January Community Post

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is the allbingo community post for January, 2014.  What were your bingo activities during the past month?  What are your plans for February?

It's been an exciting first month here.  We currently have four affiliated communities, crosslinked with cottoncandy_bingo, genprompt_bingo, ladiesbingo, and origfic_bingo.  According to our profile, we have 66 interests and 35 subscribers.  Several folks have already posted introductions; more would be welcome.  Somewhat more people have gotten bingo cards.  Yay, progress!

Remember that cottoncandy_bingo is scheduled to reopen on February 1.  Stand by to get your cards!

Also, allbingo is hosting a Bingo Valentines fest from February 1-21.  Play with a card from any suitable community or make your own.  Would you like to team up with someone else?  Post a comment asking for interested partners.  Fests like this are especially fun when folks link up art/writing/other goodies featuring the same characters.

Comments

[annariel]

I didn't do any writing in January (apart from the weekly primeval100 drabble challenge. However that was really because I had a big stack of tasks left undone from November and December when I was working frantically on Yuletide and fandom_stocking stuff. I have posted something almost every day in January which goes to show how much I was producing for those fests and I still have a stack more stuff to go posting wise.

I have managed to get most of the backend programming done to turn my various online prompt generators into something that it is easy to extend and adapt and I'm hoping to get that all finished up next week with some sort of not-exactly-crowdfunding but certainly a points and incentive based scheme to encourage people to use and contribute.

Meanwhile primeval_denial starts a "PriWriMo" month today which means I need to post the latest set of bingo prompts and a sign-up card for them. I'm also hoping to get a feedback post for ladiesbingo up this weekend.

At some point I want to sit down and plan out the sort of things I'd like to write this year. I definitely want to write some Sapphire and Steel and some Avengers, but I'd also like to get back into Doctor Who writing (I ended up with a Who based prompt for Yuletide (I know, but Who has a host of tiny spin off fandoms) and I really enjoyed writing it). I want to overhaul my original fiction settings and there a couple of Primeval things I'd like to take a stab at. So, yeah, sit down and actually think about priorities for it all.

One thing I'd like to do, because I'm aware there are a good number of original fiction writers in this community and in the bingo communities as a whole is offer some kind of incentive and achievement for original fiction recs for works which form good "jumping off" points for people's settings. I find it quite difficult to get into original fiction settings and to engage with short stories and vignettes in long running settings "cold" as it were. It would be nice to tie the rec achievement in with a bingo challenge in some way but I'm not quite sure the form it should take. I must ponder... I suppose it needn't be restricted to original fiction it could be a "no background knowledge needed" rec challenge - I've actually often vaguely considered starting a community aimed at "no background knowledge needed" recs.

Err... anyway writing this while I run a bath since I've just got back from a rather muddy "parkrun" race though thankfully the skies were clear and blue but the puddles were still large. So I shall go an see how that is doing and come back here later.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I have posted something almost every day in January which goes to show how much I was producing for those fests and I still have a stack more stuff to go posting wise. <<

Wow, quite a backlog there. I'm glad you're making progress.

>> I have managed to get most of the backend programming done to turn my various online prompt generators into something that it is easy to extend and adapt and I'm hoping to get that all finished up next week <<

Woohoo! I'd love to see more options available in prompt generation. Let me know when you're done with the updates and I'll link to what you've got.

>> with some sort of not-exactly-crowdfunding but certainly a points and incentive based scheme to encourage people to use and contribute. <<

I know a couple of folks who use a point system. It's finicky to design and manage but seems quite effective at encouraging participation from cash-poor folks like me.

>> I'm also hoping to get a feedback post for ladiesbingo up this weekend. <<

I'm looking forward to that, especially given the interest in #femslash february across the web.

>> At some point I want to sit down and plan out the sort of things I'd like to write this year. <<

That's a good idea.

>> some Avengers, <<

<3

>> I want to overhaul my original fiction settings <<

Also sounds promising.

>> One thing I'd like to do, because I'm aware there are a good number of original fiction writers in this community and in the bingo communities as a whole is offer some kind of incentive and achievement for original fiction recs for works which form good "jumping off" points for people's settings. <<

I think that's an awesome idea!

>> I find it quite difficult to get into original fiction settings and to engage with short stories and vignettes in long running settings "cold" as it were. <<

Yep. That seems to be a ubiquitous challenge for all projects that grow to respectable size, whether single-author or shared world. We finally had to make a Start Here page for new Torn World readers, and I followed suit with Schrodinger's Heroes.

With my serial poetry it's not as bad, because I post those in internal chronological order on the linked series page; but if you just stumble across a random poem during a fest, that can be confusing. Some stand alone a lot better than others. So I have gotten into the habit of including a series thumbnail above the entry for each item, if I'm listing stuff in a bingo call.

One thing that might help is a discussion about when a project needs a Start Here page, what people want on it, and how to make a good one. I wrote instructions for "5 Steps to Crowdfunding Success" and "How to Make a Landing Page." Those are related, but not identical to the advice needed for a good Start Here page, which can be a really hard thing to create.

>> It would be nice to tie the rec achievement in with a bingo challenge in some way but I'm not quite sure the form it should take. I must ponder... <<

I agree, that would be fun and helpful.

>> I suppose it needn't be restricted to original fiction it could be a "no background knowledge needed" rec challenge - I've actually often vaguely considered starting a community aimed at "no background knowledge needed" recs. <<

I suggest that you separate original from fandom recs. That will let you do two rounds, or more if you want to alternate between them. I'd love to have a mix of different activities going on in this community. Recs aren't a specialty of mine, so having someone else cover that would be awesome. This is great territory for bingo because it will get people hunting down recworthy material on a bunch of different topics.