Admin Post: Silmarillion 40 Compilation Sign-Ups Are Open!

[dawn_felagund]

On September 15, 2017, The Silmarillion will celebrate its 40th anniversary of publication. It was Tolkien's life's work, it took more than his lifetime to publish, and it is the reason we are all gathered here, so we cannot let this occasion pass without a celebration.

In honor of The Silmarillion's 40th anniversary, we will be putting together a compilation of stories, poems, and artwork about--what else?--The Silmarillion. More specifically, we will post a story and/or artwork each day for forty days, beginning on September 15, giving a fannish retelling of this book that we all love.

What Is This Event?

We will be putting together a compilation of stories, art, and poetry that spans the entire Silmarillion. What is a compilation? It's a permanent, themed collection of fanworks, housed on its own section of the site, similar to an online magazine. A new fanwork will be released daily, beginning on September 15th and for forty days afterward. You can see past examples of compilations we've done with Akallabeth in August and the SWG Fifth Birthday.

We have created a list of forty important events from The Silmarillion that will serve as prompts. If you want to create a type of fanwork that is not fiction, poetry, or art, let us know the type of fanwork when signing up and what you might need from us, e.g., file hosting.) Prompts will be assigned on a first-come-first-served basis.

Your fanwork should be set roughly in the time period of the event you choose. (Note that, yes, that gives you some leeway to write about things that a little before or after your event, if they're not on the list.) That's the only requirement! Your fanwork does not have to be specifically about that event. For example, if you claim the prompt "Lúthien Dances for Morgoth," you can write about Lúthien actually performing that dance. Or you could write about what Melian is experiencing as her daughter faces down the Dark Lord. You can write about what is going through the Fëanorians' minds as their long-thwarted objective is achieved by a girl dancing. Or you can write about what's going down in Ossiriand with a bunch of Wood Elves who don't even know who Lúthien is. Just as long as the fanwork occurs around the time of that event, you are free to be creative!

Participants are now welcome to claim more than one prompt if they wish to do so.

Please note that each prompt has a due date associated with it. You must send your fanwork to us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org on or before that date. We will post your fanwork to the Silmarillion 40 webpage and our archive on the reveal date. If you are unable to complete your prompt, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can find a pinch hitter.

To Participate

1. Please begin by familiarizing yourself with the full Silmarillion 40 guidelines on our site. By signing up, you are indicating that you have read and understand the guidelines, including the publication rights the SWG will acquire.
2. Check out our list of prompts.
3. Comment on this post (comments are screened) or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org and include the following information:
   • Your SWG username*
   • An email where we can contact you
   • Prompt(s) you want (please let us know if you will be writing or creating art for each)

*If you don't have an SWG account already, provide the username you'd like us to use. We will register an account for you when we post your work using the username and email address you provide.

If you'd be willing to collaborate with a person creating fiction/poetry or artwork for the same prompt, you can let us know that as well.

Formats of fanwork other than writing and artwork are welcome; please just let us know what you'll be creating and what you'll need from us (such as file hosting for a podfic, et cetera).

We will contact you to let you know the prompt you will be completing and remind you of the due date. If you don't hear from us within 24 hours, feel free to query.

If you'd be willing to pinch hit, please let us know.

Questions on this post are welcome as well. We may unscreen your question if it will be useful to others and doesn't contain personal/contact information.

Signal boosts are welcome and appreciated!

Comments

[independence1776]

I'm probably being slightly ridiculous here, but I have a couple of questions and figure others may want to see the answers.

1. Can we talk about our prompts and plotbunnies resulting from them or are the assignments supposed to stay secret?

2. If we can do some HTML markup such as italics and bold but not full formatting with paragraphs breaks and such, would it be better to let you do all of it?

[dawn_felagund]

You're not being ridiculous at all! Thinking of a question almost guarantees that someone else is thinking it and too shy to ask. :)

1. Prompts are absolutely not secret. I was even going to put the names of who claimed what on the public list but figured that if someone needed to drop out, that might cause some embarrassment. (Even though it shouldn't!) Anyway, I figured it best to keep assignments just among the mods (also handy since we can keep contact info side-by-side with the person assigned to each prompt), but that does not in any way obligate participants to secrecy.

2. Formatting bold and italics is wonderful. It's honestly the most time-consuming part of doing HTML on a document for me (aside from footnotes, which won't be an issue here). Just let us know when you turn in your story if you've done any HTML so that we're not reinventing the wheel or looking through the whole document to make sure that it's been done throughout.

Basically, what I want to avoid is people who don't know HTML or don't know how to do it well to feel like they should at least try because they'll be making our lives easier. It doesn't. Fixing broken HTML is a huge pain in the neck, whereas the SWG newsletter ensures that I am pretty swift at marking up a document even when it's fairly complex.

[independence1776]

Well, okay, I thought the first one was a little ridiculous because I know SWG and figured the answer was what it is. But you're right: if I had the little niggling doubt, others did, too.

Formatting bold and italics it is! It's the rest of the formating I find to be a pain, largely because I don't know it and it's not a problem on most of my main sites to have the mix of plain text and HTML.

Thanks!

[dawn_felagund]

I know SWG and figured the answer was what it is.

Of course--but we're also always hoping to welcome newcomers who want to join us, and I've found that many newcomers who are accustomed to other events/challenges (from the Tolkien fandom or other fandoms) often come in thinking we're going to be much stricter or harsher than we are. So it's a great question for that reason, and also because it is not something I'd likely think of (being as I'm the main reason we're so laid-back, and the idea of forbidding people to discuss their work or mandating beta-readers or disallowing cross-posting for ridiculous amounts of time--all things that I know are at least somewhat commonplace for other fandom events and challenges--don't always cross my laid-back little mind to address! :D)