Back to Middle-earth Month

We have reached the end of March and another Back to Middle-earth Month. This year's event was huge, involving 44 different authors, 14 different artists, and many, many more readers and reviewers. None of this would happen without our awesome team of volunteers.

First, I want to thank this year's moderators. For these people, B2MeM started months ago, as we began planning this year's event. These tasks range from fun (writing prompts!) to less fun (writing rules), and of course, once March rolls around, these are also the people managing things behind the scenes and continuing to offer advice as issues arrive during the event. I want to give a huge thank you to this year's mod team: angelica_ramses, dreamflower02, huinare, indy1776, marta_bee, mirach_ravaia, nelyo_russandol, rhapsody11, and tarion_anarore.

Many other people help in varying capacities throughout the month of March to keep the event running smoothly. Many, many thanks are in order for our volunteers, who give up their own time for writing, reading, and creating to make sure that B2MeM is enjoyable for all.

indy1776 and lignota have been handling the community tags for three years now. They always do a great job ... and a very important one. On a community that can produce more than 100 new entries during the month of March, their efforts keep things organized and make it possible to find writing and art for specific characters, genres, and formats from the over 1,000 pieces archived here.

dreamflower02 was our faithful volunteer who unlocked each day's stories and art, and indy1776 was her backup. Their job involved finding the right piece from sometimes dozens in the queue and making sure we had something new and wonderful to read and look at each day.

huinare and tarion_anarore compiled the weekly summaries of what was posted each week, the featured review challenge for the week, and any announcements (usually flung at them last-minute by me). In the midst of a busy month, their efforts helped to make sure that stories and art didn't get lost in the shuffle and made it easy to see what was new for each week.

huinare was also my partner in crime in scheduling. We ended up with 52 pieces of writing and 16 works of art to fit into 26 days for the compilation, a balancing act that required trying to simultaneously achieve a somewhat equal word count each day while presenting a balanced mix of characters, time periods, and genres.

Graphics are always a huge part of B2MeM. This year, we required graphics for participant banners, review awards, and grand prizes. heartofoshun, indy1776, lignota, tarion_anarore, and the_winterwitch all helped make the beautiful icons, banners, and other graphics that our participants can use to commemorate their participation this year.

This year's betas were on-call in the months leading up to B2MeM and during March, ready to lend assistance to any author or artist who needed help polishing a project. Thanks to these volunteers' generosity, not a single beta request this year went unfilled (and most were filled within a day). Thank you to aliana1, astris_eldalie, elvewen, hhimring, hrymfaxe, ladyelleth, lindahoyland, shirebound, tarion_anarore, and with_rainfall for offering your support and expertise to this year's participants.

B2MeM originated as a shared effort between the Silmarillion Writers' Guild and Many Paths to Tread. It has grown well beyond that, in a large part thanks to the people who talk up the event each year, pass on information about participating, and encourage their friends to join in. I can't possibly know everyone who has a hand in this, so thanks to each of you who helped us to get the word out this year.

Likewise, many, many people have supported our writers and artists this year through their comments. Since many of the B2MeM pieces are posted off-site, I can't know who all of you are, but speaking from my own experience as a writer and artist, I know your words and encouragement meant a lot to participants this month, and I thank you for taking your time to support this year's writers and artists. It was awesome seeing the comments roll into report reviews for the challenge and all the wonderful things you all had to say about each other's writing and art.

Finally, I want to thank and congratulate each of you who participated in B2MeM this year as a writer or an artist. Whether you created something for the compilation or shared your work on one of our open posting days, this year's collection was extraordinary, and the time and talent each of you put into your work is truly a gift to our community. I have worked as a fiction editor for literary magazines before, and the craft I have seen this month--not to mention everyone's patience, cooperation, and understanding with the mods as we put everything together--surpasses anything I've worked on before. Thank you all.

(If I happen to have left someone off the list, please know it was not intentional and please also let me know so that I can make the correction! You can email me directly at DawnFelagund@gmail.com or message me here on LiveJournal.)

Before today's entries are unlocked, I wanted to sneak in a quick reminder to everyone on a few things.

Firstly, please know that the review challenge does not end on April 1. If there are stories or art that you want to comment on, you have as long as you want to do so and are still eligible for the review challenge. Those of you who have been reporting your challenges for stamps, I will likely contact you in mid-April to see if you are finished with the challenge and if you want your stamps consolidated into a single graphic. However, if you're still working on the challenge, please do! You can contact us at any time at b2mem.mod@gmail.com, and I will put your stamps together into a graphic for you. Likewise, if you want your graphic put together before mid-April, either leave a comment on the reporting post that you're finished or email us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com.

On April 1, I will post the grand prize banners for the review challenge. You can continue commenting and claim what you earned when you're finished. In short, please continue to show our awesome authors and artists love. :)

Since many people are on AO3, I have set up a B2MeM 2014 collection there. If you post a story inspired by a B2MeM 2014 prompt on AO3, please feel free to add it to the collection, even if you didn't post it to the community here. (Look for "b2mem2014" on the collections list.) If you need help adding a story to the collection, the AO3 Collections FAQ provides instructions, or drop me a line, and I'll do my best to help you out.

Finally, some of you may remember that one of the ultimate goals of this year's compilation was to make an ebook of the stories and art shared for this year's B2MeM. The mods are currently discussing this, and compilation authors and artists should look for an email middle of next week, explaining the project and what you'll need to do if you want your writing or art included.

There's only a few days left--I hope everyone is having fun and enjoys that last of this year's stories and art! :)

As part of this year's Back to Middle-earth Month challenge, we are encouraging our readers to show their love to our writers and artists by leaving comments on the stories, poems, and art they enjoy! To encourage reviewing, part of B2MeM 2014 will include a review challenge.

Below, you will find 15 different review challenges to complete throughout the month. You can do one or do them all! If you don't want to complete any of the specific challenges, the comments you do leave on B2MeM 2014 pieces still count toward the grand prize. At the end of the month, add up all the comments you leave on B2MeM 2014 stories, poems, and art and collect your grand prize.

Guidelines

1. Any comment left on any piece of writing or art created for B2MeM 2014 counts toward the challenge. Comments on compilation and non-compilation B2MeM 2014 pieces count. (For challenges #12 and #13, you may review pieces created for past B2MeM events.)


2. A comment cannot count for more than one review challenge. The exception is the grand prize: All comments you leave on B2MeM 2014 writing and art will count toward your total for the grand prize.


3. Some B2MeM 2014 pieces may be posted on sites other than the b2mem community. You are welcome to leave comments on any site where B2MeM 2014 writing and art are shared.


4. As always, we are operating on the honor system as far as prizes claimed for the review challenge. However, if you'd like to report your review, brag about your accomplishments, or squee more over the piece you just commented on, you can leave a comment to the thread below for the challenge you completed.


5. Once the month is over, we will put together the review challenge stamps you earned into a single graphic if you want us to do so. Comment here when you complete a challenge, or contact us at the end of the month with the challenges you have completed.

Review Challenges

This year, in the spirit of using comments to send encouragement and love to our writers and artists, we are offering Tolkien-themed postage stamps for completing the various review challenges below! You can use the HTML code beside each stamp to display your prize wherever HTML is acceptable, or right-click to save the image to your computer and share it on the image host of your choice. At the end of the month, we will put together all of the stamps you earn onto a collector's page for you to display.

( Review Challenge Stamps )

Grand Prizes for Reviewing

Once the month of March is over, you can collect your grand prize based on the total number of comments that you leave on B2MeM 2014 pieces. Remember that the reviews you write for the challenges above also count toward your total for the grand prize. Banners and icons for the grand prize will be posted to the community at the end of the month. The grand prizes will be as follows:

60+ reviews: Silmaril
50-59 reviews: mithril
40-49 reviews: platinum
30-39 reviews: gold
20-29 reviews: silver
10-19 reviews: bronze

Prompt claims for the 2014 B2MeM event have now been open for just over a week, and we've had 58 prompts claimed so far. (Wow!) We will be accepting prompt claims for another month, so if you haven't claimed one yet and want to it is not too late.

By now, if you have claimed a prompt, you should have received a confirmation email from us. If you have not, you can double check the prompt chart to see what you've been assigned, or email us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com. We were sending out so many nearly identical confirmation emails last week that Gmail was bouncing some of our messages as spam; I tried to resend those I knew hadn't made it through but might have missed some.

Remember, you post your finished piece here, to this community. You can post at any time. Early is great! :D Posting instructions are here. A moderator will unlock your writing or art on the day it is scheduled to be posted. If you need help posting to LiveJournal, feel free to email us.

The due date for your piece was in the confirmation email. It is also on the prompt chart, under the title for the season the prompt belongs to. If you need an extension, please email us as soon as possible. If you cannot complete your piece, please email us as soon as possible. There is no penalty for either; we just need to know so that we can plan the posting schedule for each week.

We will send you a reminder email a week before the due date if you have not posted your piece to the community.

If you need any sort of help--whether beta-reading, tech/LJ issues, questions, translation help, copyediting, or just someone to encourage you and to bounce ideas off of--email us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com. We have a group of volunteers who are willing to serve as betas and help out our authors and artists in other ways. (If you'd like to join this lovely group of volunteers, this is the post to sign up for that. :) More detailed instructions for requesting beta or other help is in your confirmation email.

Finally, we still need volunteers to help us with banner-making for this year's B2MeM, so if you're interested, comment here or (you guessed it!) email us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com.

It is awesome to see so many sign-ups, and I am extremely excited to see how different writers and artists respond to their prompts! I hope everyone has fun with their prompts! :)

This is the post where you will claim the prompt you want to work on for B2MeM 2014: Seasons of Middle-earth. Below are instructions for claiming a prompt and the prompt list. Please make sure that you have carefully read the expectations and guidelines before claiming your prompt.

Prompt claims are now CLOSED. If you are interested in writing for B2MeM this year, you are welcome to play with any of the prompts and post your fanworks to the community during the month of March. We will have special days set aside for revealing pieces that weren't created for the compilation. See this post for more information on how to share work that wasn't created for the compilation.

( Instructions for Claiming a Prompt )

( Prompt List )