Sometimes events coalesce in a spontaneous manner and develop an inertia of its own. Most of us are dealing with the effects of social distancing and maybe even full on quarantine thanks to the time in which we find ourselves. So a few weeks back I wondered what Blaugust would be like this year, which lead to me starting to contemplate pushing it a bit forward to give us something to focus on instead of life in Pandemia. Then completely disconnected from this I was approached by Roger and Tessa from the Blaugust discord about maybe pushing the proceedings forward so we had something good and pure to latch onto. This started the ball rolling a bit, but yet again completely disconnected from the other events Syp reached out to me saying that he thought we should do a Blapril, and as a result you are getting this official kick off post.
The idea being that we can use a dose of internet togetherness to combat the negative effects of social distancing. When I thought about the name Blapril (pronounced Blay Prill), it reminded me of one of those pharmaceutical commercials that you get with the evening news where they never quite tell you exactly what the drug does… but they absolutely catalog all of its possible negative side effects. The only negative side effect here however is a renewed sense of community and a bunch of interesting blog posts to read during the month of April. Once again we rally around the blogging community and support each other with good ideas and helpful tips and gain the side effect of forgetting that each day we change out of our daytime pajamas into our evening pajamas since we have not left the house in a week and a half.
The Schedule
Something that we started over the last few Blaugust’s was setting up a bit of a schedule that is completely optional to follow. The idea being that if you find yourself in need of a bit of a structure you can fall back to the overarching theme of a specific week. If you instead have nothing but ideas flowing out of your head and enough posts to completely make it through the month of posting unaided, then by all means go with it and ignore the schedule. I personally do a little mix of all of the above and generally write a post or two on topic during a specific week and then do my normal daily blogging thing the rest of the time. However once again I feel like I should reiterate that the schedule is a completely optional thing as are the rest of the “rules” of Blaugust or in this case Blapril.
- March 29th – April 4th – Blapril Prep Week: This is a time for those of us in the community who have been through this process a few times or at least feel like we have figured out this blogging thing to help those of you who are new to the process to get started with some advice posts. Additionally this is a time to sign up for the Discord if you have not already and start mingling with the folks who are active there year round. This is also a time for the newbies in the bunch to get started on setting up their blog and getting those first few “Hello World” posts out there.
- April 5th – April 11th – Topic Brainstorming Week: This is a time for the mentors among us to throw out topics and ideas for posts to help you out when you find yourself staring down the tyranny of the blank page. We all have those days when we cannot figure out what to write about and being able to fall back upon the community for ideas and inspiration is a tried and true method. The prevalence of topic ideas also helps the newbies get started a bit with a constant flow of things to write about.
- April 12th – April 18th – Getting to Know You Week: Tell us about yourself and your preference as a gamer or whatever thing that you happen to like doing. This is also a time to reach back into the wayback machine and dredge up interesting stories that you don’t mind telling the community. For the newbies it serves as a time of introducing themselves to the broader community and bonding.
- April 19th – April 25th – Developer/Creator Appreciation Week: One of the things that has happened over the years with Blaugust is that it enveloped some of the better ideas from other events and combined them as part of the single month long celebration. Years ago Scarybooster started this idea of devoting a week to the sharing our love of the Developers and Studios behind the games that we play. Last year this morphed a bit to also include a celebration of the various content creators that we enjoy as well, so I am officially tweaking the name of the week a bit as a result to serve both purposes. Essentially it is a time to gush unabashedly about the things that you love.
- April 26th – May 2nd – Staying Motivated Week: Towards the end of the proceedings we start to have a drop off in post frequency as folks hit their writing wall. The idea behind this week is to share the tips and tricks that we have learned throughout the years on how exactly to stay motivated and keep posting on a daily basis. I feel like this is even more relevant this year since we are all going through massive disruptions to our usual schedules and having to deal with all sorts of external changes impacting our well being both physically and mentally.
- May 3rd – May 9th – Lessons Learned Week: The goal as always with Blaugust and now Blapril is to revitalize the blogging community and ignite those fires fresh for another year of posting. As such this is a marathon that we are running and not a sprint, so we continue forward a little bit into the next month for folks to have that cooldown lap and talk about the things that they learned during the month. This could be a discussion of your own personal journey, or focused on some of the things that you learned from the community. The idea being to keep it going just a little bit longer so that maybe the habit of posting regularly sticks.
The Awards
Something that has existed since the very first Blaugust was the concept of winning some sort of an “award”. In reality this just means that you get permission to use a dorky image that I cobble together each year, but the spirit is that you challenged yourself and followed through with the process. Daily blogging is not a thing for everyone, so as a result we have a bunch of “awards” at different levels of participation from the “I was here and got the t-shirt” level to actually standing on the medalists podium at the end of the month. A rundown of the “awards” and what it takes to earn them is as follows.
- Newbie Blogger Award – This is a special recognition for anyone who started a blog during Blapril or is relatively new to blogging in general and is using this event as their entrance into the larger blogging community. You are the hope for the future and we are going to celebrate it!
- Bronze Award – You made at least 5 Posts during the weeks outlined for Blapril 2020.
- Silver Award – You made at least 15 Posts during the weeks outlined for Blapril 2020.
- Gold Award – You made at least 25 Posts during the weeks outlined for Blapril 2020.
- Rainbow Diamond Award – You made at least 31 Posts during the weeks outlined for Blapril 2020.
Mentorship
One of the benefits of getting our act together and coming up with what appears to be a reasonable format, is that we already have a council of mentors ready to answer your questions and assist with your blogging. However if you feel like you are a grizzled veteran of all things blogging and have something to offer the world, then we are always open to more. Ultimately mentors should have at least two years of blogging experience under their belt in order to gauge the ebbs and flow of content creation in front of a live studio audience. We are not expecting perfection, just a willingness to share the lessons you have learned along the way with fledgling participants and a large dose of patience for questions you have answered a bunch of times before. Mentors should be relatively even keeled and only prone to fits of hyperbole when it is used for comedic absurdity. Mentors will be clearly marked as such in the Discord and can likely share some sage advice for those who seek it.
How Do I Participate
- The first step is to fill out the Sign-Up Form for Blapril 2020 which can be found here. Only those who have signed up will be given credit towards the awards.
- Next make sure you are active on the Blaugust Discord and the link for that can be found here. This is the third year we have been active on Discord and it is a community that has managed to stay evergreen throughout the years. Maybe even share your content each day in the appropriately named “share-your-content” channel.
- When you share your content on social media please use the hashtag #Blapril2020 for tracking purposes and to make it easier for those watching the event to find fresh content.
- Mingle with your other Mentors and Participants because this is a community event, and part of the fun is getting to know the community. These folks represent a social structure that you can lean on for advice in the coming years. I personally deeply value my ties with other bloggers that I have built up over the last decade of doing this thing.
- If you are so inclined there is a “gaming-together” channel on Discord for impromptu grouping in various games while the event is going on.
- Welcome to Blapril 2020 as we use the power of internet togetherness to help combat those negative side effects of social distancing.
- If you want an archive of all of the various logos and such, check out the Media Kit page which is the final resting place of all Blaugust and now Blapril related media.
