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

[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!

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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*

[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.

[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 ... ;)

[huinare.livejournal.com]

LOL