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marchmetamatterschallenge2024-02-29 08:25 pm
yourlibrarian) wrote in marchmetamatterschallenge2024-02-29 08:25 pm
Entry tags:
March Meta Matters Challenge, Check-in No. 1
Welcome to year 4 of the Meta Matters Challenge! I'm your moderator, yourlibrarian.
These posts will be used for us all to check-in with one another, offer encouragement and answers to questions, and maybe tips we come up with as we copy our work to AO3.
Before we begin, some reminders. Please look over the FAQ as there are some important bits for everyone to follow, namely:
Remember to tag all your posts with the "Meta" and "Nonfiction" tags in the "Additional Tags" section of the posting form if you are posting at AO3 or Squidgeworld.
Remember to add your meta to the March Meta Matters Challenge community on AO3 or Squidgeworld.
Since this is our first check-in, please comment with one or more of the following:
1) Details about you: This could include canons (if any) you've written meta in, years in fandom, things you tend to write about (if you've noticed themes), or whatever else you'd like to share.
2) Details about your meta: How much of your past work are you going to be looking through? Have you already started reviewing fandom accounts? Do you have organizing tips to share as we go sorting through our posts?
3) Goals you have: Maybe you want to back up a certain number of posts to AO3. Maybe you want to compare things you used to write about to things you're writing now. Maybe the challenge is an opportunity for you to start using AO3 as a creator as well as a reader or to try out Squidgworld for the first time. Maybe it's a good prompt to re-read discussions in your posts that you'd forgotten about. We all have hopes of what we can accomplish this month. Feel free to share them!
Also, if you have any questions not already covered in our introductory post or in our FAQ, include them here.
Remember, this account accepts anonymous comments, so if you don't have a Dreamwidth account we still want to hear from you and have you take part. Just sign your messages with your username and we'll all get to know you!
yourlibrarian. These posts will be used for us all to check-in with one another, offer encouragement and answers to questions, and maybe tips we come up with as we copy our work to AO3.
Before we begin, some reminders. Please look over the FAQ as there are some important bits for everyone to follow, namely:
Remember to tag all your posts with the "Meta" and "Nonfiction" tags in the "Additional Tags" section of the posting form if you are posting at AO3 or Squidgeworld.
Remember to add your meta to the March Meta Matters Challenge community on AO3 or Squidgeworld.
Since this is our first check-in, please comment with one or more of the following:
1) Details about you: This could include canons (if any) you've written meta in, years in fandom, things you tend to write about (if you've noticed themes), or whatever else you'd like to share.
2) Details about your meta: How much of your past work are you going to be looking through? Have you already started reviewing fandom accounts? Do you have organizing tips to share as we go sorting through our posts?
3) Goals you have: Maybe you want to back up a certain number of posts to AO3. Maybe you want to compare things you used to write about to things you're writing now. Maybe the challenge is an opportunity for you to start using AO3 as a creator as well as a reader or to try out Squidgworld for the first time. Maybe it's a good prompt to re-read discussions in your posts that you'd forgotten about. We all have hopes of what we can accomplish this month. Feel free to share them!
Also, if you have any questions not already covered in our introductory post or in our FAQ, include them here.
Remember, this account accepts anonymous comments, so if you don't have a Dreamwidth account we still want to hear from you and have you take part. Just sign your messages with your username and we'll all get to know you!
no subject
And yes, I was surprised by the same thing after the first few years of this challenge -- for one I wrote much more than I remembered. And for another, as you said, all the pieces add up.
I agree that getting started can be the most tedious part of the process. But especially once on starts to see progress, I think it adds to the motivation to get more done.
I struggled with how best to organize this, and ended up going with loose conglomerations by themes rather than chronological order of posts or chronologically by canon events.
This is really interesting! I am going to be using this for a future check-in question.
And yes, it's an excellent point about not being a perfectionist about it all. Most of the time the things that worry us are things others don't even notice. And ultimately, getting a lot accomplished will be its own reward.
no subject
I will look into Squidge for image hosting; at this point, it feels like One More Damn Account on top of everything, but such is the price of cross-posting. Signing up + orienting is 90% of the hurdle every time!
Length is also interesting because some chapters/posts are very short and image-heavy and others are longer and mostly text-based, so it looks like a lot, but it's actually highly variable depending on the chapter.
I will be the first to admit that thematic ordering is more chaotic and less predictable on the surface, but for my purposes, subject ordering is the best, because it means that people who are interested in that topic can find them all in the same place rather than having to jump across multiple chapters. This is also useful given that the reblog is a major component of tumblr, so posts build up over time in ways that are difficult to mirror on other websites. Trying to post in canon chronology is also challenging because I'm writing about imagery that appears in multiple scenes/episodes.
I did try to group the themes in some order, so that posts that refer to previous posts happen after the post they're referencing, but I actually like the "grab bag"/a la carte approach because I jumped around a lot when I was originally writing these, and it mirrors my typical thought/creative process. It's kind of fun to write short, non-linear stuff because I've written several long (20K+) meta essays with a sustained argument that builds upon itself over time (and thus order is extremely important)--it feels more playful and relaxed. Not everything has to be an epic, and I'm really coming to appreciate that!
I was also really clear in the summary and the author's notes about this, too, so I feel like people have a good idea of what to expect. Also, I think a lot of people prefer short and simple to long and complex, even though I naturally gravitate towards the latter.