Monday, June 22, 2015

The Time Has Come!

Yes, dear readers and wonderful followers of "The Upstream Writer", it is THAT TIME again.
The time when you get a say in what goes on in this blog.
The time when I never know what's going to happen from one week to the next.
The time when you and I get to have a bit of fun together.

It's....

SUGGESTION BOX TIME!!

This series has been wildly successful every time I've tried it. And for those of you with whom I have traded follows, it's a chance for me to give back a little by linking your blog to your name.

You'll notice I've done it a little differently each year.

The first time, in 2013, I simply treated each list as its own separate scene.
In 2014, I chose to string each list together into one continuous story.

So to continue that trend, I am going to tweak it even more!

SUGGESTION BOX 2015: "A THOUSAND WORDS"

What is worth a thousand words? Well, a picture, for one thing. So that's what I am adding to The Suggestion Box: Submitters may now contribute a link to the image that will accompany their posts, and the option of a title to go with it.

WHAT ISN'T CHANGING:
-The primary list criteria: the list must still have a Name, a Place, a Time, and an Object

THE CHANGES:
-one of three Items (place, time, or object) may now be substituted with an image: whether it's the setting (like an image from a certain time or place) or the object you would like included (or even a certain way of interacting with that object; say if it is "purse" you may pick an image of a woman running with her purse, and I would have to include that in the scene
-you may also include a title with your submission, whether it's a title for the image (in which case the image does not replace one of the Four Items, and you can come up with all four of them) or just a title for your section—in which case one of the Three Items is replaced by the image
-also new this year is the fact that having Titles will allow the submitters to decide if they want their Lists separate or continuing from a previous List; to connect it with a previous list, just use the same title and add "Part Next"; if your list comes with a different Title, I will just treat it like a separate thing.

So... To recap:

-WHO MAY SEND A SUGGESTION LIST? Blogger Followers Only. (So if any of my GooglePlus followers want to get in on the action, just click the blue "Join this site" button and follow with your gmail!) I have at least 37 of you, so I expect a decent response! Every follower has at least a GooglePlus profile or a Facebook one, so I will go through my list of followers and be contacting you directly via one of those... So if you're a Blogger Follower, please consider responding at your earliest convenience!

-WHAT EXACTLY ARE THEY SENDING?

The Official Contents List is as follows:
- A Title*
-A Name
-A Place*
-A Time*
-An object*

Items marked with an asterisk can be accompanied OR replaced by an image.

GUIDELINES:

Qualifying criteria for the Main Four (Name, Time, Place, Object) are still very much open: any time, any place, any object.

With the added dimension of an image chosen by the Submitters, I would ask that you keep your images as "clean" and inspirational as possible! If choosing an image with a person, please no nudity; if choosing an image with a quote, please no profanity. In the interest of maintaining the quality of my blog, I may ask you to just submit another image if I feel that I do not want to publish the image you have chosen. (Knowing the sort of people who are my Blogger Followers, I very likely will not have to worry about this happening, but I just figured I would mention, just in case!) 

AND JUST IN CASE YOU THOUGHT I WAS JUST CHANGING THINGS AROUND FOR THE SUBMITTERS...

I have a new rule, too. The "One Thousand Words" series means that each installment I post MUST have 1,000 words. So, just like last NaNoWriMo, when I was doing my "1K-A-Day" posts, I will need to ensure that each list receives one thousand words in response. I have not previously had a limit; some installments have been longer and shorter than this limit, but not this time around.

You guys, I am really excited about this! (If you have any questions, please ask!)
Hope to hear from y'all soon! ;-*

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