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

[dwimordene-2011.livejournal.com]

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.

[dawn_felagund]

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!

[dwimordene-2011.livejournal.com]

You'd mentioned the acrostic idea before

I did? Wow, so, one trick pony *and* forgetful, here! You're clearly doing better than I am!

I hear you about lack of time, and trying to balance grad school and job(s). Teaching takes a lot of work, likewise, keeping up with professors. I suppose at some point, you might want to bathe, eat, maybe indulge in that thing called Talking To People Not On Your Computer, too, which does take up writing and game time... I'll wait with bated breath for October, because that sounds like entirely too much fun, and I'm sure I'll sacrifice some sleep for something like that.

(I would just like to note, so we can measure some of the crazy already, that when I finished posting to Dreamflower, there were 63 comments. When I checked my e-mail immediately after and came back to write this one, there were 75. Huh boy.)

[dawn_felagund]

Thanks for making me feel less bad for forgetting to factor in your idea into my original list of ideas-already-presented! :D

I don't know if it will be next Halloween. Depends on if I can have my life tamed by then. ;) But it will be widely advertised when it runs, and I'll make sure you know.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I believe I did say something like that...somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but yes, I'd hold that a certain amount of crazy is a good thing.
Just, not as much crazy as last year with the exponentially breeding plot bunnies, just please Melkor no.