GSD

[marguerite_26]

for anyone interested in doing another...

Time to crack the whip on those WIPs!
A week of cheerleading, word-counting, and getting shit done!

Skimming the sign-ups looks like it's multi-fandom friendly. Go GSD!

However, this begs the question... Is there reason enough to set up a multi-fandom comm for this type of activity? Possibly??? But I don't have the time to actually cheerlead every week. I'm happy to set up the comm and let people 'host' these from there, but they'll be 100% responsible for that week's posts and cheerleading. ella_bane? This was your brain child, did you have any plans now that's Baby has crawled out of the nest and sprouted wings?

Thoughts? Please be honest... I'm just as happy to leave it as is. Though I know several of you suggested a designated comm during Accio Words. I see the benefits to both.



from my comments below...

My idea is that it would be a comm that would be open to anyone to say 'I'm taking a week starting Feb 14th!' and they basically control the posting to the comm that week and are responsible for encouraging their participants etc.

Then if there is a week with no one hosting it's totally fine! there's no 'guys!!! we have to keep doing this!!!' But a month later someone wants to host out of the blue... well the comms there for them. Make sense?

All I would do is set up the comm and the schedule so that only one person hosted on a given week.

Comments

[onelittlesleep.livejournal.com]

While I made a joke about this the other day, and the way people are using the same challenge but struggling to come up with new creative names for the same thing, I do think a community would be helpful! I haven't participated, but I know in the future, I would probably find something like this useful. Especially for fic challenge deadlines.

UM. Perhaps people can join and then weekly, it will go up that volunteers will be needed to host the next challenge on the community and cheerleaders will need to sign up? I'm not sure how it would work, but having it hosted weekly in the same place would be helpful and much easier for people to find.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

*nods* I was just catching up on my flist and going to reply to your post. :)

I think it's a good point, and one that was mentioned a few times when I hosted my week. Basically people wanted to know 'when and where is the next one!!!'

My idea is that it would be a comm that would be open to anyone to say 'I'm taking a week starting Feb 14th!' and they basically control the posting to the comm that week and are responsible for encouraging their participants etc.

Then if there is a week with no one hosting it's totally fine! But a month later someone wants to host out of the blue... well the comms there for them. Make sense?

All I would do is schedule so that only one person hosted on a given week.

[onelittlesleep.livejournal.com]

Then if there is a week with no one hosting it's totally fine! But a month later someone wants to host out of the blue... well the comms there for them. Make sense?


I think that's very good! It acknowledges the flux people have when it comes to fandom participation and writing, and doesn't put a lot of pressure on people to participate all the time, which would be impossible for me and probably for a lot of people. With this flexibility, I would probably find myself more inclined to host a week when I know I can have some wiggle room to choose when that will work for me.

And there was no reason to respond to my post! It wasn't at all constructive. Thank you though for considering this stuff further. I think a comm like this could be very useful to fandom!

[jad.livejournal.com]

I asked Ella if she'd be keen, but she said she was worried if it went from being a fun, sporadic thing to do to a commitment, it'd lose the fun. Or something. Which I totally get.

HOWEVER I AM TOTALLY WILLING TO HELP IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE ACE.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I agree that this can't be a commitment. It has to be a week by week basis that one person (or even two if they wanted to share) hosts whenever they happen to want to.

But it's also nice for people to sort of have in their back pocket if a deadline stares looming.

Thanks for the offer to help. I don't care if it's me or someone else taking this one, I just want to start the discussion. :)

[undrsomestairs.livejournal.com]

I thought it should be a comm when ella_bane was doing it, because it just seemed like such a good thing that should happen more often. And now it hasn't stopped happening! And as long as it keeps working for people, I think that's awesome. Maybe if there was a comm (and it being a multi-fandom comm would be so neat) then people could decide to host them when they felt like it? Like, it wouldn't need to be every week, because then it would lose its shine for some people, but if every couple of weeks someone decided 'I want to host this this week' then it would be where people can find it and all go. Or something, I have a headache and I don't think I'm explaining this clearly. BUT I'M IN FAVOR OF A COMM.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Exactly... everything you said (headache and all) was exactly what I was thinking.

If someone wants to host one week, it happens, if nothing happens for a month, there's no 'guys!!! we have to keep doing this!!!' but it's something that can be easily picked up about it 10 weeks if the comm is already sitting there.

[undrsomestairs.livejournal.com]

Exactly! And if everyone's watching/joined, then when it is picked up again they'll see it, no matter who it is who decides to do it. I'm glad I was clear. xD

Oh, and you've turned me into a MONSTER, by the way. xD I can't stop reading H/D fic even though I have so many things it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY I do instead but can't do because I love them too much to let go. (I'm not actually blaming you for my lack of self control, don't worry. xD)

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

YAY!!!! MONSTER!ANN!!!! :D

H/D has so so so many amazing fics. You will be distracted FOREVER! (until I lure you back to Merlin) HAHAHAHAH!

[undrsomestairs.livejournal.com]

On Wednesday I was like 'I'M NOT GOING TO READ ANY MORE FIC UNTIL SUNDAY SO THAT I CAN WORK ON THIS HUGE PRESENTATION PROJECT.' I think I lasted a few HOURS (and my presentation is WAY FAR BEHIND). These boys, I can't stay away. And last night I found the video of Tom being asked what he thought of the Draco character in AVPM. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. WHY DID I NOT LOVE HIM FROM THE START, I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

[alba17.livejournal.com]

There's a comm for this already: ficfinishing.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

hmm... *takes a look*

On quick glance it's very different. Maybe I'm wrong? But the way um 'ella-style' (sorry no idea what to call these) work is that it's a solid week of daily updates and cheerleading all done in comments with one host. It works very well at motivating and not spamming the flist.

From what I could see from that comm, it looks like as each participant finishes, they post directly to the comm? Definitely not a comm I would ever join. LOL. I couldn't handle all the spam. Where as what I liked about these one week 'blitz' is that you get to know (at least a little) the 10-20 people that are blitzing with you and you encourage each other with your daily updates and shared snippets just for that week - then you go off on your merry way.

I think ficfinishing is probably a great comm, but the way it does it seems different... at least at first glance. Or at least it doesn't have what I like about GSD.

[alba17.livejournal.com]

It works a little differently, yes, but not that much. The active period is 2 weeks. The goal is to finish a first draft in that month. There are daily motivating posts. You're supposed to post your daily word count there and you can post snippets. You have a "first reader" to be a personal cheerleader, but many other people cheer you on as well. Only the people who finish after the month is over post an individual "I finished" post, so there isn't a lot of spam from that. There are also writing resources on the comm that I liked. Several people writing Merlin big bangs did it during the month I participated last year.

Anyway, it's an option if people want to check it out. I think it would be great to have a comm along the model you and ella_bane used too!

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I could see how they are similar and I don't want to take anything away from that comm at all. But for me, for example, the way that comm works would not inspire me at all. I'm a 'one week' sort of writer and not a 'one month' kind. ;) So this comm would be more for short fics or smallish goals like '10k of a a big bang written' sort of thing.

I still haven't figured out if I want to do it, but it would definitely follow the 'one week goal' model.

[alba17.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking that after I replied, that the one week length might work better for some people. It might work for me depending on what I wanted to accomplish and what I had going on that week. Also, ficfinishing is somewhat more formal - you have to join and fill out a form, etc. The "GSD" model (hee) is more casual and I can see the appeal in that.

I think it's a good idea to start such a comm. There certainly seems to be lots of people who'd like to participate. Not sure how the rotating hosting thing would work, but I wonder if you could use crack_van as a model for that? I don't know a lot about it, but I think people sign up to rec stuff for a week or a month or something. There's also comment_fic, which has rotating hosts who put up prompts every day for a week. I wonder how they handle the sign-ups for hosting.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

hmm... I was thinking about working things like crack_van or crack_broom, but I think i'd go much more casual. If people want to book something ahead of time, they can. But a lot of people's schedules don't work that way. I'd rather not have a big cue. And then poke people to say: It's your turn!

It's more like I have a google calendar showing who is up that week, but if no one is listed than nothing happens that week. No big deal.

If the calendar is open then someone could say "Hey, I'll do it this week." if they happen to have time.

[alba17.livejournal.com]

I think that would work fine. You don't need to have it every single week. Is crack_broom an HP rec comm like crack_van? HP ignorant here.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

hee! Sorry - too many people are HP and/or Merlin fans that I forget which language I'm speaking.

Yes, I actively rec at crack_broom but the big issue with imitating that comm is that there is someone every single month and the queue can be long, so if you put your name in, you don't know when it's going to be your name (and often it's a time that isn't convenient. I want to avoid that! Hosts need to be inspired when they are hosting and not a month before when they signed up to host. If that makes sense. :)

[ella-bane.livejournal.com]

I think it's awesome it's taken off! I have no interest in starting or running a comm though. For me the novelty of it was what helped me finish. It looks like there's already a comm dedicated to helping people finish fic, as alba17 pointed out above. I don't know their method though; if they do a weekly thing like GSD was run, then no need for a new comm.

If people like the GSD method, then a comm would be cool, with the suggestions onelittlesleep made, specifically if a weekly host stepped up and cheered everyone on. But, yeah, I don't want to make it or run another week for a long while.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

At first glance the ficfinishing doesn't look like it works the same way as the GSD 'one intense week of writing' worked.

*shrugs*

I'm with you on not wanting to host another for a long while. It was an incredible amount of work and way more than I expected. But if people are looking to host these in one place, I don't mind setting up the comm and doing the scheduling. But that's about it. ;)

[ella-bane.livejournal.com]

If ficfinishing is different then a gsd comm is viable! Potential "hosts" could join a queue like for crack broom?

GSD is a cute little name too. <3

[tabaqui]

I very much like the idea of a comm and people taking the host/cheerleading duties by turn and on a volunteer basis. I would even sign up to host a week sometime!

So that's my vote. :)

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Awesome. Thanks!

[rufflefeather.livejournal.com]

This sounds like a really good idea!! I didn't have time for the last one, and now I thought OMG I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS ONE AGAIN! So if there is a comm I would be in! Volunteer hosting sounds like a great plan.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

yeah.. these things are all about timing! Either it's perfect or it's impossible from one week to the next. :)

[parvani.livejournal.com]

I think a comm would be awesome.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[mishaphappens.livejournal.com]

Okay! Let me see if I understand everything correctly:

So, there would be a comm where anybody can volunteer to host for a week. It would run very similarly to what we've already done, except that there's a comm people are watching. They can join that week, if they'd like, or not.

All that sounds like it's missing is making sure that people hosting don't collide and share weeks. So there would be a kind of 'sign up' that would need to happen--a some sort of mod like yourself, Ella, or even me!--to make sure that the week they want to "host" is free. Does that make sense?

It could also be simply a monthly thing. Someone posts "Host Week Claiming" at the beginning of the month and those interested in hosting would comment, claiming a week.

That could possibly cause some stress though. Now people have said they would host, causing the commitment issue.

So I guess it comes down to: How would we manage not having multiple challenges a week?

I'm definitely interested, if only because it will be easier for people to follow along.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Actually, the scheduling it's a big deal. I've done it in another comm I mod. I'd just set up a google calendar and pop people's names in as they request (first come, first serve) and give only that person access to post the the comm.

Thanks for the offer to help.I'll let you know. :)

[scarletscarlet.livejournal.com]

I like the idea! I failed on keeping up participation in your last one - a) anon fest art kinda hard, it turns out, and it sort of felt like rather than say "yay, I refined his hand slightly!" and crop and upload a thumb somewhere I could take those few minutes and refine his hand even more :). I *really* like the idea, though. Just need to figure out how to make it work for me, for pics :). Running word count and sentence excerpts =/= useful for images.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I'm sure posting the art WIPs are a pain, but I LOVE seeing them. I adored everyone that shared their art progress. even if it's just 'I refined his hand slightly!' but it's brilliant to non-artist to see the layers of work that go into art. :)

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Great idea. There are one or two similar comms around (hiheel_bookcamp is the one I'm most familiar with), and some dedicated to meeting specific challenges, but nothing that has that 'concentrated week' thing that worked for me (well, almost...)

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll check out that comm.

[thisgirl-is.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. My initial reaction was, "Yay, comm!" But the points raised below about scheduling and making sure there were no clashes and so on sounds way too much like hard work. I just wonder whether anyone would bother at that point. Especially if you have to start joining a cue to host or something.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Nah, scheduling isn't a problem. I think it will all depending of people wanting to host. But if no one wants to for a period, that's totally fine. But right now, it's basically people just jumping up and say 'Me Next!' and it's worked fine. Having a calendar where you put your name in wouldn't be too much more complicated than that. (yeah, I'm a very optimistic sort of person. *g*)