B2MeM 2014:: Seasons of Middle-earth: Guidelines, Posting Instructions, and FAQs

[dawn_felagund]

Quick Links: Guidelines and Expectations | Posting Your Piece | Frequently Asked Questions | Tagging Guidelines

This year's Back to Middle-earth Month event will involve putting together a compilation of writing and art related to the theme "Four Seasons of Middle-earth." Each day during the month of March, we will post a selection of stories, poetry, and artwork created in response to prompts related to this year's theme.

This post includes the guidelines for this event. Please read the guidelines below carefully before signing up. If you have any questions, you can ask in a comment or email us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com.

Once you have read the guidelines, you can visit this post to view the prompts and claim your prompt.

Guidelines and Expectations

1. If you sign up for a prompt, you will be expected to produce a piece of writing or art for that prompt on or before a predetermined due date.
2. As always, how you choose to respond to the prompt is entirely up to you. We welcome outside-the-box approaches to our prompts and intend them to inspire not limit your creation! Responses must have a significant basis in Tolkien's writings and should be created for this challenge. Beyond that, all forms, genres, time periods, characters, pairings, ratings, and interpretations are welcome. Movie!verse, crossover, and alternate universe (AU) pieces are fine. For art, all media are welcome.
3. Some prompts include quotes from Tolkien's texts. You do not have to write about the book, people, time period, or event in the quote.
4. There are no limits on word count, so stories may be as short or as long as you'd like. Works-in-progress are fine as long as what you've completed and posted for the compilation can stand on its own.
5. Approximate due dates are included on the prompt list. Due dates may change slightly as the final posting schedule takes shape. We will contact you if your due date changes, and we will try very hard not to make the due date earlier than the original date.
6. On or before the due date, post your story or your art to this community using the posting format below. We will send you a reminder email about a week before the due date. Once you've posted your piece, a moderator will review your post and unlock your story or art on the correct date.
7. At the end of the event, we will be putting together an e-book of the entire compilation that will be free to download. You are not required to have your piece included in this book. We will contact you for permission to publish your piece, and the decision to be included or not is entirely up to you.
8. Your story, poem, or art belongs to you. You are free to edit it or delete it from the community at any time. Once the piece has been released on this community, you are free to post it to other sites as well. Please do not post your piece on other sites before it is unlocked here.
9. If you are unable to complete your piece or need an extension, please contact us as soon as possible. We have structured the schedule to allow maximum flexibility for our participants. Our moderators also have busy work, family, and school lives and understand how things come up unexpectedly, and you will not be penalized if you need an extension or cannot complete your assignment. Please just let us know as soon as possible so that we can rearrange the schedule or reassign the prompt as needed.
10. Do you best to present your work professionally. Proofread and spellcheck. If you need a beta reader or some other assistance, please email us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com, and we will find someone to help you. (If you'd like to serve as a beta-reader or assist this year's authors or artists in any way, sign-up here.) We welcome writers and artists of all ability levels, and whether this is your first piece or your fiftieth, you are welcome to participate! Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need help with your piece.

Posting Your Piece

You can begin posting your stories and art at any time. The community is currently set to moderated, so once a story has been posted, a moderator will have to approve it before it appears on the community. You need to have a LiveJournal account but do not have to be a member of b2mem to post to the community. Click here to sign up for a free LiveJournal account. Click here to post to the B2MeM community.

Format for Writing

Please use the format below for all writing posted to the community.

For the title of your post, use the format "Story Title" by Author.

Copy and paste the form below into the body of the post.

Title:
Author Name:
Prompt:
Summary:
Rating: (use either the SWG's General/Teens/Adult system or MPTT's G/PG/PG-13/R/NC-17 system)
Warnings:
Beta: (optional)
Author's Notes: (optional)

Place your piece behind an LJ-cut. (Email us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com if you need help with formatting your post or posting to LJ.)

This year's tagging guidelines can be found on this post. If you're not sure how to tag your post, leave the tag section blank, and a moderator will tag it for you.

Format for Art

Please use the format below for all art posted to the community.

For the title of your post, use the format "Art Title" by Artist.

Copy and paste the form below into the body of the post.

Title:
Artist Name:
Prompt:
Description:
Rating: (use either the SWG's General/Teens/Adult system or MPTT's G/PG/PG-13/R/NC-17 system)
Warnings:
Artist's Notes: (optional)

Place your piece behind an LJ-cut. (Email us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com if you need help with formatting your post or posting to LJ.)

This year's tagging guidelines can be found on this post. If you're not sure how to tag your post, leave the tag section blank, and a moderator will tag it for you.

If you have collaborated as part of an author-artist team, the two of you can decide how you want to present your work. You are welcome to present the writing and art together, or to present them separately. If presenting writing and art together, include headers for both the writing and art.

Frequently Asked Questions

I am not comfortable committing to a prompt ahead of time, but I'd still like to create something for B2MeM. Will there be any options for me to participate this year?

Absolutely! Past B2MeM events that required participants to sign up ahead of time have allowed writers and artists who weren't able to sign up to nonetheless create and share writing and art based on that year's prompts. For example, you might choose to utilize the prompt for the day's featured piece, or you might grab a prompt from the master list that inspires you.

Any writing or art created for B2MeM is always welcome on the b2mem community. However, because posts are moderated this year due to the compilation, then your piece will not appear right away. At least one day will be reserved each week for unlocking and sharing pieces that were not created for the compilation, and your posts will be unlocked then. No compilation pieces will be unlocked on this day.

To post to the b2mem community, use the posting format above to post to the community. Your piece will be unlocked by a moderator on the next day reserved for non-compilation pieces. You are welcome to post your piece to other sites before it is unlocked here.

There will also be a comment challenge to go with this year's B2MeM. More information on this will be available soon.

I just read a B2MeM story that I really love, and I would like to remix the story for B2MeM. Is it okay for me to do that?

A remix of a B2MeM story would be acceptable for the community; however, you need to contact the author first for permission to remix her or his story. We will not unlock any remixes that have been made without permission from the original author.

I posted my story to the community, and it has not been revealed yet. But I just found a typo and some other things I need to correct! Is it possible to edit my story before it is posted?

It is not possible to edit the post you have already made; however, you can re-post your story with the corrections, and we will unlock the most up-to-date version on your reveal date. To make sure that the correct version is posted, please email us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com to let us know that you have added a revised version so that we can delete the old version from the queue.

One your story or art has been revealed, you will be able to edit it.

My piece is due soon, and I'm having a hard time finishing. What are my options?

If you have doubts about whether you'll finish a piece on time, please contact us as soon as possible. We have planned the schedule to be flexible, and we can offer extensions. Likewise, if you don't think you'll be able to complete your assignment, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can make sure that we either find a replacement or adjust the posting schedule accordingly.

You will not be in trouble if you need an extension or if you cannot complete an assignment. We understand that life happens and that you'd rather be writing fanfic than attending to the emergencies that sometimes get thrown your way! However, please do not claim an assignment if you think it is unlikely you will be able to finish it.

If you are stuck in a piece for whatever reason, please contact us. Whether you need a beta reader, language help, someone to cheer you on, a person to bounce ideas off of, or something else entirely, we have a list of volunteers willing to help and will put you in touch with someone who can help you get your writing or art going again.

What kind of art is acceptable for B2MeM?

Anything! Traditional art, such as drawing and painting, and digital art is of course welcome, but we encourage participants to think outside the box! Crafts, sculpture, costume, video, music, and other media are all acceptable formats. If you need help deciding how best to share your project, email us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com.

My prompt has a quote from The Hobbit in it. Does that mean that my story has to be about that scene?

Many of our prompts include quotes that we found interesting or inspiring. You are not limited to writing about the character or scene depicted in the quote, nor does your piece have to be based on the book the quote comes from.

What about novellas, novels, and works-in-progress?

There are no restrictions on word count for this challenge. You can write as little or as much as you'd like. Likewise, longer unfinished pieces (works in progress) are fine as long as what you will have ready by your due date can stand on its own at the time it is revealed. Anything shared as part of the compilation should be able to be read as a completed story, even if you have plans to continue adding to it.

Comments

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of adding some drabbles (100 words) to my existing Tolkien drabble series. May I do that based on B2MEM prompts, or are there minimum word counts for the daily pieces?

[dawn_felagund]

There are no word count limitations, so everything from a drabble to a novel is welcome! :)

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

I won't sign up, as I've told you. I have three questions:

If I grab a prompt and post it on SWG or MPTT, must it be on March?

I would also like to post a link to the B2ME LJ, is a link acceptable?

If that is so, must it be on March?

Just checking! =)

[dawn_felagund]

Since B2MeM is during March, then for a piece to be a B2MeM piece, then it should be posted during March. :) (Or after ... B2MeM challenges never technically end in the sense that we always welcome new pieces created using old prompts, since the muses have a tendency to kick to life when it's least expected!)

It is fine if you would prefer to share your work on b2mem by linking to where you've posted it on other sites.

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

I thought so! (about March). =)

I will work on my stories then, post them on March, and post the links to the comm too.

I must say that you have come up with great prompts! It's a pity I'm not comfortable with the format, or I would have signed up. I am planning to have fun with the prompts anyway. I love it that you gave those of us who won't sign up an alternative. Thank you for that. =)

[dawn_felagund]

You're very welcome! I'm glad you like the prompts ... they were a collaborative effort (which is why there is such a good variety!), and I know that when working with the draft lists of my comods' ideas, I had to lock the muses away or I wouldn't have gotten anything done. ;)

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Just shoot me! I posted my compilation story to the queue and I wanted to look at it and see how it looked, double-check the tags, etc., and I cannot figure out how to find it. Help!

[dawn_felagund]

Once it's posted to the queue, you cannot access it until it's unlocked. However, I looked at it, and it looks great!

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I am just a dofus!

[dawn_felagund]

I think it's more LJ than you! Posting to a moderated community is very final; I wish authors could continue to access and edit their posts. For example, I had to ask an author to completely repost her story earlier today because one extra hyphen threw back an LJ markup error that screwed up the whole post. I couldn't edit it, and she couldn't edit it; she had to repost. That's happened a couple of times now, where I've had to request people to repost to fix one minor thing. Not the most effective system in the world, imo!