Crowdfunding: Connecting Creators and Patrons

Welcome to the 138th Crowdfunding Creative Jam! This session will run Saturday, November 16-Sunday, November 17. The theme is "Unconditional Love."

Crowdfunding Creative Jam

Everyone is eligible to post prompts, which may be words or phrases, titles, images, etc. Prompters may request a specific creator, but everyone else may still use that prompt if they wish. Prompts may specify a particular character/world/etc. but creators may use the prompt for something else anyway and post the results. Prompters are still encouraged to post mostly prompts that anyone could use anywhere, as this maximizes the chance of having creators make something based on your prompt. Please title your comment "Prompt" or "Prompts" when providing inspiration so these are easy to find.

Prompt responses may also be treated as prompts and used for further inspiration. For example, a prompt may lead to a sketch which leads to a story, and so on. This kind of cascading inspiration is one of the most fun things about a collective jam session.

Everyone is eligible to use prompts, and everyone who wants to use a given prompt may do so, for maximum flexibility of creator choice in inspiration. You do not have to post a "Claim" reply when you decide to use a prompt, but this does help indicate what is going on so that other prompters can spread out their choice of prompts if they wish.

Creators are encouraged, but not required, to post at least one item free. Likewise, sharing a private copy of material with the prompter is encouraged but not required. Creative material resulting from prompts should be indicated in a reply to the prompt, with a link to the full content elsewhere on the creator's site (if desired); a brief excerpt and/or description of the material may be included in the reply (if desired). It helps to title your comment "Prompt Filled" or something like that so these are easy to identify. There is no time limit on responding to prompts. However, creators are encouraged to post replies sooner rather than later, as the attention of prompters will be highest during and shortly after the session.

Some items created from prompts may become available for sponsorship. Some creators may offer perks for donations, linkbacks, or other activity relating to this project. Check creator comments and links for their respective offerings.

Prompters, creators, and bystanders are expected to behave in a responsible and civil manner. If the moderators have to drag someone out of the sandbox for improper behavior, we will not be amused. Please respect other people's territory and intellectual property rights, and only play with someone else's characters/setting/etc. if you have permission. (Fanfic/fanart freebies are okay.) If you want to invite folks to play with something of yours, title the comment something like "Open Playground" so it's easy to spot. This can be a good way to attract new people to a shared world or open-source project, or just have some good non-canon fun.

Boost the signal! The more people who participate, the more fun this will be. Hopefully we'll see activity from a lot of folks who regularly mention their projects in this community, but new people are always welcome. You can link to this session post or to individual items created from prompts, whatever you think is awesome enough to recommend to your friends.

Romance Writers Association has officially come out as homophobic and discriminatory, banning same-sex romances from their contest.  Okay, anyone who makes a contest can make up the rules for it.  But it's more than a little counterproductive for a genre  based organization to cut out part of its own content, just because it makes some people "uncomfortable."  You know what makes me uncomfortable?  Bigotry.  That's as romantic as a knee in the crotch.

A good way to express such disapproval is with a boycott and a round of Poke a Bigot in the Eye.  Instead of writing and reading a het romance, write or read a queer one instead.  Instead of giving money to RWA for dues or anything else, take the same amount and put it somewhere queer.  

Maybe drop something into the fundraiser for Plunge, a webzine dedicated to queer women in genre literature.  Fund a few verses of my poem "The Morose Mascot," where two lesbians help a porcupine escape his evil mistress.  kajones_writing has Nadia, a vampire who prefers female partners; in this project characters may be adopted, stories requested, stories sponsored, etc.  ("Morgan - First Feed Part 1" is a Nadia story waiting for sponsorship to become public.)  Looking for a sweet male romance?  Check out "The Less Than Epic Adventures of T.J. and Amal," currently in the running for a Rose & Bay Award in the Webcomic category.  Over in Torn World we have various options including the adorable series about Dini and Lalya by wyld_dandelyon (most of which are public, one waiting for sponsorship) and my story "Owlheart" about Tekura and Osro (also waiting for sponsorship).  There's plenty of romance in alllll combinations in the crowdsource fandom Schrodinger's Heroes. Feel free to play with any of the characters.  "French Military Victories" has male/male romance; it's a crossover fanfic and thus not fundable, but you can read it and giggle.  wonder_city has all kinds of queer characters spanning various superhero soap opera plot threads.

Want more queer romance?  Ask for it in any prompt call where it seems to fit.  (See a list of February crowdfunding projects.)  The February Creative Jam here has a theme of alternative sexualities / QUILTBAG -- my, how timely!  Bring your prompts, your muse, and your money.  Torn World Muse Fusions are always wide open.  asexual_fandom is running an asexual romance fest for Valentine's Day, spanning Feb. 7-21; if you like queer romance for its own sake, without expectation of sex, there's an opportunity to celebrate it.  My Poetry Fishbowl this month has a theme of "wild animals" and I'm open to covering any of the thousand or so species that are homoactive.  

Do you run a crowdfunded project?  Consider setting "queer romance" as a theme, or touching on this topic in your ongoing work.

You could also look through the Rose & Bay Award nominees to see which ones have queer content; there are several.

I've thrown out a handful of examples here, stuff I've written or read regularly or remember off the top of my head.  If you write, draw, filk, or otherwise portray queer romance and want to promote your project then please describe it in a comment.  

Romance is for everyone.  In crowdfunding, nobody has to take "you can't play" for an answer.  So let's give the dirty laundry a good steam-cleaning!