Announcing Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo) for 2020!
Timasomo 2020 has concluded. Please visit the Showcase Thread to see and comment on participants' work!
What is Timasomo?
Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month": a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of November. It was inspired by NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. The first ever Timasomo took place last year. You can see the threads for the previous Timasomo using the timasomo tag, and you can see the final showcase thread of creations here.
What are the rules?
Timasomo is self-driven and its goals are self-selected. On November 1st, participants will commit to a creative project (or projects) that they plan to complete within the month of November. There is no restriction on the methods/products of creativity: writing, painting, code, food, photos, crafts, songs -- if it's creative expression for you, it works for Timasomo!
Though most will be participating individually, collaborations are welcome too!
What is the schedule?
Timasomo begins November 1st and ends November 30th. All creative output towards your goal(s) should be confined to this time. This week prior to the start of November is for planning, and there will be a few days at the beginning of December given to "finishing touches" before we have our final thread, which will be a showcase of all the completed works. Below are the dates that I will be posting weekly threads:
Sunday, October 18, 2020: Announcement Thread
Sunday, October 25, 2020: Planning Thread
Sunday, November 1, 2020: Roll Call Thread
Sunday, November 8, 2020: Update Thread #1
Sunday, November 15, 2020: Update Thread #2
Sunday, November 22, 2020: Update Thread #3
Sunday, November 29, 2020: Final Update Thread
Sunday, December 6, 2020: Timasomo Showcase Thread
This announcement will be posted in ~tildes. All Timasomo process threads will be hosted in ~creative. The final Timasomo Showcase thread will be posted in ~talk.
Can I participate?
Yes! Timasomo is open to anyone on Tildes! The greater Tildes community is also encouraged to participate in discussion threads even if you are not actively working towards a creative goal. This is meant to be an inclusive community event -- all are welcome! If you are interested in participating but do not have a Tildes login, please e-mail the invite request address here for an invite to the community.
Participants will formally announce their plans to enter into Timasomo on Sunday, November 1st, in the Roll Call thread. If you are planning to participate or just want to follow the event, please make sure you are subscribed to ~creative where all of the update threads will be posted.
What if I have ideas for how to run the event?
Please share them here! I am facilitating the event, but I am completely open to feedback and suggestions to make this the best event possible. I want this to be Tildes' event, not kfwyre's!
Oh awesome, this could be the kick in the butt I need.
Last December I wrote a list of 20 creative endeavours I wanted to completed in 2020... In late October I am at maybe 0.5 of 20 😐
I'm going to put my goal out there..
I'm going to use my new-found-love of old style American country music and write a small album / EP... I guess "modern" country songs sang in the old style, but with an unabashedly Australian accent!
Hell. Yes! This sounds AWESOME :) Seriously, I love old-school country-western music. I'm excited to hear this!
Jinkers... Well I guess I actually have to do it then! 😅
Add another fan to the list! I'm excited to hear your music too!
Ok now i'm getting pre-emptive performance anxiety! 😂
Err, I meant to say that I am a THOROUGHLY NEUTRAL observer who is NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO ANYTHING and will NEUTRALLY EVALUATE ANY CREATION when the time comes.
Better? :)
Perfecto!
I haven’t had much intro to old country music, but I’m really interested to hear that with an auz flavor. Are there other aspects you plan to make it more AU style? Like song lyrics?
Im purely a hobbyist/bedroom musician, but in terms of my voices natural "output" - I (try) not to put on any accent.. Which may sound obvious, but the majority of popular Aus (And UK) music is sang in a more Americanised accent, and it's hard not to fall back to thus - especially as a lot of the country & folk music I like is American.
In terms of my lyrical style, i'm yet to nail this - but I know where I want to be.
I like the idea of writing using traditional concepts and stories - but using modern metaphors. The last couple songs I wrote (over 2 years ago) where about not being able to afford a house/apartment in my home city (called Home sweet home loan), and another is called Cryptocurrency Blues - which is about a lady who's vice is investing in blockchain (but I struggle with that one sitting to close to the edge of comedy)
I got through real musical "waves" - where I can write 10 songs in a year then nothing for 4 years... So i'm currently feeling really motivated by Timasomo!
Do you've a place to listen to listen to your musics? Interested to see these, and what comes from Tim.
Not yet, but will let you know when I get started! 👍
Participant from last year here! It was a great time, and I should have more time to put into it this year since I am no longer in school (the good kind, I graduated and am very lucky to have a job). Unfortunately, with all the craziness of this year, I haven't put much maintenance into the website I worked on for last year, so I think I will probably challenge myself to create some content for it. I'm not sure if I will do one or two articles, but I am leaning towards two since I already have the idea and some PDFs floating around for something exploring the environmental impact of real vs artificial Christmas trees. Anyway, looking forward to seeing who all participates this year and checking out everyone's projects at the end!
I loved your site last year! Also, congrats on graduating and getting a job!
Thanks on both counts! Things were stressful for me at the start of this year, as I graduated without a job lined up and had to work an unpleasant retail sales job for a bit. I did have the surreal experience of quitting that job and starting my current position remote right around the start of lockdown/quarantine in the U.S., so my life got much better at the same time many others' lives got much worse. I didn't manage to leave retail before being told the virus came from a Chinese lab a few times though :/
If a NaNoWriMo project is acceptable, I'm there.
It is absolutely acceptable!
Awsome, I'm going to try this year!
I think that I will participate this year.
Edit: My personal site is out of date (and down) and I think I'll update it. that's going to be my create something. I have had some ideas - for over a year - but have had a problem with "cobbler's kids shoes". I make loads of sites and systems, but never do so for myself. Going to try to recapture some of that joy of creation and also design something for myself. I don't usually do design, so this should be fun.
I enjoyed participating last year, but I definitely could have sunk more time into it. I was thinking about trying NaNoWriMo this year, but have opted instead to write a blog post every day (and take some time to flesh out my website as well). I've been practising "daily habits" the past couple of months, so I'm hoping I've built up a little discipline muscle for to nail a post every single day. We'll have to see!
I am up for it, marking it in my calendar now.
Interesting. I’m in! Hopefully this will hold my feet to the fire
This looks nice. Let's see how it goes.
So @EgoEimi and @acdw and everyone else planning on joining - do you have any ideas for what to do?
I was thinking of trying for a modified NaNoWriMo - what I'm calling #1kaDay. So, 1000 words a day of writing, whatever it's about. Slightly fewer words than the nanowrimo (30k vs 50k) goal, and not all cohesive.
That, or crochet something big, or updating my website ... again.
I have a couple of different ideas that I'm processing right now, but the best candidates for me at present are:
I have some grander plans involving ideas that are much more of a reach for me (e.g. a coding project, ideas for video editing/music creation), but, speaking as an American teacher, I think November is going to be pretty turbulent for me between the election and our rising COVID cases. Thus, I think it's safer to set my sights within my comfort zone so I have a better chance of following through rather than dropping it.
Last year I had to adjust my Timasomo plans on account of illness (which turned out to be a respiratory virus, hmmmm), and I'm not liking the unignorable likelihood that this year could end up playing out the exact same way for me. Thus I'm going to stay well within my wheelhouse out of an abundance of caution.
YEP -- stay safe! I think you're 100% right.
I've always wanted to get into twine, but haven't -- though non-linear narratives are DOPE
@acdw and @kfwyne that sounds awesome! (kfwyre, stay healthy <3)
I've had this idea of drawing a comic... something short, something doable, something dark. I haven't drawn for months. Not that I don't have time, I just feel like I can't somehow which is dumb.
So planning for that I am thinking about a page a week maybe 1.5... the issue is what the story is ment to be about... had this idea for a story about loneliness and masculinity - and not having the emotional tool set to break out of it and only being able to respond with violence and frustration, either outwardly or inwardly. At the same time that sounds kinda... boring. I mean something horror related would be fun too, but I dont have an idea on how to combine the two in such a short format.
I think a sort of existential dread-style, horror of lonelineses caused by crushing ... masculinity? (maybe ?) might be interesting. Or just a journal/CNF-style drawing about how loneliness affects you/people might be neat too, a la Hyperbole and a Half's famouse depression one.
Well I'm not very lonely, so that would be fiddly. :)
I was thinking more like being locked in to the role of masculinity, due to an upbringing as a boy that focuses more on results and gain, than emotional maturity or a capacity to communicate emotional frailties.
That is addled with a large set of pride, and simplistic modern stories of the hero, who beats up the singular person responsible thereby solving the issue just before end credits come along. So when failures happen there is no room for them, they have to be hidden at all costs. With no way to communicate these frailties and problem rage and frustration is the only proper out. And with a tendency to "make complex problems simple by adding a evil badguy to punch" the fascination with a corrupt group hiding in the wings making things bad seems so very alluring.
How the complexities of masculinty, perhaps added on top of loneliness and isolation - if not alienation from the real world, drive someone to commit horrid acts as a way to save himself - to handle his grief or sorrows even if its not how it works. The only path forward being a cliff.
EDIT: oh perhaps the allure of the story of the doomed hero is part of that? How certain death, instead of something terrifying can mingle with the myth of the hero to create this ideal that spurs you on in this fight against whatever format the "evil person" and their henchmen take?
Sort of like how massmurderers seem to rush towards the idea of death at the end, even if when that time comes many seem to back down as the myth of the good death of the doomed hero is plucked away revealing the bitter reality of the act forcing them to avoid the thing they thought was so fittingly romantic in the end.
EDIT 2: Ok ok ok this is late and the idea may be total rubbish. Everything is set in a small cupboard in a public building and the person its about was just settling in to die after having shot at several people, the police ringing him in - and as he sits there he realize that the last chapter wasn't at ALL what he thought it would be. What all those pushy voices on 8chan suggested it was. He realizes that he is not a hero going on one last charge towards the cannons - he doesn't want to die. And there, alone, in that cupboard the entire lie that he has existed in, the fabric he spun that pushed him towards this brutality towards and others and himself unravels ever faster as the police encroaches on his hiding spot.
And he realize, just then, after it all - with no one to blame but himself, that he existed in a lie and now the only person who can see that, who can explain it, is him. And no one BUT him will ever understand it.
EDIT 3: last one I promise...
The story circles backwards, like water going down a drain, to ever cruder realizations of a past not defined and controlled to become this - but surely one that pushed in parts towards this end. Around his thoughts goes to past actions, further back until - just there at the event horizon of the lip of the drain - the demand to stop crying by an adult, demanding that as a small boy, he should "be a man". And then it ends? Or is that kinda cheesy?
To bring a bit of horror into it, you could manifest his anxieties into a demonic form, which only he can see.
The reminiscence could take place by him talking about his past and his inner demon antagonising him, thus forming a dialogue between them.
Your idea sounds sort of like an incel version of "Occurrence at Tinker Creek," and it could be interesting! Also, sorry for assuming you were lonely ;)
Wait I have never heard of that OR can find anything on it? You've peaked my interest hard here :) Got any links.
And don't worry - we're all text on a screen, assumptions are A-ok :)
I think @acdw might have accidentally combined Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which is actually a pretty cool literary mashup that I'd be interested in reading.
Ok I have little grasp of US literature so thank you for the links. Will check in to them both.
Another thing I've always wanted to do was a comic version of a modernized retelling of De Maupassants the Dumpling. Focusing less on nationalism or proto-nationalism as a theme and more of the stratification of society and how in both action and inaction a group will always be condemned for it. The focus part of the original is the prostitute The Dumpling who agrees to sleep with an enemy captain to let the wagon she and a group of others travel in pass. This after being nagged and urged in to it by the others who then condemn her for sleeping with a foreign military captain and pointing out that its typical of her class of women. So that, but different. Foodora/Uber Eats courier maybe?
OMG you're right, oof! Pilgrim is one of my favorite books ever -- and Owl Creek is pretty good too. Anyway, a mashup would be .. interesting? To say the least :)
@kfwyre got it right in their comment -- the story I was thinking of was "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."
I knew you had a way with words but I didn't realize you could draw too!
Also there's nothing stopping you from doing both separately! You could try for your masculinity story as well as a horror-themed one and just keep the scope smaller on the two projects, that way you can go down both paths and see if either one pans out into what you want it to be.
I wish I could participate since I found last year to be fun, but I'm already really burnt out. In fact I am taking the first few days of November as vacation days because I'm just so exhausted right now.
That being said, if I were much less busy I would love to spend some time working on a comic book with my fiance. The only problem is that I don't actually have any ideas all I would be in charge of is scenario and writing.
No worries -- I totally understand the burnout. I hope things turn around for you soon.
This sounds interesting and I've got a fun little programming project I started a few weeks back that I've already abandoned. Might have to pick it back up for this!
I am here for this!! How fun!! I'm not sure what I'll be attempting but I'll be sure to post my progress. Maybe this is a good excuse to finally knit myself my socks lol.
Cool! I think I might actually commit to this - I am kind of busy suddenly since the semester started for me but I kind of want to do something. Maybe make a tiny EP of music - I would so like to hear some opinions on actually how bad my music is. But I am also kind of terrified to share something like that so I will see on the first if I will commit :).
I would love to use this to get organized and shoot a themed series for photography!
I'd love to take suggestions on what the theme could be, is there anything anyone would like to see here in particular?
My creativity is cars, so I think I'll use Timasomo to put my mishmash-of-parts 'big block' Toyota engine together for it.
I love this idea. I have trouble committing to things like this because I never really know in advance how much capacity I have for Doing Stuff because of my physical limitations, and even then I can only spare a few days a week when I'm not doing childcare, but I will do my best. It might be a good excuse to make a knife.
I plan to do a version of NaNoWriMo with my play by post RPG friends! Shooting for 50k words between all three of my characters there. :)
I’m super down for this, since quarantine i have been in a giant lull but this is the punch into my butt I need to get started again. Going to think about this the next couple of days and see what I should do.
I’ll start with what’s in my project list I started in January but didn’t get very far with...
Brilliant! I added that. Also, in doing so I realized I meant to call my current post the "Roll Call and Beginning" thread rather than it's current "Goal Thread and Beginning" title. If you've got title edit privileges, could you fix that for me?