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

[dawn_felagund]

I just skimmed the rules but I'll check into this in more depth later! :) Thanks for the suggestion; based on said skimming, it seems like a cool (and much less labor-intensive than last year's) concept.

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

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*

[dawn_felagund]

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. :)

[independence1776]

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.

[dawn_felagund]

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.

[independence1776]

Oh, good.

I did read that idea; I'm not sure how much I'd get out of it. Quotes don't do much for me as prompts. (Unless they're song lyrics, for some odd reason.) And searching through the books for quotes sounds more painful than fun. (Sorry; I don't mean to be a buzz-kill.)

[dawn_felagund]

No worries--we appreciate the feedback! You're not the only one to comment saying that looking for quotes doesn't sound like much fun (and those of us with digital copies have an unfair advantage). So those are definitely issues that we mod-types will talk about as we work to figure out what we're doing this year.

I expect we'll put together a few ideas that people are responding to favorably here (or that sound workable but got lost in the 70+ comments on this post) and let the community pick which they prefer.

[iavalir.livejournal.com]

Another idea came to my mind, but I'm worried this will make all the mods want to kill me, hahahaha. :) For the ideas that people do like, is there a chance to make this year a Playroom kind of thing? Participants can choose what game they want to play: scavenger hunt or a simple bingo-type game or any other challenge that was mentioned. :) If that's something that's doable, I think that could be fun.

I definitely would love a more simplified version of the Bingos. The points and minimal fill requirements can be taken out to reduce the pressure and make creating the focus of the event. :)

[dawn_felagund]

We'll keep that in mind! :) Don't worry, we don't kill people for suggesting ideas. ;) But we do have a bit of a shortage of people-power this year, compared to last year, so we do have to aim for something simpler, ideally that we can get ready ahead of time and post during the month of March.

Thanks for the idea--I'll definitely bring it up!