Inspiration...I'm Not Quite There Yet

Back to Middle Earth Month has a history of taking place during March every year, at least since I joined the fanfiction community in late 2009. The first B2ME I experienced was in 2010. I was not a participant because I, quite simply, didn't understand the premise or the mechanisms of that year's challenge. It looked like fun and there were wonderful stories that were written for it, but it was nothing I felt up to joining except to leave a few reviews for some of the authors. Baby steps...

Losgar was the stamp for Day 2 of the Passport Challenge. I
really loved the look of this stamp, but all of them were wonderful.

In 2011 the Passport was the focus and I was pulled into writing within the first five days. I loved the passport, loved the pictures, loved the entire idea. I wanted those stamps in my virtual pages and wrote for each day. By the end of the month I had a fully stamped passport - so pretty. It was early in my Lizard Council days and I posted each story there for crit. I learned a lot during those 31 days of writing, both in terms of style and what to look for in crit. It was a learning experience that I was thrilled with - a baptism by fire with people I respected giving me assistance and opinions that helped my writing skills. I look back on those days and am very happy that I was pulled into writing, something I had thought I would never do for the public eye.

It was a lot of work, but I got this 3rd place and a 4th place Bingo banner.

The 2012 B2ME was BINGO. Participants chose to play Bingo cards that centered on areas of their interest and that would provide random daily prompts in response to a single Bingo number pulled at random. There were a lot of cards to choose from. I think I ended up with eight cards - really too many. Some days I only got one or two prompts, others I had as many as six Bingo spaces that were covered by the day's call-out. It was a lot of work. But through the pressure I wrote - and wrote - and wrote. And I ended up loving what I produced and was very proud of some of the stories I wrote and researched. I know I still used Lizard Council's aid for some of the stories, and also had some feedback from people I knew from the Council about points that they saw as inaccurate. Whenever the comments merited, I changed things. I don't know everything and rely on others to help. Thank the Powers that they are kind enough to do so. Their help only strengthens my work and I am always grateful for the input. It was a crazy writing time, though. I ended up writing more than 60 individual pieces for the month - way too much work, but fun.

This is one of the new banners - so very pretty!

That brings me to this year's B2ME - The Scavenger Hunt. Possible scenarios for this year's B2ME had been put to a vote. I didn't vote for this format, I voted for alphabetical prompts, but I don't mind a Scavenger Hunt, it's pretty easy to do with electronic books and the various indexes available. The quotations that started us out were alphabetically arranged, and I enjoyed that and chose one to work with. Each day the moderators provide us with three additional quotations to help inspire new tales or new plot twists. It's actually a good format. But I'm afraid I'm less than inspired. I am working on a single story, bringing back a character that I love and if any of the supplementary prompts make it into the tale, I'm not sure it will be intentional. I am finding it hard to write around quotations. But, maybe after I finish CB's artwork which is higher on my to-do list I'll feel differently. At least I am working on one larger story and therefore I am still an active participant. That's what's important. Now to go out and shovel the 6 inches of snow that fell overnight *sigh*.... BTW - the new microwave works really well.