Thursday, December 24, 2015

#30mdare 2015!

Do you want to write ALL THE WORDS this holiday season? Yes. Yes, you do. And the best way to make that happen is by playing #30mdare (it's basically a word count Christmas miracle).

How #30mdare Got Started

In 2013, Rebecca Petruck launched a spontaneous writing challenge during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day for a bunch of us from OneFour KidLit, a collective of MG and YA authors whose books debuted in 2014. We “dared” each other and anyone else who wanted to play to write the most words during 30-minute writing sprints with winner choosing the others’ Twitter avatars. And there were some doozies! In five days, fifteen of us wrote a total of 53,000 words. (See the Publishers Weekly article here.)

Last year was even better/stronger/faster with 38 participants, 74, dares, 6 manuscripts completed, and 242,296 words. Let's just pause for a second to let that number sink in. 242,296. That's a lot of words.

It would be fantastic to break 100,000 words again and encourage even more participation so writers everywhere can leap into 2016 feeling as energized and inspired as we all did last year. Please spread the word via your blogs, social networks, critique partners, and other friends.

THE DEAL

Official Week: 12/26/15 – 12/30/15, beginning at midnight, ending at midnight ET (for you Night Writers and non-ETs)

A Dare: Anyone may moderate, but a minimum of three must sprint together.
Check the #30mdare hashtag on Twitter to check if anyone is about to launch a dare. If not, put the call out that you would like to sprint at X:XX and see if you get any takers.

I plan to lead several dares a day. Twitter: @rachael_allen. Also keep an eye on Kaye M. @gildedspine, Jaye Robin Brown @JayeRobinBrown, Christina Farley @ChristinaFarley, Pat Esden @patesden, and Elizabeth May @_ElizabethMay in particular, though all will use the #30mdare hashtag, so you should be able to find a dare anytime. And remember you may always lead one yourself!

Dare! The moderator will call the official Start/Stop of the 30-minute writing sprint, collect the word counts, and declare the winner. The winner will choose an avatar for the others in his/her dare.

Avatars: Must be “worn” a minimum of 12 hours or until your next dare. Avatars should be funny, embarrassing, or both—but not indecent or otherwise inappropriate for a group of mostly kidlit authors! (You know who you are, stinkers!) 

IMPORTANT! Moderators please immediately post your date/time, participants, word counts, and a link to the assigned avatar to the shared spreadsheet! This is ESSENTIAL for those who wish to win fame and the right to crow outrageously on social media. Let’s hit 100,000, dare-junkies!

I'm making the spreadsheet public so that anyone can jump in to moderate a dare and update the spreadsheet info. Here is the link for everyone to check stats and add information.

Winners!

Winners of the following categories will be featured in a #30mdare 2015 wrap up blog post and receive the adoration of the people:

Highest total word count 

Highest single-dare word count

Most dares completed

Most dares won

Completed manuscript!
Your personal avatar will be photoshopped with a crown to use at will.

Funniest dare avatar (to be determined by a not impartial panel of judge(s))
Your personal avatar will be photoshopped with a mustache to use at will. (There may be daily or otherwise multiple winners.)
HONOR SYSTEM: The dares and prizes are for fun, and most of us are proud to wear silly avatars (except that one time because Jaye Robin Brown is Ee-Vill). Nothing we do here is worth building up bad karma! Simply have fun and be inspired.

Let’s make this a #30mdare Holiday Blitz of Awesome!



Also - a huge thanks to Rebecca Petruck for A) thinking of this, B) taking the helm on it the past two years, and C) letting me use her blog post and spreadsheet as my templates. She rocks and so does her book STEERING TOWARD NORMAL, and you should totally follow her on Twitter here: @RebeccaPetruck