, and several people claimed somewhere close to that number, I'm not trusting this group to exercise temperance! ;^D But I think this thread has illustrated that it's important to continue letting people play in the way most fun for them, whether drabbles or novels or photomanips ... or reviews and meta. :) I agree with your last point for sure and tend to feel that the more people welcome at the table, the more fun we'll have.

For what it's worth, I really like this. It would be a lot of fun and as big or as small as the participant wanted.

I'd like to see the Season of Writing Dangerously come back. I forget what I undertook last time, just know I failed *g*

SoWD is like the easiest event ever to run! That may have even been why we ran it for the first time! XD I'll definitely bring up to my comods running it again this summer ... winter for you. :)

And thanks for the feedback on the not-so-OMG-insane bingo idea. :)

Alright, so, feedback!

I loved Bingo, but having a minimum of 2 papers, and most weeks three, plus group projects and such...this would so not be the college semester, either to do Bingo or get beaten by other people for suggesting Bingo.

But here's what I liked from Bingo: that the cards allowed me to choose subjects that I felt comfort and fun writing. I don't think I'd enjoy it as much if the topics were too specific - okay, today the subjects are write or draw about Hobbits in the Shire in the Third Age farming vegetables or Gil-galad, son of Fingon in Lindon in the Second (to give examples of things that would make me go "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" and run far, far away, never to be found in the Tolkien fandom for the rest of eternity (eternity here defined as "roughly one day, unless I have to rant about something like Oropher on Tumblr before the one day is up") So, vague to simply defined prompts or whatever, instead of ultra specific that I have no choice about and will cause general angst and feelings of failure to appear, in spite of knowing I don't actually have to do it. *waves from the pit of perfectionism*

I'd be in favor of the quotes one, for example, as long as it was left free what in the scene inspired me - for example, quote from Mr. Talking Fox, can I go off and write Mr. Talking Fox stumbling across Maglor one day, in spite of the scene being in the Shire with a bunch of Hobbits? Can Mr. Fox inspire me to write the adventures of Mr. Chattering Squirrel, quite confused by these two things that have been standing in this glade for years and years (and how does that silver haired one not notice the sparrow making a nest in his hair?) Awesome! Totally cool! I love this! More specific guidelines, on the other hand...see above. And now I've inspired myself to write that fic. This is why I shouldn't think about examples.

Other than freedom, though, I'm pretty good with whatever you all come up with, provided that it doesn't require me to go run off and try to coordinate performing a presentation with 10 other people or something (the nightmares of college).

Apologies for any weirdness in this post, I'm pretty sure the contrast in enjoyment between some of my classes is causing mental instability and rambling.

I have to say that although I enjoyed BINGO last year, I worked my tail off. The year before, when we did the passport with only a single story/artwork per day was much more manageable. I would like something closer to that format again, perhaps with a different type of literary style for each day instead of a location? But I'm sure I'll be trying to participate again no matter what, even though I want to concentrate more on my novel than shorter pieces.

I'll play, no matter the playground...

- Erulisse (one L)

Thanks. I see. I was thinking scavenger hunt like in grade school or high school--the point being the search.

I am likewise in the throes of grad school (reading the Bhagavad-Gita in between answering comments here, which is a weird whiplash), and it's standardized testing week at the school where I teach so, believe me, I Know Weird. ;)

But you will (I hope) be comforted to know that one of our unwritten but founding philosophies is keeping this challenge open to anyone in the Tolkien fandom who wants to play. So while we offer the opportunity to stretch one's wings and attempt to write, say, Hobbits farming vegetables or Gil-galad in Lindon, we also want to keep the challenge accessible to the person who never, ever, ever wants to write anything beyond Pengolodh/Maglor h/c genfic.

To elaborate on DF's scavenger hunt/quotes idea from our private email conversation about this challenge, if we run this challenge, we will offer different categories for different quotes. So there might be, for example, a LotR category, or a First Age category. One can select quotes from one or all of the categories! :) Presumably, we'd try to get a nice mix (and aim also for those that have themes that would be writable even for the aforementioned Pengolodh/Maglor h/c genfic specialist).

Thanks for the feedback, Erulisse! I think that everyone is ready for something a little lower-key than last year, even those who liked last year's challenge. :) And it's going to be a necessity for us because, short of hiring a fleet of volunteers, we just don't have the peoplepower from the mods this year that we did last year.

That sounds like very weird whiplash! I'm going back and forth between this and European Politics, which isn't quite as weird. And yeah, it sounds like you do. ;)

That comforts me a lot! I'm all for expanding, but given some of my recent interactions with people who have the mindset that exposure and doing something makes everything easier...*shudder* Expanding = good, forced expanding = breakdown.

Okay, that sounds even more awesome! I think I would really enjoy that (I've managed to take inspiration from quotes from The Aztecs by Robert Townsend (one of my Anthropology textbooks last semester), so quotes are always fun.) I'm sure that specialist appreciates the effort. (I only seem to specialize in tormenting elves of the Houses of Finwë and Elmo, so I'm not quite as specific. ;p)

I like the origins idea!

This sounds similar to fanbingo over on Dreamwidth, which is unfortunately stalled but was a lot of fun while it was running. :)

I like the idea, too.

But… I signed up for h/c bingo, and got a horrible card. All the interesting prompts were scattered in such a way that I couldn't get a bingo, and ended up only writing one fic. Plus, the scoring for points isn't something I'm quite comfortable with; it seems a bit too competitive for B2MeM. Especially when there's people who only want to or have the time to write one or two stories, and thus have no chance against people who are going for a blackout. (I also really dislike the rule about "one prompt, one fic" because I'd rather write long fic that incorperates multiple prompts than multiple short ones. The fact that it was explicitly allowed for B2MeM was one of the reasons I enjoyed participating.)

Maybe if there's a list of prompts, and we can choose our own? (Which is probably too time- and volunteer- intensive.

No! Don't trust me to not try all of everything. I have no will power about Tolkien fanfic! None!

...I claimed 85 bingo cards, to be entirely honest. They were fun and I was weak-willed.

And after bingo was over, I made lists on my livejournal of the uncalled prompts I also wanted to write. There's a couple hundred started to halfway polished fics to be finished. Considering I only average 1 to 6 fics a month, I don't need another session of "SHINY PLOT BUNNY!" ;p

/end joking

As I believe Huinare pointed out, B2MEM is not about finding time to do all the prompts and manage your work life sanely, rationally, it's about how high the crazy is in March. And kudos to all the planners, you guys manage to help pump a significant amount of crazy into the collective ether every March!

That said, while I loved loved loved the RPG, I can't do something like that in March. There really are only so many hours in a day.

I did, however, like that with the RPG, *formally*, at least, you could've done four fics, one per week, and hit every prompt you drew. A somewhat longer timeline per prompt might be helpful and slow down the frantic pace.

Maybe something like a vaguely acrostic-themed challenge would work? For example: everybody draws a name (or is assigned one) and then for every letter in the name, the participant strives, during B2MEM, to produce a story/artwork whose title or main character (or something... location? Topic?) starts with that letter. Post fanworks as letters are finished, work in any order desired. It'd be a little more self-paced, perhaps, possibly a bit more leisurely, and might encourage people to write longer stories, too. If someone finishes and is really wanting more, they can always draw another name.

I want to rewrite my earliest Tolkien fic! Except in prose, not poetry.

...and this time, I will not lose my ground and stand up to people about it. (Because I still like the characterization in it.) In other words, I'm probably running away with this idea regardless of B2MeM.

I didn't read the rules in very close detail, but the items you mention would be of concern to me too and something we'd likely modify for our own purposes. Even when we have a game format, the priority is on participating rather than winning (or, it's supposed to be, although that doesn't always come across as well as I'd like :). We'd likely allow the "multiple prompts for one story" rule again too, for the reason that you mention that 500-word ficlets aren't everyone's cuppa, and we want our writers of longer fiction (or creators of more elaborate art/craft pieces!) to feel just as welcome and able to succeed as those specializing in short forms.

I don't know if you've read down to

dreamflower's scavenger hunt idea, but that would involve choosing one's own prompts (possibly setting one's own goals as well), without the game format.

I, um, really liked the Bingo last year, to the point where I hope we'll do it again. (And I say that as a tagger…) Don't kill me.

I like daily prompts, but then, I've also pushed for weekly in the past. As long as I can work on a story for more than just one prompt, I'll be happy.

I don't really have any ideas; I like a lot of the ones that have already been suggested.

It's not just you. My pile is several hundred fics high. If I leave it for too long, it respawns on it's own and I come back to new plot bunnies lurking in the stories. ;P

You'd mentioned the acrostic idea before, and I'm glad you brought it up again, because it had slipped my mind! :) Actually, in last year's BINGO craze, I don't know that it ever fully slipped into my mind in the first place. But that's a cool idea, and I like the acknowledgement of making things 1) self-paced and 2) more directly welcoming authors/artists of longer works.

I actually have an idea for another RPG-type thing, but it probably won't be a B2MeM challenge (it's more appropriate for Halloween); it just awaits my life clearing out enough to have the time to run it, that format being a lot (a lot!) of work behind the scenes, so trying to balance it with grad school classes and lesson planning is not something I'm quite ready to attempt!

Well, if we have enough quotes to choose from maybe not everyone will be so tempted to try them all! LOL!

Um. Hi. *waves, grins manically* Have you, um, met the lot of us? *shuffles* *eyes giant stack of bingo cards and tens of thousands of words worth of RPG posts* *Checks B2MEM Support journal*

No killing from me. ;) I liked BINGO too, even if it was a ... wild ... 31 days! I definitely want to run it again, not necessarily in association with B2MeM, but just need to get the time to do that. I'm hoping that will happen soon.

So Bingo will be back in some form, I'm sure, as will the RPG thing we ran one year that some people liked! :) Maybe not as part of B2MeM but just part of the general craziness we get up to once per year or so on the SWG. ;)

Will it be in March? I look forward to seeing the posts. :)

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