Obscure Fandom Writing Challenge

I guess the January challenge went over like a lead balloon ^_~ I can't say it was that surprising, since I came up with it rather on the fly. I do also want to apologize for being so late in posting next month's challenge. I hope I can make it up to you all next month.

In any case, for this coming month I want to use our community to support another community that I believe is doing a lot of great things. While We Tell of Yuletide Treasure. For those who don't know, Yuletide is a massive obscure fandom fanfiction challenge which runs every Christmas, where people write fanfiction for each other in a Secret Santa exchange type of way.

Yuletide's Christmas exchange is quite well-known, but until I participated this year, I didn't know about the New Year's Resolution challenge that runs through the whole year. In this challenge, you can choose one of the Christmas requests that wasn't filled, and write it, and submit it to the archive.

February's challenge in obscurefandom will be to participate in the New Year's Resolution challenge. Go through the list of prompts, choose one, and upload it both to the Yuletide archive and the community here.

One last thing: The list of acceptable fandoms in Yuletide of course differs from ours. Rather than forcing everyone to request the fandom they want here and try to harmonize our list with the much longer Yuletide list, I'm going to say that you can write any story in the list of prompts, without that fandom being on our list. After February, I will add any fandoms written for to our list of acceptable fandoms, but I don't want to hold anyone up by forcing people to request the fandom in advance.

If you have any questions, please post them here ^_^

Well, the last challenge was a bit of a flop, lol. Not a single person wrote a fic!

I presume that everyone else was like me, and holiday insanity as well as other challenges intervened. But that's in the past, and we can move on now. And hey, now I don't have to buy the prize ^_~

I apologize for not giving the January challenge in advance, but as I said above ^ things got a little crazy around here for me, too. So it's going to be a simple three-word challenge again this month. All three items must be incorporated into the fic somehow, but how you interpret them and use them, is totally up to you!

1) Resolution
2) Celebration
3) Submission

Have fun!

Just to let everyone know, I've just done yet another update of the accepted fandoms list. It's quite long! Check it out if you haven't in a while, you may find some things you've forgotten you wanted to write about.

Moving on, it's time to unveil the final obscurefandom challenge for 2007.

This is going to be a Massive Multiplayer Obscurefandom Request-driven Prize-winning Gifting challenge...or something. There's an acronym in there somewhere. XDDD

Basically the rules are simple: In the comments to this post, make requests. They should be fics you would love to see, but don't feel able or willing to write yourself, for whatever reason. Toss them out to the masses, make wild wishes, get crazy if you want. You should specify which fandom it's from, but otherwise feel free to give as much or as little information as you want. (There should be more than the fandom, though. Don't just say "an X fic", specify something, even if it's just a sentence-long prompt).

And make lots of them. The more requests we have, the more fun this will be. Feel free to keep coming back and making more requests, right up until December 31st. Be greedy!

Now, you probably know what I'm going to say next, but here goes: If you see something on the list that pings inspiration, which you feel you can write for that person, then go for it. There's no minimum or maximum length of the fic. Artwork is a suitable response, too! If you feel the request can be drawn and you have the skills, do it!

You have until midnight PST on December 31st to make your submissions. Do as many as you can! I'm hoping that everyone who submits requests will have one of them filled.

Once you've fulfilled a request, go back to that person's request comment and let them know. If you see that someone's already fulfilled a request that intrigued you, then don't let that hold you back, though! Do it again (of course, yours should be a little different ^_~)

And just as added incentive, the person who fulfills the most requests between now and December 31st will receive a prize. A real prize paid for by real money from my pocket. It may be paid time, or more icons, or even a permanent Insanejournal account. What it is may depend on who wins and how many fics they write, but it'll be worth somewhere between $10-40. Maybe more, if you really wow me.

Now I do want to say, I don't want this to become an orgy of random tossed-off drabbles. If I don't feel that you've made a fair showing, by giving something substantial to each of your recipients, then I reserve the right to bestow the prize on the runner-up. On the other hand, if your drabbles are awesome and show craft and real attention, then drabbles are certainly not a bad thing. I hope what I'm saying makes sense. Each recipient should receive a sincere gift, whatever the length.

Oh, and don't forget to check the Livejournal community post for interesting requests, too. You don't have to confine yourself to the requests in this post, and vice versa. You can post your story or artwork here, but be extra sure to let the recipient know.

Hi all!

I just wanted to post and let you know that I will not be putting up the November challenge until November first. There are various reasons for that *grins* But I did want to assure you that it's all ready and planned, and that I haven't just forgotten about it.

The November challenge will be a big one (actually, it should be more accurately described as the November AND December challenge), and there will be prizes. Prizes involving real money from my own pocket! Keep your eyes peeled for it.

I hope you're all working on your halloween stories ^_^ And that you're all having a great October.

Good morning obscurefandom!

It's time for me to unveil the challenge for October, which will be (predictably, I'm sure) a Halloween/Horror challenge.

Below is a table of supersekrit challenge prompts. You have two weeks to sign up for the challenge, by choosing three boxes out of the table. Comment below with the three choices, telling me which column and row you want for each one.

On October 1st, I will unveil the contents of the table and we will all get to writing. You will have three single-word prompts of your own to incorporate into a story. All of the prompts are classic components of horror stories.

The stories do NOT have to actually be horror genre. Or rather, they don't have to be scary or gruesome. They can be tales about people telling ghost stories, or fluffy fics about going trick-or-treating. It's up to you what you do with the prompts, so long as you get all three worked in somehow. How you work them in, is also up to you.

( The Table )

It's August 15th, so you know what that means?

It means it's time for me to announce next month's challenge!

Next month's challenge is going to be BACK TO SCHOOL.

Just a simple, one-phrase prompt this month. I promise October is going to involve a bit more mayhem. XD

I hope everyone's working on their August fics!

(Note to those who have submitted suggestions: I apologize that I haven't gotten back to you yet. I should have time to sit down and look at them tomorrow, but nothing has actually jumped out at me as being likely to be turned down. I'll do a major update of the acceptable fandoms list tomorrow, if I'm not eaten by rabid weasels.)

We've had two rather involved challenges in a row, so I decided to do a simpler one this time, though without the 'do anything' breadth of July.

August's theme will be the Dress-up Challenge!

We're talking cross-dressing, cosplay, or anything else involving dressing your characters up in clothing they might not normally wear. Heck, have someone who normally covers their skin from head to toe be forced to go to the beach in a skimpy bathing suit.

It doesn't have to be comedy or fluff, of course, though I know this challenge might seem to lend itself to that. The fic can be of any length, any genre and any fandom from the list of acceptable fandoms.

Have fun with it!