The last week has been EVENTFUL! Our SL Writing collection reached a turning point or crossroads. Originally we were scheduled to appear on a podcast with Drax, but he retired. We were waiting on that exposure to drive up participation and engagement, but there was not any plan B in place. We had around 12 stories which were not enough to go to publication, but what happened next was all kinds of bizarre. For six months we had consistent guidelines to support and develop writers, and agreed upon guidelines all of our submissions had followed, but suddenly there was a suggestion to remove some of our existing stories. It was handled in a very strange way as well. However, at the end of the day, I felt like what I saw was inexperience. Ultimately I did not particularly make a choice, but in the end action was required to move forward in a direction. In doing so, I saw flaws in the initial designs, such as "writers don't write to make money," while in all of my Facebook submissions pages calls to pay creators are king. In the end, I saw an opportunity to do the project right and abandon the many areas of flawed thinking inherent to how we had been operating. Pay writers for contributions, pay a cover artist, create a theme and a deadline. That's what I did, and it became very exciting! It does require launching a kickstarter campaign in order to be able to support creator contributions, and that should drive up participation as well as quality. It's not the only progress to emerge from this week. Several months ago, one of my developing writers and I did not see eye to eye about how to discuss writing about indigenous cultures, and she became upset with me and left in a huff. Ironically, this event was misrepresented last week, and if you know me, I have a hard line around creating false narratives about me. Well, she came to me and said she wanted to have a writing contest and wanted me to be a judge, because she "knew I was tough."
These events will be coming up in the next month! I've been busy this week getting all of the back end administrative pieces in place. Step by Step I am creating project specific accounts to separate correspondence and financial acitivity, then connecting those with kickstarter and a website landing page. Now that all the behind the scenes things are finished, getting the landing page, with two submission calls on it, and the kickstarter rewards and story ready to launch are next up.
Here's what I'm excited about! Certainly the hype of the kickstarter campaign, and raising awareness of wanting to promote the book when published! However, the TWO submissions calls are what really emerged from breaking down the backer rewards! Not only am I seeking the fiction call, but the top tier backers will be able to vote on the cover art - and that will be a contest for artists from Second Life to participate in, with payment for the cover art included in the campaign budget. So... drumroll, what is the new theme? I thought about the stories I had seen, and wanted to create a large umbrella that can be interpreted in many different ways across a variety of genres: Submission Call for Anthology: "Where Connections Lead" We are seeking short stories for an anthology based on the theme of "Where Connections Lead." This theme invites writers to explore the connections between things, computers, people, events, ideas, or places, and the paths they create—whether they bring people together, reveal hidden truths, or lead down unexpected or even dangerous paths. This broad theme allows for both individual stories (e.g., a character seeking answers through the connections they make) and collective stories (how groups or communities bond, interact, or misunderstand each other). Stories can be any genre—mystery, dystopia, sci-fi, fantasy, literary fiction, horror, and beyond—such as a person piecing together clues, an exploration of connections in a futuristic society, or even unexpected interactions between ideas or technology. Links coming soon with submission instructions. I will also be listing it in Submission Grinder!
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