The Village Bicycle Project

Pet projects. Groups, prompts, contests, news serials. We all have them, whether it be one, or two, or ten if we've got a premium membership and a largesse of time. We start them for various reasons: to make a change for the better, to provide an opportunity that wasn't there before, or simply to make our mark on this wide and diverse community. Of course, it wasn't always like this. When I was first kicking around deviantART, News was still in beta (heck, beta-testing was still in beta) and Groups were nothing more than a glint in the ninja milkman's eye. What few projects there were were run out of the forums, individual journals or dedicated accounts, while the vast majority of contests came directly from the Gallery Directors. But now, thanks to these new features, anyone can be a community volunteer. You might not get the hat or the tacit permission to fling poop or rend innocents with your dinosaur teeth, but you are a community volunteer nonetheless, with the facilities and the opportunity to make a real difference. And this is fantastic. Bloody fantastic, in fact. But like all fantastic things, even the Force, it can have a dark side.

When I came back to deviantART a year ago, I was stunned at the multitude of activities going on. Groups for getting your work more exposure, groups for critique, groups for prompts, groups just about everywhere I looked. Some I dipped a toe into, others I dived into head-first. The sheer choice was invigorating. But as time passed, the insular nature of many of these groups became more and more apparent to me. It was as if the community were made up of thousands of disparate cells, each with its DNA and mitochondria and whatever else you get in cells, capable of functioning on its own but with little or no connection to the cells around it. I saw people pouring all their energy into their own few projects and having none left over to get involved with anyone else's. I've been guilty of it myself; I spent so much of the past month trying to drum up support for a transliterations contest that I wound up neglecting all my favourite prompts. And that made me sad. Because it doesn't matter how many groups we have if we don't band together. Or, to extend the cell metaphor: a sperm and an ovum sitting quietly in opposite corners of a room ain't gonna make any babies.

This is my plan to get us procreating.

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Wheels In Motion

Once a week, The Village Bicycle Project will release a news article promoting current writing opportunities on deviantART. Contests, prompts, forum threads, as long as it helps people get words on paper it's fair game. Featured projects will get a full write-up in the article, a repeat feature each week up until their deadline and as much promotion outside the article as I can fling at them. With the Village Bicycle Project operating as a one-stop shop for prompts, writers seeking inspiration will know exactly where to find you.


But wait! There's a catch!

To get featured by The Village Bicycle Project, you first have to prove to me your involvement in the wider community. And I don't mean giving llamas, comments or even critiques--no, I want you participating in the same sort of project you're pushing. I want you writing. So when submitting your prompt or contest to The Village Bicycle Project, you will also need to provide a link to one or more (preferably more) pieces you have written for prompts and projects in the past month. What goes around will always come around.

And in case constant, efficient and quirky promotion of your pet project isn't enough incentive for you to put pen to paper, here's another spoke on the wheel: once a month, one writer deemed to have made a significant contribution to the writing prompt and contest scene will receive a Great Big Interview^TM and feature article from yours truly. Writers considered for this honour will have cast a wide net when selecting prompts to work on, produced responses of consistent quality and created valuable writing opportunities for others.


Is it really just for writing?

Yes, at least for now. Critique contests, community activities and so on are all very important and have their place, but prompts are my passion and the part of our community I perceive as being most in need of a bicycle up the bum. We are writers, and writing should be at the heart of everything we do, even when it takes time, even when it seems hard, even when the words won't come. In accordance with that philosophy, and although the existence of bicycle hearts might be up for debate, writing is and will always remain the heart of what I do here.


So what should I do now?

1. Send zebrazebrazebra a note with the subject header 'Village Bicycle Project'.
2. In this note, include a link to the prompt you would like featured and information for a write-up.
3. Don't forget to include one or more links to pieces you have submitted to recent prompts or contests.
   
4. Favourite this article, tell your friends, and get ready for the launch article on Feb 13!
   

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Why a Village Bicycle?

The first and most accurate answer to this question is that ikazon has a smutty mind. I pitched this idea to him, made use of a bicycle analogy, and a few hardy-hars later the rest was history. But it's ultimately more complicated than that. A bicycle has two wheels, you see, neither of which can turn without the other. We'll dispense with any technical explanation of why this is so, because I became a writer so I could avoid that junk. But imagine the front wheel is all our pet projects; our prompts, our contests, our groups. And imagine the second wheel is the time we take to participate in these projects. By now you should have an idea of what I'm getting at: for the bicycle of our community to speed along the ground and get us to where we need to go, we have to keep both wheels turning--not only creating and maintaining our own projects, but taking part in the projects of others. Otherwise, all we're left with is a unicycle. And people who ride unicycles are clowns.

But why a village bicycle, as opposed to some more, more respectable form of bicycle? The first part is obvious; this is a bicycle for our village, our community. And the second is in order to set up the cheesiest of taglines:

First you whore yourself. Then you give something back.