Author Reveals & Next Time

[morbane]

Authors are now visible for all stories. Here's the collection again: http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Jukebox2013

Thank you again for participating. I had a great time. I'm still reading through the collection.


I plan to run this challenge again, so I'd appreciate feedback, on what worked for you and didn't. (Anonymous comments are still enabled.)

Here are a couple of things I think I might change:

• The dates. This has run up closer to Yuletide than I was anticipating. I was also participating in hhertzof's Exchange at Fic Corner challenge, which hhertzof says she will run again next year in July-August-September. Because of this, I'm thinking of shifting Jukebox 2014 to February-March-April (ensuring the writing time doesn't overlap too much with Purimgifts) or April-May-June (though that overlaps a bit with Not Prime Time).


• The beta reading mailing list. I'm not sure that quite worked (thoughts, anyone?). Especially, it seems a bit silly for me to be playing relay like that when I'm in such a different time zone to most other people - I suspect it decreased, rather than increasing, efficiency. (I don't think this was a problem for pinch hitting, though, since I could decide when to send emails out.)


• What fanworks are included. Currently, I don't have a strong idea about how to include podcasts or fanvids - or whether these make sense to include. But I am interested in fanart. So, question: would other people be interested in either offering or requesting art fills for song prompts?


• The definition of a song. There are many discrete pieces of music without lyrics where the creators, performers, and audience can agree on the shape of the story being told. (Programmatic music being one branch of this.) Would you be interested in offering or requesting music of this type? And if you are, could you help me come up with an appropriate definition?



Other things I'd love to get discussion on: was writing for a song outside your comfort zone, or not? Did the song you wrote for remind you of other particular songs? (I ended up buying three songs in iTunes based on other people's nominations.) Are there un-filled prompts that you especially wish had been written as well?

Comments

[seekingferret]

Thank you for running the fest! It was a lot of fun.

-I don't have a particularly strong opinion about the dates. I didn't mind the overlap with Fic Corner very much, and was easily able to write both stories, but I will say that if they were competing and I had to prioritize my time, I would likely choose Jukebox. I guess I feel like Yuletide typically grabs a larger amount of my time and energy than either Fic Corner or Jukebox did, and I rather value the breather in my schedule between Yuletide and Purimgifts, but if you did move it to January I would likely still participate.

-I didn't make use of the beta mailing list myself, and had no trouble finding betas. I guess at some point I was put on the beta mailing list, but I didn't really have the time to beta anything for anyone so I wasn't very helpful there. I think that given the size of these canons, it's not very hard to grab a friend who doesn't know the fandom and catch them up to speed enough to get a beta from them. My beta didn't know the song, but was still able to give me very specific and useful critique.

-I don't have any objection to including other types of fanwork, but I would continue to participate as a fiction writer.

-I think I'll split out my answer to the question about word-less songs for another post, because it'll be rather longish.

-I really wish someone had written that No Gringo/ Wings crossover prompt. That was an amazing prompt.

[morbane]

You're welcome! I appreciate people letting me know they had a good time.

Yeah, I suspect the overlap with fic_corner affects me more than anyone else, since I want to go full throttle on both. Option A for the new dates overlaps with Purimgifts; I also mentioned Option B, which would probably come straight after Purimgifts (so, that would put nominations approximately into the last week of March). Which might work better - writing Purimgifts and Jukebox at once then having a longer break, or one following the other? (I'm leaning towards the overlap.)

Mm. Yes, the beta list was quite inapplicable to people who already have regular betas; it was meant to be useful for people who either don't have regular betas, or who have betas who might not be willing to tackle original fic. But the purpose could probably be served as well or better by a post in which people comment with their contact details, and authors contact those volunteers directly.