ADMIN: Follow-up Post! Winter Companions in 2013

[trobadora]

Thank you, everyone who voted and commented in the previous post! We've taken some time to look at and discuss what everyone had to say. A lot of people voted to keep the challenges we've been doing, so we've drawn up a bit of a mixed schedule, and we also like the idea voiced in the comments of letting everyone vote on which challenges we should do.

Here's the tentative schedule we've come up with for 2013:

February: a normal challenge
March/April: spring fest
May/June: a normal challenge (running for two months)
July: Summer Holidays fest
August/September: a normal challenge (running for two months)
October/November: autumn fest OR a normal challenge (running for two months)
December: amnesty

We're not quite sure about the number of fests vs. the number of challenges, so here's where you get to vote again:

[Poll #1890147]

What do you think - would this work for you? What kinds of fests/events would you like to see on this comm? What challenges should we do this year? Please let us know in the comments!

Comments

[magic-7-words.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking... and y'all may decide this goes against the spirit of the comm, but what about competitions? I know I'd push a little harder if I thought I might win something, even if it's only bragging rights.

[trobadora]

Competitions? That sounds interesting - could you tell us a little more about what you had in mind?

[magic-7-words.livejournal.com]

What I had in mind is simple enough: prompt goes up, people commit to the contest (this can happen in reverse order if we're feeling daring), fic pieces go up, community votes on a winner, winner gets a cute HTML gold star or the right to choose the next prompt or whatever. The way we do it on Fifthwind (the writers' forum that gave me the idea), contestants privately send their entries to one person, who posts them without revealing who wrote what.

If there's enough interest (big if), it might even be cool to do some kind of elimination tournament, where people go head-to-head for the right to proceed to the next round.

[trobadora]

Thank you for the explanation - that does look interesting! We'll definitely keep this in mind. :)

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

I think prompt fests are fun, so were the Bingo cards we did a couple years ago.

As for prompts, what would you think about reviving a classic that got good participation back in the day? Like the plague challenge or the AU challenge (I'm sure there were others). Here are some other ideas off the top of my head:

In sickness and health
Home is where . . .
Regeneration
"We have to stop meeting like this."
Sunshine and roses

[trobadora]

Thank you very much for the suggestions! And I think the prompt challenges were definitely popular ... And it's a good idea to look at old challenges to see which ones worked well!

[navaan]

I agree with sahiya that prompt fests (with everything from elaborate to one word prompts) are fun and the bingo challenge was great, too.

As for ideas for the regular challenges:
recovery
savior
light and dark
loyalty and betrayal
happiness

[trobadora]

Thank you for your suggestions, and your thoughts on fests!

[yamx]

I'd really like a fic exchange, where everyone submits a list of preferences to receive/write, and the mods match people up (not necessarily in pairs!) so everyone writes and receives a wish fic.

[phinnia.livejournal.com]

yes, this! what a great idea. :)

[trobadora]

Thank you for chiming in!

(Sorry for the late reply - I've been felled by the Space Plague.)

[meatball42.livejournal.com]

I would /find/ time for this. I don't know where from, but it would happen.

[trobadora]

Woohoo! Thank you for letting us know.

(Sorry for the late reply - I've been felled by the Space Plague.)

[trobadora]

Thank you for letting us know! I love fic exchanges, and I think we'll definitely have one this year. :)

(Sorry for the late reply - I've been felled by the Space Plague.)

[yamx]

YAY! I will definitely participate! :)

Sorry to hear about the space plague. *huggles* Hope you feel better!

[trobadora]

Fabulous!

And thank you very much. Things do seem to be improving somewhat ...

[mahmfic.livejournal.com]

Just saw this and I have to say that I am excited about the change.

[trobadora]

Yay, that's great to hear! :)

Do share any suggestions you have for future challenges, or thoughts on what fests you'd like - we can always use more!

[magic-7-words.livejournal.com]

I'd like to umpteenth the support for a fic exchange (never done one before, and I always kinda felt like I was being left off the invitation list to all the cool parties), and I want to throw another idea out too--fic round-robins. Somebody starts off with a couple hundred words, then someone else picks it up and adds to it, and so forth. Give each one a separate tag and they could run in the background without any upkeep needed, except maybe an occasional "bump post" to draw attention to anything that's been sitting neglected for a while. We could even work them into existing prompts--give folks the option of either writing a whole fic or starting a round robin. We could even (I'm dreaming up ways for this to require as little effort as possible) start them with the sub-prompts people were suggesting in the last post--so the first person's job is to give a very specific topic and maybe set an opening scene, and then anyone who wants to can jump in.