community newbie asks

[light_of_summer]

Hi, justcreate folks, I'm new to this community—thanks for being here! I have a question I'm hoping to get your input on: What can you tell me about month-of-creativity kinds of challenge communities, especially for art or photography or short bits of writing, either on Dreamwidth or on dedicated websites that allow uploading or image-linking to DW? I'm currently aware of:

• Inktober (I've done this in the past, but am dubious about repeating it due to controversy)
• November is Art Every Day Month (I've done this in the past, and liked it a lot, but I'm not willing to follow the community onto Facebook)
• Expert Photography Photo Challenge Calender (Prompts look OK, but hashtag for community looks intended to be Instagram-specific)
• ...various others intended for Facebook or Instagram, sigh.

FYI, I do most of my writing for an amateur press association, where community is built into the purpose of the organization. I miss the sense of art community I've had in the past with NiAEDM (and somewhat with both Inktober and local in-person classes that ended with the rise of COVID-19). I have a regular monthly photo group Zoom, but no explicit challenges or central online community associated with it. I occadionally do some crafting, but am not really plugged into a community for that, and am not seeking a challenge for that, right now. I'm currently hungriest for making art in community.

Thanks in advance for any info you can share, and I send you good wishes for your projects of all types!

Here I go, to tackle my next not-very-creative to-do list item. ➡️

Comments

[soc_puppet]

moodthemeinayear is a bit longer-term than you have in mind, but with NaNoWriMo going to shit, I ended up following an impulse to make One Month Mood Theme calendars. So if you want to make a mood theme in just one month, you can use one of those! (Mood Theme in a Year also has a six-week version (18 images total), and will likely have a three-month version (34 images total) starting next year.)

[light_of_summer]

Thanks very much for the link to your mood-theme calendars!

I think I'm looking for more outward focus than mood focus, right now, but the way you structured these may help me to come up with my own list of prompts, if I decide to go that way.

Much appreciated!

[soc_puppet]

I—huh. Okay, I hope you'll forgive me if I'm telling you things you already know, but I see that you've filled out the custom mood field in this post; have you ever used any of the pre-selected moods from the drop-down list? A "mood theme" is all of the images that go with those pre-selected moods. If you've got a paid account, it's possible to make your own, with screencaps or gifs from your favorite show, panels from your favorite comics, or just ...drawings of whatever. For example, here's fifteen moods for a custom mood theme by mouseboy; or for a site-supported mood theme, angelkitten's Big Eyes is another good example. If you don't have a paid account, you can also make one with original/copyright-free images and submit it as a possible site-supported theme, and it might be uploaded to Dreamwidth as an option for everyone to use.

So it's less, "Meditate on the mood listed here," and more, "Create a sticker you can add to the bottom of every post to match whatever mood you're in when you post". I hope that makes sense?

If you already knew all of that, I guess it's just a matter of different interpretation of mood theme creation and use 😅 Either way, I'm glad that you potentially got something out of the calendars!

[light_of_summer]

Huh! I did not know (most of?) those things—thanks for taking the time to clue me in, Soc_Puppet!

So far, I'm using a free account here on DW. I bought a lifetime account on LJ, back when my income was higher and it was still US-owned. I bailed from LJ when a commitment to comply with Russian law started being required. In the time since then, I've had less disposable income, so no paid DW account, so far. Depending on how the upcoming USA elections go, this November, I might be in a position to reconsider that. TBD! 🤞

[soc_puppet]

Sure thing ✌ I know I personally didn't use any mood theme very often before I made my own, so it's pretty easy to understand how it would slip out of your mind.

I'm kinda hoping that general mood theme use will go up a bit site-wide in the not too distant future; some of my own custom mood themes have been accepted for use by Dreamwidth (shriek!), and will be available for everyone after the next code push! Even if people don't decide to use any of the themes I submitted, it might get them thinking about mood themes again, and maybe they'll also decide to try creating their own, or just start using what they have more often. I feel like it's a pretty under-rated feature here, TBH.


That reminds me: holiday_wishes might be something to consider! It's not exactly a challenge community, more of a gift-sharing community, but a lot of people ask for things like fanart or fanfics, or even original art or fiction. It can be fun to browse through wishes and maybe fill some that inspire you. (Dreamwidth points are a not-infrequent request over there as well, BTW, so if November doesn't go as well as I'm pretty sure we all hope, you might still be able to get some Dreamwidth paid time that way 👀)

[light_of_summer]

Understood!

I did see holiday_wishes on another commenter's list of cool communities—it's nice to know that's out there, thanks!