The Fascinator #002
Growth | Contest | Collabs
We are overdue for another newsletter, Fascinators! I hope you’re all doing well and have had a great summer!
For me, getting back into the swing of things in all areas of my life has been difficult to say the least. My teen decided back to public school is where they want to be this year, so I’ve had a lot of hoops and hills to conquer over the last few weeks. I’ve lost time to write, but gained time with my other kid.
The joys of finding that work/work/school/life balance…. am I right?
Writing is fun, but it is my super-serious job as well.
Anyway, there’s just a few things I’d love to bring to the attention of all my Fascinators!
We need to talk:
- Growth
- New Contest!
- Collaborative projects
Yes, We Are Growing!
How do you measure the growth of a pub? If you count writers as a metric, well we’ve more than doubled in the past couple months.
YES — you read that right. More like nearly tripled our size since last spring. SOOO many new faces. I feel like I’ve been adding writers every other day for the past two months. But I’m not complaining!
I believe this to be in part down to the efforts of Tabitha for her great article promoting the pub, and also to our entry into Martynas Ki’s most recent pub venture: Niche. Sweet. Valuable.
We’re there, on the list of tagged publications. Certainly doesn’t hurt our visibility!
For August we have amassed 141 reads, and we now have a total of 45 writers on the pub!
No, I’m not sure how many we had at the time I published the last edition of the newsletter, but the last time I tagged all writers in a story was this past April to promote the first story contest — we had 13 then! So that’s decent growth in the past four months, wouldn’t you say?
That means for the next contest, I expect far more participation, everyone!
Speaking of which….
New Contest!
I will be announcing a new contest soon! I know, this isn’t the actual announcement, just a save the date! :) I’m still getting my bearings over my new life schedule, so I haven’t devoted as much time to all things FMF as I’d like. BUT I promise you it will be within the next few weeks. So start sharpening your story plots, thoughts, and ideas!
Be on the look out for that announcement soon!
Collaborative Projects
As far as the MacGuffin Mayhem, I’m sad. Either no one’s interested or no one gets it. Or maybe you’re new and missed the memo?
I finally went ahead and contributed a story to the Mayhem. If you haven’t read it, you can here; let me know if you think I pulled it off — and then write you’re own MM response!
I’ll keep the Mayhem going for now; sometimes things just take longer to catch on!
I don’t know about you, but I love interactive writing. If you have a great idea for a collaborative project, please don’t forget to check out our new Discord and join the conversation there!
So, a side note: I’m a big fan of The Kraken Lore. From my perspective, they’re like the big brothers (not the intrusive kind) of Medium Fiction. I aspire to be like them. They have a great community and a lot of opportunities to collaborate.
This month, I challenge all FMF writers to try their hand writing for The Kraken Lore, either publishing with them, or trying your hand at one of their prompts or Monday Mash-ups. Tag me in your story (Like this: Meghan E. Gattignolo [type: @meghanegattignolo] ) so I can check it out! Also, explore their homepage, and read a story or two!
We’re all trying to grow as writers here, and reading the work of others is a great way to do that!
Bring back any fresh or cool collaborative ideas that occur to you while you explore the pirate-y world of TKL! Also beware — I will start tagging my FMF writers in Monday Mash-Ups in the future as a way to alert you to a new writing challenge, and may incorporate the tagging into the way we collaborate in the future here at FMF as well!
All of us FMF writers are working together to build something cool, don’t forget! Your input is always valued!
Ok that’s all I got for now! Everyone stay safe, and keep writing!
Yes, I’m tagging you all this time! I won’t do it every time. Too much work! :) Just make sure you follow the newsletter to keep up with what’s going on here, and I won’t tag my writers all the time!
Hazveal | Kathy J Anderson | Ramiro Nicodemus Alexander-Duchesne | Silver Morgan - writer | Shyamashree Acharya | Daksh Pathak | adam stockton | A. Bombay | Amarie Skrip | Betty Rohlic | Sahil kumar.. | Ryon Plock | Chaipat Tirapongprasert | Charantej | ChyAmakamike. | Dana Stewart | Dani McBee | Daniel Sadowski-Tello | EFHL | HI I'M MIKE 🤖 (H.I.M) | Hima | Jason Lee Hodges | John Alexander | Joshua Odyek Obura | K.Asakura | Linda Locke | Marco Blasco | Margery Bayne | Maybelyn H. Plecic | Mike Howard | Misha Naraniya | MJ Bowman | Ninad Kulkarni | Oak | Paddy Murphy | Patricia Dickson | Diane Foster | Precious Oladimeji | Rebecca Langley Jensen | Sadie Frost | Matt Cabre | Mira St. Clair | Tabitha | Yusuf Ali
Take this as an opportunity to check out the works of your fellow writers. Speaking of which, I will start sharing my fave new story of the month in these newsletters.
This month I loved Silver Morgan - writer’s The Dream Job ! It was so subversive and fun to read! I highly recommend!
