Mission Revealed

Because of the weird times that we are living in, we decided to do the normal Blaugust event in April and call it Blapril. The hope was to get our minds off of everything that was going on in the world with Covid 19 and in theory give folks something good to focus on during that month. At that time I think a good number of us expected that by the ACTUAL Blaugust time frame that events would have gotten more or less back to normal. I at least was wrong about that and we are still very much dealing with the world created by living in a pandemic.

As we near the time frame of “actual” Blaugust, I still wanted to do something to mark the event. I think it is WAY too soon to do another “31 posts or bust” type event. Instead I put on my thinking cap and tried to devise something that would be more of a drop in/drop out nature. If you have been around the internet for awhile I am certain you have seen one of those events that involves posting or drawing something based on a fixed number of prompts. Those are cool and all but I had this brain storm… what if we turned something like that into a “pub crawl” of sorts.

What Is Promptapalooza?

The idea is that each day during the Month of August there will be a different writing prompt presented by a different blogger. I think it was Roger who suggested that we are doing a “Blog Relay”, because the second part of this is that each day the person posting the prompt will also indicate who is next in sequence for tomorrows prompt. There is a good deal of flexibility in this, and I am trying to set it up in a way so that you can either supply your own prompt that you want people to create content based on, or we can supply one for you to post.

What we really need is more sites participating, because currently I am roughly half the way to the thirty bloggers I need to carry this event off. I had been keeping it on the down low up until this point as I tried to work out the logistics, but I now believe it is time to do a finish push and get the rest of the participants signed up. Really at the end of the day all that is asked is for you to take a day and at the bottom of your normal post include the prompt that will be used for the next day along with a link to the next person in sequence providing a prompt.

So in theory it would work something like this:

  • On July 31st I would provide prompt number 1 and link to the person posting prompt 2
  • On August 1st someone would provide prompt 2 and link to the person posting prompt 3
  • On August 2nd someone would provide prompt 3 and link to the person posting prompt 4

This in theory accomplishes a few things. Firstly it provides a constant stream of potential topics for folks to write about. You can pick and choose the ones that interest you and incorporate them organically into your content creation stream. You can also completely ignore their existence and just sit back and consume the content that is coming out of it. The second thing is that highlights a different blog each day and hopefully gets traffic to that blog, letting a chunk of the community see what they have been doing.

My intent as the ring leader is to advertise the person who is providing the daily prompt. Since time zones are a bit of a butt this is why we are advertising the topic for the next day. My hope is that in the case of our Aussie and Kiwi friends that they will be able to snag that topic and still make it work. There are other details I am sure we will have to work out logistically as we go. The event at its heart is a way of prompting folks to create content and also serve as a showcase for the various blogs in our community.

What Promptapalooza Is Not

Blaugust Promptapalooza is not the normal Blaugust. We did that back in April with Blapril and this is an attempt at creating something new to take its place this year. It is not a mission to write 31 blog posts during a month, but if that is something you really want to do then by all means go for it. It is a more low key event designed to allow you to cherry pick the prompts that most interest you and also serve as a bit of a way to help spark creativity and inspiration. We are not running a marathon, but instead sorta having a big virtual block party… with social distancing of course.

There will not be medals based on participation. There will however probably be some sort of thing you can dump in your side bar to show that you were a participant if you so choose. This is not a contest but instead is a community appreciation event, that also includes a feed of new writing prompts. This might get integrated into the normal Blaugust event in the future depending on how well this goes. Just to make absolutely certain everyone understands, there is no expectation of trying to write 31 posts during this August. The world is entirely too weird right now for us to try and pin ourselves down like that.

How Do I Participate?

Right now I just need more bloggers to sign up. Once I get the number needed I will be working out a calendar and indicating which bloggers are to post prompts on which dates. These can absolutely be composed ahead of time and just posted on a timer. Additionally the form goes into detail about wanting to know what dates you can’t post on… and I will be using this information to attempt to create something that works for everyone. I think this could be really cool, but I need some more volunteers.

8 thoughts on “Mission Revealed”

  1. It’s a neat idea, but it’s a big social anxiety trigger for me. If it turns out there’s a shortage of bloggers, I’ll sign up, otherwise I doubt I’ll be mentally up for it.

  2. Good luck with it. I’m not a fan of writing prompts. I like to think outside the box, and do my own thing. So I’ll be doing the post a day for 31 days.

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