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

[ladybrooke]

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.

[dawn_felagund]

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).

[ladybrooke]

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)