Hold Something: Quarterly Update!

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Hey all! I posted in January about a project I'm doing called Hold Something, and wanted to post to share how things are going, and give new folks an opportunity to check it out.

What's Hold Something?
Each month, I choose a snapshot I've taken with my digital camera and use it as a prompt for a short story. Readers get a copy of the photo, the story (printed on high-quality paper), and a note from me. I also draw one subscriber from the list every month to receive an extra goodie, usually a spare author's copy I have on hand, but it can also be a found object that relates to the story, or some other shiny thing that I think readers will appreciate. You can get all the details here or check out an excerpt.

So how's Hold Something doing a quarter later?
Not too badly, at least from a production standpoint. I've got a regular editor (copperbadge, who's written and self-published some excellent novels), and a regular source for my materials. I know about how long it takes to do the actual material production and shipping. I would say in terms of reliability, things are Very Good.

Overall, readers are largely positive and enjoying what they get every month. I've got folks on two continents. There is nothing cooler than sending mail to TWO CONTINENTS every month.

Why should people subscribe?
1) Hold Something has turned out to be kind of awesome. ;) (No, really. I love making this thing.)
2) I pay my editor a flat fee per subscriber, and would love to be able to pay him what he's worth.
3) Hold Something is a project that creates an immediate and mostly reliable revenue stream, which helps me justify the amount of time I spend writing instead of getting a "real" second job to support my mom, fix the house, etc. (This is especially urgent right now since we need to have work done on the roof this year and I'm still scrambling to figure out how I'm going to afford this.)

Anyway. That's my quarterly spiel. Ping me if you've got questions, feel free to spread the word, etc. Also, thank you to the folks who do already subscribe. I grin every month when I go down the list, frantically writing addresses on envelopes.

Crowdfunding Update: Hold Something

[ysabetwordsmith]

 Read a progress report about "Hold Something," a project by bodlon that involves photographs, fiction, and other goodies.

Poetry Fishbowl Report for Tuesday, April 5, 2011

[ysabetwordsmith]

The April theme was "mad science." Amusingly, this month's surprise guest theme was eastereggs. A bunch of the poems had little bits of popular culture, history, mythology, or other allusions hidden within them. Several folks sent me messages about that, having spotted one or another of the eastereggs in the published poems or backchannel copies. Hee!

Regrettably LiveJournal was dysfunctional or erratic during much of the day. This slowed down the prompts and greatly cut down on the number of comments (47). I actually echoed the fishbowl on Dreamwidth, so some activity happened over there too. I worked from 11:30 AM to 2:00 AM, so about 12 hours 30 minutes, allowing for breaks. The poems ran long: there were no shorts, only two medium-short, lots of medium-long and epics, and one long. I wrote 17 poems. Almost all were free verse, with a couple of forms. Some poems stacked a lot of prompts together, although others derived from a single prompt.

A total of 19 people sent prompts. Two of these were new, stryckand meeksp. Welcome! Thanks to you, there's a second freebie poem.

Also, the new perk worked! Donations reached the $150 goal. The perk poll selected Monster House to get the free serial poem. Donors have been invited to offer a prompt for that.


Read Some Poetry!
The following poems from the March 2011 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:

"Anomalies of Mind and Time" (a Torn World poem)
"Dancing to the Beat"
"Dust and Shadows"
"Learning Curves"
"Science on the Chopping Block"
"Science, Unfair" (a Monster House poem)
"the two alchemists" (an Origami Mage poem)
"Where They're Coming From"

Thanks to the general poll and another donation, you can now read the complete epic poems "Paper, Scissors, Stone" (a Monster House poem) and "The Truth in the Tower" (a Fiorenza poem).


Buy Some Poetry!
If you plan to sponsor some poetry but haven't made up your mind yet, read the list of unsold poems from April. That includes the title, length, price, and the original thumbnail description for the poems still available.

Sponsored poems have all been posted. Copies of other poems have been sent backchannel to their respective prompters. The April perk-post for donors is about madness and sanity.

Donors for April include eseme, the_vulture, laffingkat, janetmiles, marina_bonomi, and kelkyag. Thank you all for your support. You are all awesome!

There is also a poll open regarding line numbers in epic poems. Please take a look at that and share your thoughts.


The Poetry Fishbowl project also has a permanent landing page.

Poetry Fishbowl Report for Tuesday, April 5, 2011

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

The April theme was "mad science."  Amusingly, this month's surprise guest theme was eastereggs. A bunch of the poems had little bits of popular culture, history, mythology, or other allusions hidden within them. Several folks sent me messages about that, having spotted one or another of the eastereggs in the published poems or backchannel copies. Hee!

Regrettably LiveJournal was dysfunctional or erratic during much of the day.  This slowed down the prompts and greatly cut down on the number of comments (47).  I actually echoed the fishbowl on Dreamwidth, so some activity happened over there too.  I worked from 11:30 AM to 2:00 AM, so about 12 hours 30 minutes, allowing for breaks.  The poems ran long: there were no shorts, only two medium-short, lots of medium-long and epics, and one long.  I wrote 17 poems.  Almost all were free verse, with a couple of forms.  Some poems stacked a lot of prompts together, although others derived from a single prompt.

A total of 19 people sent prompts.  Two of these were new, stryckand meeksp.  Welcome!  Thanks to them, there's a second freebie poem.

Also, the new perk worked!  Donations reached the $150 goal.  The perk poll selected Monster House to get the free serial poem.  Donors have been invited to offer a prompt for that.


Read Some Poetry!
The following poems from the March 2011 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:

"Anomalies of Mind and Time" (a Torn World poem)
"Dancing to the Beat"
"Dust and Shadows"
"Learning Curves"
"Science on the Chopping Block"
"Science, Unfair" (a Monster House poem)
"the two alchemists" (an Origami Mage poem)
"Where They're Coming From"

Thanks to the general poll and another donation, you can now read the complete epic poems "Paper, Scissors, Stone" (a Monster House poem) and "The Truth in the Tower" (a Fiorenza poem).


Buy Some Poetry!
If you plan to sponsor some poetry but haven't made up your mind yet, read the list of unsold poems from April.  That includes the title, length, price, and the original thumbnail description for the poems still available.

Sponsored poems have all been posted.  Copies of other poems have been sent backchannel to their respective prompters.  The April perk-post for donors is about madness and sanity.

Donors for April include eseme, the_vulture, laffingkat, janetmiles, marina_bonomi, and kelkyag.  Thank you all for your support.  You are all awesome!

There is also a poll open regarding line numbers in epic poems. Please take a look at that and share your thoughts.


The Poetry Fishbowl project also has a permanent landing page.