This year's second fkficfest/fkficfest story is now released! It's a crossover with Fear the Walking Dead.

As a reminder to writers, you can change the posting date on your story. You may want to change it from the day you loaded it into the queue to the day that it releases in the ficathon. Some of us suspect (though I don't have data to prove this) that this change in date improves the visibility of your story on the AO3 and may win you more hits...?

Yay, FK fans!

I had a power outage tonight — heatwave here; I presume that widespread air conditioning did its worst — but power's back now, and I've replied to all the FKFicFest questions I've received. If you sent one and haven't yet heard back, please re-send!

Right now, we have 6 stories in the queue! With only 9 players this year, that's an unprecedented promptness percentage. Thank you!

Better go add my own...

Addendum, Sunday, noon (Pacific Time): All 9 stories are in the AO3 queue!

Addendum, Sunday, 3:45 PM (Pacific Time): I think that I've achieved a balanced story release schedule, spacing short and long, gen and ship, vampires and humans.

In the reply thread on the latest fkficfest/fkficfest reminder, argentum_ls/argentum_ls, who isn't playing this year, made this very kind offer to those who are playing:

"Should anyone want someone to bounce ideas off of, brainstorm with, or generally complain at about the state of their stories, I'd be happy to help."

:-)

Edited 8:59 PM Pacific Time: To add Argentum_LS's LJ ID.

We're still at 9 players in fkficfest/fkficfest. If you'd like to play FK this summer (stories are due September 24), please be sure to sign up before noon (Pacific Time) tomorrow, Saturday, June 25. And please encourage your friends to play, too. Thank you!

fkficfest/fkficfest has reached 9 sign-ups. This means that the 2016 game will be exchange-style (not challenge-style).

Were you awaiting the tipping point? This is it! Join us? Sign-ups close at noon (Pacific Time) on Saturday, June 25!

(If you think you don't have anything more to say about FK, I dare you to read FK's entry on TV Tropes, Wikipedia, IMDB, or similar. When you find yourself exasperated with their misconceptions... there you go! write that as story! show the right way to read FK! ~grin~)

For myself, I'm tremendously relieved to just know which it will be, and how I'll be spending my weekend. (Matching!)

2016 fkficfest/fkficfest sign-ups are open until Saturday, June 25. That's a little over a week from now. If you plan to sign up, please don't put it off! I would so much like to know whether we're looking at an exchange game or a challenge game!

Players:

• We have 4 sign-ups in.
• 6 total people have told me that they plan to play with us.
• 9 players are needed for exchange-style play.

I've posted promos to:

• 5 DW communities (fandomcalendar, fandom_on_dw, last_writes, yuletide, femme_fic)
• 4 LJ communities (fk_fanfiction, yuletide, femme_fic, oldschoolfic)

If you know of more DW or LJ communities that would welcome a FKFicFest promo, please let me know. If you have your own fannish circle anywhere, please think about sharing a promo with them yourself!

Here's some HTML for using the ficathon's promo image, if you like:
<center><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/collections/FKFicFest"><img src="http://users.lmi.net/akr/fk/pictures/fkficfestbanner2016.png" align="center" alt="FKFicFest 2016 banner with 3 season cast photos"></a></center>

Today, May 18, 2016, is the 20^th anniversary of the first airing of "Last Knight," the Forever Knight finale (give or take local syndication).

I used to try to post a new FK story every year near the LK anniversary. This year, I've opened sign-ups for our 2016 fkficfest/fkficfest (our 7^th annual game).

Starting next week, I'll promote the game on every appropriate DW and LJ community I know, spacing out the announcements to catch the most eyes. If you know more communities I should consider, please tell me about them. And if you're fannishly active on Twitter, Instagram, or elsewhere, please consider giving a heads-up to your followers there sometime in the next few weeks, as well as to your journal's circle. Thanks!

No questions yet received on the FKFicFest schedule post. I hope this means that it's fantastically clear and acceptable! :-)

This weekend, I'll polish this year's steps/rules, and pick the contingency challenge prompt. Next Wednesday — the twentieth anniversary of "Last Knight" — I'll post them.

It's Presidents' Day here in the US, and I'm lucky enough to have the day off. So I spent my morning posting the annual FKFicFest pre-game planning poll (on DW | on LJ), drafting the promo posts for other communities, and updating the fest banner.



You can answer the survey until 6:00 PM (Pacific Time) on Monday, February 29 (Leap Day), 2016. Please do share your insights and recommendations. Thanks!

Winding down from this year's fkficfest/fkficfest (it's never too late to read! or to comment! please go look!), I've thought a little about the questions for next year's "Shall we play again?" survey.

Next year, 2016, will be the 20th anniversary of the end of FK canon and the beginning of our journey as an out-of-production fandom. If, when the time comes, people do wish to play again, I think it would be especially auspicious to hold a 2016 game, so I'll do my best to make it possible on my side (although of course one never knows). It would be our 7th game.

When the time comes, we'll ask again the questions that we always ask, of course: who wants to play? when? how? I've been musing particularly on two specifics:

• Exchange-style or challenge-style?
• Minimum and maximum word counts?

There's much good to be said for both exchange-style and challenge-style games. The goal of both is to have fun together writing and reading and discussing! In exchanges, more players tend to finish writing stories, but I'm afraid that someone always feels disappointed (sometimes even hurt) by a match. In challenges, more players tend to drop out, but no one ever feels hurt by everyone writing to the beat of a different drum. Our smallness as a fandom at this end of history may emphasize both the advantages and disadvantages of both game styles, in a way that the sheer numbers of a large fandom might mitigate. We can't afford to lose any of our few players in a challenge; we don't have enough players to ensure strong sympathy across matches in an exchange. (Not that even the very biggest player base, with the very best intentions, would be guaranteed to avoid misunderstandings! We can't read each others' minds, obviously.)

We've always had a 1,000-word minimum. ("A picture is worth a thousand words.") It was the most common baseline in fanfiction games when we began. We've never had a maximum word count, except where enforced by technical limitations (e.g. the maximum length of LJ posts, the maximum posts in LJ queues). Should we modify our minimum count? Should we create a maximum count? We want story sizes that fit both writers and readers, to maximize everyone's enjoyment. What are the norms these days out in the large, still-in-production fandoms? How do other games get everyone to finish on time, and encourage players to read and comment on other players' work?

Just some very, very, very early thoughts. :-) What do you think?