b2mem | 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!

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: the study
Current Music: Dave Matthews Band

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dreamflower

I know we've discussed it in PM, but I'll put my scavenger hunt idea up here for discussion.

Prior to B2Mem, we set up a list of quotes from Tolkien, probably divided into categories (The easiest might be Silm, TH, LotR, and Misc.) This master list is posted ONCE. At the beginning.

Participants look over the list and then seek out the quotation and write a fic or create art or meta or some other sort of fanwork around it. I also suggest that another response would be to find someone elses' work that fit the quotation, and post a review of it. This would allow people who don't write much to also participate.

We could set a goal number. (My original thought was 31, but since many people don't want to do something every day, we could cut that in half to, say, 15.) Anyone who reaches the goal "wins". We could also have awards for those who did the most overall or something like that...

The only maintenance of the scavenger hunt once posted would be a reminder post with a link to the master post, and a post where people could post links to their work.

And aside from making the list, which could be easily done by setting up a shared doc on Google and letting the volunteers add to it until it's full, the only other prep work would probably be banners and promotion.

Edited Date: 2013-01-09 01:38 am (UTC)

From:

ladyelleth.livejournal.com

I kind of like the idea of a scavenger hunt, and this sounds fun and low-pressure --- I'm just not completely clear where the scavenging comes in? (Which probably is because it's late and my brain is slowly falling asleep, not because of a lack of explanation from your side.)

From:

dreamflower

The quotations. We give the book, but not where the quotes come from. So the participant has to locate them. Or we could be really mean and not even give the book...

The thing would be to not have too many of the well-known quotes. "'Well, I'm back,'he said." would probably be way too easy. ;)

So we could have just a few well-known ones, but more that aren't quoted quite so often...

From:

heartofoshun.livejournal.com

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.

From:

dawn_felagund

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 Date: 2013-01-09 02:22 am (UTC)

From:

heartofoshun.livejournal.com

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

From:

dawn_felagund

What if people set their own goals? My worry with setting a universal goal is that it favors those who prefer shorter forms (drabbles, icons) over those who prefer longer forms (multi-chapter stories, novellas, more time-consuming artwork), and I wouldn't want to see anyone feeling excluded from the outset.

At the same time, shinies are always awesome. ;)

From:

dreamflower

That could work. Perhaps a person could set their own goal and work toward that (sort of like the MEFA comment junkie award?) and if they reach it they get their shiny!

From:

dawn_felagund

We did something on the SWG one summer called the Season of Writing Dangerously that encouraged just that: set a goal and meet it over the summer (or winter, for the southern hemisphere). Of course, as

silver_trails points out, somewhere in this growing conversation, we did do that last year too, because it was possible to only claim a card or two! :D That just proved impossible for some people! Some did it, though! :D

From:

dreamflower

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.

From:

dawn_felagund

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.

From:

ladybrooke

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

From:

dwimordene-2011.livejournal.com

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*

From:

huinare.livejournal.com

I have to essentially echo the several comments above mine. Many of us are...er...a little addicted to prompts evidently.

Self-control, what is that.

From:

dawn_felagund

Seven in '07 was the SWG's very first event, and I made this placeholder for it, which enough people enjoyed that I left it up as a page, even though it's not used:

http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/sevenin07/patience_feanorian.php

In short, it's not in our nature to exercise patience, moderation, self-control ... ;)