Monday, February 4, 2013

TaleJam Round 2 Complete!

5PM has struck, and TaleJam round #2 is wrapped! Nice work everybody!

The three completed entries for this round are as follows -

Adam Lyon - The Desert Cubes
Read It!

Tyler Hicks - Memory Layne
Read It!

Travis Baldree - The Curtain
Read It!

BONUS ROUND
Zid has an unfinished longer work, so rather than submit it just yet, he opted to send in a Pirate Ballad. Pirates are cool.
Zidders - Pirate Ballad
Read It!

Great job everybody! Already looking forward to next week's.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

TaleJam #2 - Mysterious Object

It's time for TaleJam #2. Let's get to it!
If you'd like to join in, contact me at travisbaldree@gmail.com.

TaleJam #2
Individuals are Attracted to a Mysterious Object

Kickoff : Sunday, January 27th, 5:00PM PST
Deadline : Sunday, February 3rd, 5:00PM PST

Moderator : Travis Baldree

Submission : Submit Manuscripts to travisbaldree@gmail.com, no later than the deadline.

Restrictions : 2000-9000 words

Inspiration :

Here are a few items to get some ideas going-





Thursday, January 17, 2013

TaleJam Round 1 Complete!

5PM has struck, and TaleJam round #1 is wrapped! Nice work everybody!

The three completed entries for this round are as follows -

Adam Lyon - The Pursuit of Morgan
Read It!

Tyler Hicks - Fort Sumter's Truth
Read It!

Travis Baldree - Death of the Arkansas
Read It!

UPDATE-
An incomplete first draft that'll undergo some more work
Jason Beck - From the Darkness
Read It!

I had a lot of fun doing this, and hope the rest of you did too. It's pretty cool how different the approach is for each entry, from a historical retelling, to journal entries, to straight-up narrative.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Progress Report

So, for all you Jammers, how's it going? Have you got your ideas in a row and some words down? Researching? All done? I'm in the slog in the middle where you start to try to pull the thing in the direction of a conclusion. Trying to figure out a good voice for this has been a bit of a struggle, so I'm trying to go easy on it.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Jam #1 - Civil War Werewolf

In the interest of sorting out how this will work, I'm going to set up a sample topic kickoff, which we can use if we want. Here we go! Set to start tomorrow at 5:00PM PST

Tale Jam #1
Civil War Werewolf

Kickoff : Thursday, January 10th, 5:00PM PST
Deadline : Thursday January 17th, 5:00PM PST

Moderator : Travis Baldree

Submission : Submit Manuscripts to travisbaldree@gmail.com, no later than the deadline.

Restrictions : 2000-8000 words.

Inspiration:

Here are a few images to get some ideas going-





Tha Rules (Proposed)

So for this to work, I guess we probably need some rules. We can and should revise these, depending on what people want to do, but here's a first stab.

1) A moderator is chosen. This can extend for as many Jams as desired. The moderator will select the topic from submissions from the members, and is responsible for posting the topic, pertinent information, and dates, as well as receiving submissions and calling a cutoff.

2) For each jam, all members may submit one (or many!) ideas. These will remain in an idea pool. The moderator will select from this pool, and post the announcement and details.

3) From the time of announcement, one week is allowed to write a short story related to the topic.

4) Stories must be from 2,000 to 8,000 words (more or less)

5) Stories must be submitted by the cutoff time. Partial stories are ok, as long as you're fine with someone reading it.

6) After the cutoff, the moderator will publish the stories in a way agreed upon by the members ( this could be public, posted here in .ePub format or .PDF, or private only to the group, depending on the desires of the group. I'd advocate public, because I think it is likely to help drive more participants, which makes it more fun.)

7) Critique - we could do this a couple of ways. Randomly selected critique assignments, or a ranking mechanism, or something. We don't have to, though. It seems that some sort of yardstick that we can all use to measure our improvement would be neat, but I don't want to do anything overbearing or that makes it a bummer.

8) Go to step 1! Change moderator as desired (after every 3 Jams? by volunteer? )

* The rules should change in any way that makes it more enjoyable!

Comment and discuss!

Want in? Email me at travisbaldree@gmail.com
Cheers!

The Beginning

So, it sounds like we've got a couple of takers! If you're interested in trying this out, email me at travisbaldree@gmail.com

I have a google group set up, and I'll add you to the list, and we can try out an inaugural week.

Hooray!

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

TaleJam

I was going to call this StoryJam, but hey, that name was taken. So, here we are.

At any rate, if any like-minded folks agree to give this a whirl, here's the general idea.

In the same way artists do drawing jams to practice (see conceptart.org, or cghub.com), based upon a surprise weekly subject, I think it would be a blast to do a weekly 'short-story jam.'

Every week, round-robin selection of a subject, and one week to write a short story on the chosen subject. The subject should be brief, but evocative enough to drive a story.

Stories should be between 2,000 and 8,000 words, maybe.

At the end of the week, everybody kicks in their story, we read 'em, maybe crit 'em, and have the fun of seeing how somebody else interpreted the same subject.

So, for example - let's say the subject is....

Civil-War Werewolf

or

Woman Wakes Inside A White Sphere With A Cat

or

Twin Discovers His Brother Is A Murderer

or...

whatever.

Takers?