• About
• Archives
• Contact

08 Aug 2008 mellow_bunny

Kyouki: It’s going to be madness.

It’s about time I make a proper announcement and get this project well on it’s way. After a few months of intense workload I now have time to complete and launch one of three projects I have in development. If you hadn’t guessed already I have a personal goal in improving our blogosphere and creating new experiences for us all to enjoy.

So in line with trying to achieve this goal I have created a competition that aims at trying to get you out of your writing comfort zone. Not only is it meant to stretch your capabilities but it is meant to help you grow as a writer and to have fun with it. We shouldn’t be afraid of trying new things, we can only improve from what we learn.

Why is it called Kyouki?

Pretty simply it comes down to me playing with a Japanese -> English dictionary. I was looking for something that represented ‘crazy’ or ‘extreme’. I came across kyouki which much like kichigai, kyouran and hakkyou can have the meaning of ‘madness’. I kinda grabbed onto the ‘madness’ and ran with it. Kyouki can also mean ‘dangerous weapon’, which I think kind of suits this competition. When you think about it, words can be more powerful (sometimes more treacherous) then a physical weapon.

So although it was somewhat of a whim I think the naming of this project actually suits. Why is it Japanese? Well why not? I do have a fascination with the culture bordering on weeabooness. It only makes sense. Plus it means I can use sweet characters in the banner.

What’s in it for me?

Quite simply, prizes and prestige (aka e-pen0r). Not to mention that although your article will appear on the e-zine site, your blog or website will be linked to. Nothing beats easy web traffic. A mini profile of yourself will be on the site and we will have information about you placed on the right hand side of your article.

You will also experience a lovely warm fuzzy feeling knowing that you are one of the chosen few who get the chance to show their stuff off to an eager public. You will also feel a warm glow from knowing you have made a little bunny called mellow very happy :D!

You got me at prizes! How’s it gonna work?

As I stated before this is a project of mine. I have received valuable advice and input from a few bloggers such as yourself. Those who helped me out with forming a plan have first dibs on helping to  run it too. Because this is just a project, I am unable to fund prizes for all 12 months that i’d like it to run. Hence the first month that we run this competition will be a sort of pilot month. Based on what happens with the first month I will go to potential sponsors asking for some support.

When it comes to participants we are looking to have twelve different writers each month create feature articles. The idea is that instead of just writing something up and submitting it to us, we will work with you to create an article that reaches a certain level so to speak. This project is about creating something real, something of excellent quality and something that will bring our blogosphere to the fore.

Each of the first eleven months will feature a different topic. The topic will be quite broad to allow as many views as possible to be expressed. What will the topics be? This has yet to be decided and most likely we will put our feelers out to the chosen twelve authors of that month to give us ideas.

How do you get to be a writer? Once our staff has been assembled we will launch an application page. All that will be required on the entry form is your name, email address and a link to an example of your writing. It will basically work in a first in first served basis. Writers will be given a few weeks before their deadline is due. I don’t as of yet have a timetable for this but our staff will work with you to ensure your article is ready on time. We do not have plans to allow extensions for writers who are late. We have to stick to a firm schedule to make this work.

Writers will have a set of guidelines for the content that they write. This is to not only protect themselves and all those involved when it comes to legalities but will help keep a certain level of writing. I will explain more on this when we launch the Kyouki site.

So how does a writer win the prizes on offer for the month? Well the main purpose of this competition is to exhibit the writings. So the whole choosing who wins it is a simple process and almost a by product. Basically anyone can sign up with the site and vote on each article. They can vote on some or just one article, it’s entirely up to them. The voting is done on a star scale and whomever gets the highest votes wins.

You said staff, what are they for… and can I be one?

The staff are there to help run this event over the (hopefully) year. They do not have to commit to the whole year but it would be nice =x! Positions that are currently available include the following.

Moderators

These guys will be in charge of looking after comments on the articles and filtering out the spam and trolls. Their duties will also include proof-reading the articles and the odd other duty.

Editors

I am looking for a team of Editors, these peeps will be the support for the writers and will oversee them. Each Editor will look after a given number of writers for the month. They will work with their writers to ensure a level of quality and make sure that they are within the writing guidelines.

There will be more positions i’m sure but at the moment the Editing is the big one. I know i’m asking a lot because at this point I cannot offer anything but e-pen0r. Please contact me on “mellow at mellowspace dot com” if you would like to apply for these positions.

You called this a project.. how does it end?

At this point the project is planned to run a total of twelve months. The first eleven months will consist of different writers making their individual entries with our Editors. The twelfth and final month will be a chance for all the articles written over the year to be re-featured and re-voted for. The prize pool will be extended for this month and will feature prizes from all of the year’s sponsors. There will be a collection of slightly smaller prizes distributed to an as of yet undetermined amount of winners.

The end of the final month will signal the end of this project. At that point we will look at the possibility of re-running the event for another year under perhaps revised guidelines. We will not make a firm decision on this until the end of this year though.

This is when the REALLY exciting stuff will happen. The editors and management staff will then work through the 132 articles and ready them for printing. That’s right printing. Unless we are unable to use the article because of legal reasons we will publish your article along with the others in a high quality glossy magazine format publication. This will be available to all the writers in a PDF format. There will be a limited run of the magazine for those who want to pay the cost.

It is my true hope that we can come away from this event with high regard for the written word and the topic we so passionately blog about.

mellow