BINGO IS OVER, LIFE CAN RETURN TO "NORMAL"

I didn't check into my email at all yesterday, spending my day wrapping up things that were pending and finishing this year's B2MeM. Not opening my emails was a mistake. I have a LOT of unread emails that I have to run through. I'll be finishing those up tonight because I'm already running late today. 

I decided to block out my time for a month and participate in
Back to Middle-earth Month 2019. 

Welcome to April. A little more than a month ago I made a commitment. Maybe I should capitalize the word. I made a COMMITMENT. There, that's better. I had several old friends from the Tolkien community who read my daily blog and had been pushing me to at least entertain the idea of joining B2MeM once again. It was the Bingo format - a format that I adore. A week or so before it started, I reviewed the cards, narrowed them down to approx 30+ that I really liked (there originally were 205 cards available, so it was a good first cull), and finally, after a lot of work, had a collection of the ten cards I was allowed to claim, plus one more I tacked on because I couldn't resist a card featuring Not Safe For Work & Kink. 

I committed to 31 days and 31 stories, plus reading and commenting
on the stories of other participants. I can usually write and edit a story
within an hour, but the other reading and commenting did take more time. 

I made a personal promise to myself to not write long stories. I would keep things short. I didn't require a month of drabbles - I've done that before and that's a tough one. I did require short, and one other requirement. All of my prompts for that day's Bingo number had to be handled in a single story. I had two times that I was assigned six prompts for a story, and one time when only one prompt came up, but I had a prompt for every day, and that was pleasing. I also ended up with two separate BINGO's on my "Horror" card, which was also a treat. 

I ended up getting two Bingos, both on the "Horror" card. I guess
the stars were aligned for my dark side. 

I read stories from old friends and some not-so-friends. I enjoyed them all a great deal. I looked at artwork, and was once again amazed at the talent and variety of ways Tolkien fans interpret and embrace his works. All of the Ages of Tolkien's world were covered, and timelines were extended and fleshed out wonderfully. All within the constraints and confines of the Bingo framework. It was a glorious month. 

My thanks goes out to those of my friends who poked me to join and
write within the fandom once again. It was a joy to return to Tolkien's
world once more, and put my own twist on the tales. 

Now I return to a life of a bit more control. I don't have to write a story every day, I don't have to read and review every day either (because I think if you're participating, you have to participate in feedback as well), and I can return to my personal writing and my own projects. That's a good thing because it's April and I have a TON of things to finish within the next eight months. 

So thanks to all of you for being patient with me while I was off writing Bingo. I had a lot of fun. It's going to be nice to settle back to different challenges, however. But yeah - I had fun! Have an excellent Monday, I'll return on Tuesday.