worldsmyths million challenge

Worldsmyths Million 2019 Discussion

Actually yesterday when making my planning for the week I committed to continuing my work on the webserial I started in November, but for me that's probably not going to be something that I can work on everyday (especially as I'm also looking for a job, do the household, produce a podcast and do other stuff). Unfortunately I have no idea yet how much I will be able to write in a week, let alone a month. That and my situation is just in flux, so I'm hesitant to join in right now, though I do want to.

I am interested in this challenge and like the new set up. I think adding the smaller amounts is a good idea too.

I'm interested!  I'm one of the ones who did go MIA last year due to RL issues, but the challenge did help me get a lot of writing done.  I've been tweaking my 2019 writing plans and have a lot of projects scheduled, so I would love to do this again, I think it would help keep me on track.  🙂 

@Romancegirl you could simply pledge the lowest amount of words available and see how far you get , a lot of members did that last year🙂

There's no obligation to write daily, those numbers were just to break down the pledges for 6 months to numbers that are easier to grasp. And the daily numbers would actually have to be divided by 6 if we do monthly pledges this year, so they're even smaller and more managable.

Welcome @Autumn, and it's good to have you back, @TricksterShi 🙂

2 hours ago, Romancegirl said:

Actually yesterday when making my planning for the week I committed to continuing my work on the webserial I started in November, but for me that's probably not going to be something that I can work on everyday (especially as I'm also looking for a job, do the household, produce a podcast and do other stuff). Unfortunately I have no idea yet how much I will be able to write in a week, let alone a month. That and my situation is just in flux, so I'm hesitant to join in right now, though I do want to.

Like @Manu said in her reply, you can aim for the smaller goals rather than the larger ones. And like I said in the post, you can change your word count goal each month, which will make it easier for things to be more flexible (hopefully). Like, let's say you commit to write 15,000 words in April, but you only write 5,000 words, and you know your schedule for May is going to be crazy. At the end of April (I'm assuming- we haven't figured out how sign ups/pledging are going to work this time, 'cause last year we just had the one sign up post and had a deadline for people to sign up by) you'd sign up to write 10,000 words for the month of May. (That's just an example.)

I think it's at least a little easier for people to commit to these kinds of things in the shortest term as possible, like they do with Camp and regular NaNo, so hopefully doing it this way will help.

41 minutes ago, Autumn said:

I am interested in this challenge and like the new set up. I think adding the smaller amounts is a good idea too.

Yay! 🙂 We'll be glad to have you!

37 minutes ago, TricksterShi said:

I'm interested!  I'm one of the ones who did go MIA last year due to RL issues, but the challenge did help me get a lot of writing done.  I've been tweaking my 2019 writing plans and have a lot of projects scheduled, so I would love to do this again, I think it would help keep me on track.  🙂 

Yay!

Concerning the pledges: I like the idea of adding 5k and 10k as pledges.

1100 words/day would be 33k or 34.1k words/month, so we could simply set the maximum pledge at something between 35k and 50k per month.

• 5k
• 10k
• 15k
• 20k
• 25k
• 30k
• 35k
• (40k)
• (45k)
• (50k)

Does that work? Any suggestions?

I'm in! I'm a fan of monthly goals that adjust to keep us on track. So if the first month we all blast out words, that means we have less to write for the following months. Or if we slack off our counts go up the next month.

Actually I was thinking that people could pick new individual goals each month - like the Muse said, pretty much like six camp NaNo's in a row. Last year, a lot of members went MIA - some signed up and never got back, so I thought it could keep people interested if they pick a new goal each month. If RL happens and you see you'll never meet the goal you set for the six months, it's demotivating, but if each goal is only valid for a month and RL happens, you can simply join in once things are smoother. And if people quit, at least the spreadsheets for the following months will be less scrolling and easier to maintain 😉

And people could sign up whenever they want - last year, some joined the forum when the challenge had already started, and they needed to wait until this year. If we do monthly pledges, people could sign up for the following month even when the challenge has already started.

I had adjusting daily goals in last year's spreadsheet, and if we stick to pledging for the whole 6 months, I can add a formula that calculates the words per month as well. Or per week.

3 minutes ago, Manu said:

the Muse

I know this is a probably a typo, but I like being known as The Muse now. 😛

I'm not exactly sure how this works, but I'm interested....I write  200k or more a day if I divide it up between all WIP. 

I'm interested, I've a project or two that will definitely enjoy this sort thing too.

I love this idea! I wasn't here last year so I don't really know how that went, but I hope that there will be more info on how to update word counts and everything come March.

I'm not sure I get the goal though. Do we pledge one goal for each month, or do we pledge a goal for the six months?

Yay! I'm very interested, because I'm starting a new project in March and this is a perfect kick in the butt to start planning. Wasn't here last year so I don't have any comments on the new set-up, I'll just go with whatever is decided. I'll probably be in the 30k a month-group or something like that. 

7 hours ago, kkmorgan said:

I'm not exactly sure how this works, but I'm interested....I write  200k or more a day if I divide it up between all WIP. 

O.O Holy crap! Sounds like this would be a good thing for you, then, haha.

4 hours ago, Titania said:

I'm interested, I've a project or two that will definitely enjoy this sort thing too.

Yay!

2 hours ago, Emskie-Wings said:

I love this idea! I wasn't here last year so I don't really know how that went, but I hope that there will be more info on how to update word counts and everything come March.

I'm not sure I get the goal though. Do we pledge one goal for each month, or do we pledge a goal for the six months?

Yes, we'll definitely have more information as soon as possible! I was a little late getting the ball rolling on getting it going this year, but we still have time before March so it's fine. @Manu and I are discussing things and will be working on the write ups and such, since we'll have to make some changes to last year's. Once we're ready, I'll be sending out an e-mail/making an announcement with the info for a currently private club that I made for everyone who wants to participate to join. I'll most likely have the info in a Google doc again but we'll also have it in the group itself.

It's basically like six months of Camp NaNo. You're choosing an individual goal for each individual month, and then at the end of August we tally up all of our collective words and see what we reached together. So let's say you pledge 15k for the month of March, and you reach it, so for April you want to reach a higher goal and pledge 35k. All you have to do is sign up for that pledge in April. Last year, we only allowed people to pledge one goal and decrease their goals instead of increase it, and our main goal was to reach one million words collectively (which we did. I think we well surpassed it). I'm hoping this year it'll be easier to do it this way, and hopefully we won't have as many people go MIA this time.

1 hour ago, Pinchofmagic said:

Yay! I'm very interested, because I'm starting a new project in March and this is a perfect kick in the butt to start planning. Wasn't here last year so I don't have any comments on the new set-up, I'll just go with whatever is decided. I'll probably be in the 30k a month-group or something like that. 

Yay! 😄

I was saying NOT THIS YEAR, but when I saw the possibility of pledging smaller parts, I pledge for 40K. 220 words/ day is a thing I can do. Especially when roleplaying posts are counted too.

1 hour ago, Elena said:

I was saying NOT THIS YEAR, but when I saw the possibility of pledging smaller parts, I pledge for 40K. 220 words/ day is a thing I can do. Especially when roleplaying posts are counted too.

Great. 🙂 As soon as we get the write ups officially done and everything figured out we'll send out more information so that you can officially pledge.

Yes, I'd be interested. I have done NaNo several times and think that these kind of challenges can be really motivating. 

9 hours ago, Dreamcatcher said:

Yes, I'd be interested. I have done NaNo several times and think that these kind of challenges can be really motivating. 

Yay! We'll be happy to have you! 🙂

So rather than make a brand new post, I figured I would reply to this and (hopefully) get some feedback. @JayLee has said that she wants to sponsor the challenge again! She wants to offer prizes as part of it like she did last year. Last year, there was a handmade journal, there was editing services...and the top winner got a fully customizable Second Life journal and a custom e-cover. All prizes were, and will continue to be, available to those in and outside of the U.S.

So, we need some suggestions for other possibilities for prizes! What are some other things you'd like to see as potential prizes? There's more than likely a limitation on what she and her co-editor are willing to offer again, so keep that in mind, but for the sake of discussion we'll say you can throw whatever ideas come to mind out there. And for those who are curious, here is her website for editing services. Please reply to this post with whatever ideas you have. One of the things she listed was a custom character portrait, and she also mentioned the journals again. Is this something you'd be interested in? Are there any other prizes you can think of that would be useful to you?

If shipping wasn't super expensive I'd offer up some kind of small crafty thing. Can we rig the test so someone in Canada wins? 😛

1 hour ago, Penguinball said:

If shipping wasn't super expensive I'd offer up some kind of small crafty thing. Can we rig the test so someone in Canada wins? 😛

Aaabsolutely. 😛 /said with absolute sarcasm

Edit: sorry, I just realized how bad that probably sounded. XD It wasn't meant in that way. But yeah, I wish shipping wasn't so expensive, too, it'd be cool if you could make some kind of crafty thing for it.

10 hours ago, Jedi Knight Muse said:

So rather than make a brand new post, I figured I would reply to this and (hopefully) get some feedback. @JayLee has said that she wants to sponsor the challenge again! She wants to offer prizes as part of it like she did last year. Last year, there was a handmade journal, there was editing services...and the top winner got a fully customizable Second Life journal and a custom e-cover. All prizes were, and will continue to be, available to those in and outside of the U.S.

So, we need some suggestions for other possibilities for prizes! What are some other things you'd like to see as potential prizes? There's more than likely a limitation on what she and her co-editor are willing to offer again, so keep that in mind, but for the sake of discussion we'll say you can throw whatever ideas come to mind out there. And for those who are curious, here is her website for editing services. Please reply to this post with whatever ideas you have. One of the things she listed was a custom character portrait, and she also mentioned the journals again. Is this something you'd be interested in? Are there any other prizes you can think of that would be useful to you?

How do you even win? And how do you know we really wrote the number of words we pledged? Also YAY! When there is a competition of any kind I usually can't participate because I'm in Europe!

1 hour ago, Emskie-Wings said:

How do you even win? And how do you know we really wrote the number of words we pledged? Also YAY! When there is a competition of any kind I usually can't participate because I'm in Europe!

Being in Europe doesn't mean you can't participate, in fact we have a lot of members from Europe, myself and one (or even two?) of the mods included 🙂 

Worldsmyths million is trust-based, we don't check if you really wrote the number of words you pledged. The challenge is aimed at motivating writers, and working towards a common goal in addition to your individual goal is what we decided to go for as the additional motivation. You win the challenge when you achieve your wordcount goal, the same way NaNo or camp NaNo works. The conditions for winning one of the prizes will be what @JayLee decides they are, since she is the one offering the prizes. The prizes are just additional motivation, they were raffled off between all members who wrote a certain amount of words last year. All of last year's conditions for winning a prize can be found here:

4 hours ago, Emskie-Wings said:

How do you even win? And how do you know we really wrote the number of words we pledged? Also YAY! When there is a competition of any kind I usually can't participate because I'm in Europe! 

Like @Manu said, it's based on a trust system. We have no way of validating your word counts, and honestly, even if we did, we would still use a trust based system. If you say you write 50,000 words in a month, we'll go with that. If you say you wrote 200,000 words in a month...it's probably iffy, but we'll believe you. We have no other way to prove it, and we're not going to demand that you send your writing to us just to do so. Like Manu said, it's supposed to encourage everyone to write, so while word count is the goal, it's really more about motivation and fun.

6 hours ago, Manu said:

Being in Europe doesn't mean you can't participate, in fact we have a lot of members from Europe, myself and one (or even two?) of the mods included 🙂 

Worldsmyths million is trust-based, we don't check if you really wrote the number of words you pledged. The challenge is aimed at motivating writers, and working towards a common goal in addition to your individual goal is what we decided to go for as the additional motivation. You win the challenge when you achieve your wordcount goal, the same way NaNo or camp NaNo works. The conditions for winning one of the prizes will be what @JayLee decides they are, since she is the one offering the prizes. The prizes are just additional motivation, they were raffled off between all members who wrote a certain amount of words last year. All of last year's conditions for winning a prize can be found here:

Cool! I can't wait until you have finished all the behind-the-scenes stuff and publish the rules and everything. I'm excited and have questions but I want to wait in case you explain everything 😃

And I meant that on other websites, prizes are usually only for the US and, as European, I feel left out. But it's cool that you include everyone. I suppose it helps to have a moderator in Europe, haha!

4

4