As philomytha pointed out over on LJ, LMB often deals with reproductive themes. Given that it's the beginning of the year, often represented as an infant, this seems like a good time to play with those themes a bit.

This week's prompt, then, is birth. Could be literal birth, could be more metaphorical. Fic of all lengths and art are welcome. And, if this doesn't spark your muse, past prompts are always available for potential inspiration as well.

Also, so far there's just philomytha volunteering to help rotate the prompt postings. Anybody else care to help out? The more who volunteer, the less often your turn will come up. :-)

Obviously, I've amply demonstrated my complete inability to post weekly prompts. But I'd hate to give up quite yet, so I'm soliciting your opinions on what direction to take the comm in next year. Polls seem to get people talking more than broad questions, if only so everyone can complain about the inadequacy of the options they had to choose from, so let's start with a poll:

Poll #2931
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Are you interested in having this community continue?

If yes, what do you think would be the best/most interesting way to do the challenges?

What do you think about the current flexibility on length for fics?

What do you think about having old prompts always available to use?

What did you think about this comm going on hiatus during the LMB Ficathon?

Any other thoughts, comments, or suggestions? I'm all ears.

Also, happy new year!

So far, the polls are leaning towards monthly themes and no contests/teams/whatever, and it's an even split on single prompts versus prompts for each fandom. (On LJ, the trend is towards single, cross-fandom prompts.) It's only been a day, so that could shift, but for now, I thought we could start collecting some prompt suggestions. If it stays an even split over here and single prompt favored on LJ, I'll go the single prompt route. If it ends up that there's a substantial preference over here for separate prompts for each fandom, then the two comms will end up with different prompts for the week. In the meanwhile, I'm going to look at broad, cross-fandom prompts. We can always get more specific later.

Prompts that will work across all three fandoms are going to be necessarily broad. Things like single words, phrases, and non-specific situations will probably work best. Here are a few off the top of my head. Please comment with more suggestions! When we have a few, I'll try to group some into a theme for January.

seeking parental approval
honor
outsider
winter
change in allegiance
not what it looks like
caught in the act
persuasion

Oh, and here's another question for you. I think Sunday as a "new prompt, weekly wrap-up" point will work best, given my schedule. But do you guys want to wait for this coming Sunday to get the first prompt, or do you want one for tomorrow, and just have the first week be a short week?

This community has been created to encourage more people to write fanfiction and create fanart based on the works of Lois Mcmaster Bujold. To start with, I'm borrowing ideas from similar communities in other fandoms, such as grangersnape100 and still_grrr, and over time I expect this will evolve into something with its own feel.

Here are some of the ideas and guidelines I have for us to start with:

1. A prompt or prompts every week, probably posted on Sunday. There will be a post for making prompt suggestions.
2. Fic can be any length, but anything longer than a drabble (100 words) and anything rated R or NC-17 should go behind an lj-cut.
3. Art can be in any media and any size, but anything larger than 250x250, more than 3 icons, or rated R or NC-17 should go behind an lj-cut.
4. Old prompts will always be "open" for use, since the objective is to inspire new work, not to limit your creativity.
5. Headers should include, at a minimum, title, author, which fandom (Vorkosigan, Chalion, Wide Green World), rating and any relevant warnings, and word length.
6. Crossovers and AU's are absolutely fine. Again, wanting inspire creativity, not limit it.

That should be enough to cover the basics for starters. Please comment with any thoughts or suggestions on any of it.

Next up are a few polls on how people would like some of this to work. Some communities do a single prompt, some multifandom communities do a separate prompt for each fandom. Some places do monthly themes. Some do contests of various types to increase people's motivation to participate.

Poll #761 Prompt Structure
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Would you rather have ...

Would you like to have monthly themes for the prompts?

Poll #762 Incentives
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Would you like to have some sort of contest or incentive for participation?

If yes, what sort of incentive would interest you?

Please note that if people want prize or participation banners, I'll be begging for help, as I have absolutely no ability in that area!

I think that's enough to get us started. Please comment with any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions!