Remembering 10 Years of Back to Middle-earth Month: Discussion Post 2011

[dreamflower]

Discussion post for 2011

The theme for Back to Middle-earth Month 2011 was Passport to Middle-earth:

This year we invite you to travel! The Silmarillion Writers’ Guild has teamed up with Many Paths to Tread to host Passport to Middle-earth: a month-long holiday visiting our favourite places in Middle-earth. Every day, the tour will stop in a new location and, with it will come a new challenge to tempt your muses. We invite you to create a response for one, some, or all of our daily challenges! Once you've completed a challenge, you will receive a stamp from that location for your passport.

Once you've completed a challenge, you will receive a stamp from that location for your passport. You can copy HTML code to display the stamp on your profile page as soon as you complete the day's challenge. Once you've finished with all of the challenges you want to do, you can contact us, and we will put your stamps together into a passport for you to display on your profile.

Did you participate in the 2011 Passport Challenge? Did you make posts or write stories for it? If you did, please share your experience with us here in the comments. Give us links, share your anecdotes and memories.

Did you miss out on it, but find yourself curious about it? Check out the comments and ask questions and join in the discussions! And if you check out previous works, be sure to let the creator know how you liked them.

Comments

[hhimring]

This was the first B2MeM I wrote anything for: "Scent of Reality" and two very short pieces.
The prompt for "Scent of Reality" was: 4 March (location: Mithrim; task: write about someone conquering their fears).
It's one of my more popular pieces and--because of Huan--appeals especially to dog fans:
http://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/viewstory.php?sid=1211

Those passport stamps were very neat, although I only acquired three!

There are three pages' worth of stories tagged B2MeM 2011 on the SWG Archive and excellent stories among them.

[independence1776]

I only wrote one drabble for this one, about Nerdanel. I can't remember why I didn't do more.

However, this is the event that I keep going back and looking at the prompts. I haven't done anything with my vague plan yet, but I do want to write for them one day. (Which isn't happening for this B2MeM for numerous reasons.)

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

I only wrote two I can be sure of. (Maybe just two? I don't remember and all of that was on my other computer and probably didn't get saved.)

Anyway, it's called "Cook Wanted" and is at SWG under my name Alquien. (And, oops! I just realized I didn't post my second story, "The Letter" ::face palm:: -- off to fix that now...)

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

I did, and the icon is the proof! I used the passport challenge finally to exorcise my long-held intention to write a Legolas And Gimli Go To Valinor fic - as a drabble-series. I got all the stamps and was very pleased with myself!

Unfortunately, although I still have all the drabbles on LJ (http://azalaisdep.livejournal.com/tag/b2mem2011), the only place I'd put them into story-order was the now-defunct Henneth Annun Story Archive. One of these days I must remedy that...

[hhimring]

I remember that--I enjoyed that series!
Unless you did something unusual, there would probably be a copy of the HASA version still extant, I think? Maybe even two. They saved the whole archive at the time, in order to gradually upload it to AO3, and there were copies of a lot of the archive made for the HASA Rescue Project as well. Have you asked?

[zdenka]

I believe all of HASA has been uploaded to AO3, in fact -- I remember seeing an announcement about it.

[hhimring]

You're right. I thought some of it hadn't been processed yet--and maybe it hasn't been, altogether, but apparently it's all there.

[hhimring]

Actually, after what Zdenka said, I found it.
It's here, provisionally archived:
http://archiveofourown.org/works/3864183/chapters/8633571
There's a note saying:
If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the HASA collection profile.

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

I'd completely forgotten that I have had a note on my To Do list ever since the HASA closure telling me to adopt my stuff at AO3! Must get round to doing that. Most of it is also at Tolkien Fan Fiction, hence I haven't been getting round to it, but the version of the B2MEM2011 drabbles that was in story order took so long to do that it only ever got to HASA. Thank you for the prod!

[aearwen2.livejournal.com]

This was the first BTMEM that I participated in, and I completed it. It was, quite simply, one of the most straight-forward and understandable prompt-based contests I have ever seen - and I've not had propmpts inspire me again at the levels that year's passport prompts did since.

I have to admit, I really indulged myself and wrote exclusively to my ongoing storyline that I call my "IDD!verse" into which some of my more popular works fit as signposts. Many of the pieces written for BTMEM have yet to be released publically until the foundation novel - a mammoth called "I Dhaerlend Dadui" - is finally finished and posted, so as not to "spoil" some of its plot elements.

The complex (to me) nature of the B2MEMs since have made my Muse simply throw up her hands in defeat. I think this year is the first year I've actually been tempted to write again - and only because I might be able to revisit some of prompts I've already answered.

Ultimately, I am inordinately proud of my passport JPG.

[zdenka]

My first B2MeM! Not that anyone knew it. I was too shy to talk to anyone or post anything. I thought the stamps were very pretty and I enjoyed the prompts, though I only got through a handful of them.

The pieces I wrote that year have been sitting on my computer for a while. I posted one for a B2MeM '13 challenge, and I've been trying to finish some of the others. It's my goal for this year to get through the rest of them (and some WIPs from other years too, if I can) -- either to post them or decide they're drawerfic, but in either case to get them out of my very large WIP pile.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this one and still proudly display my completed passport on my website.

[dreamflower]

I wrote a total of 31 stories, which I collected and posted at Stories of Arda under the title If It's Trewsday it Must Be Buckland".

I love my passport from that year. It's still featured at my LJ profile page!

[blslarner.livejournal.com]

I have my stories in a collection entitled "A Journey through Arda," and can be read at:

http://www.storiesofarda.com/chapterlistview.asp?SID=6780

I combined a few prompts and came out at 28 stories that each managed to involve each region involved.