TL;DR — OBJECT WRITING CAMP. Keep reading for more.
So you guys know what stretch goals are, right? Goals that are so ridiculously out of reach yet still have that charming closeness and that would feel so good to achieve? Well, it's no surprise that I have had some stretch goals for my book and for this account. A few of them include:
• Getting a thousand reads on B.F.D. High.
• Getting ten followers.
• Getting a hundred votes.
• Have one of my several inspirations notice me.
And looking at me now, I think it's safe to say I've shattered those. The book, as of the time of writing, has over fifty thousand reads and eight hundred votes. I have over a hundred followers. And most of, if not all, the people who've inspired me over these past couple of years at least know I exist. So I think it's time to set myself some new stretch goals. I doubt I'll ever hit these, but hey, that's exactly what a stretch goal is.
• Get 100K reads on B.F.D. High.
• Get 5K votes.
• Get 500 followers.
• Become an inspiration to someone else, who then proceeds to do exactly what I did (but better).
• Get my name in Google's autocomplete instead of that outdated Microsoft product.
One can dream, right?
Anyway, stretch goals aside, that's not the main focus of this chapter. My next stretch goal, after getting ten followers, was a hundred. This was about the time I was getting into object camps like TROC. I had done a little research into object camps, and I thought that they looked pretty fun! There was really only one thing keeping me from entering a camp myself, and if you don't know what that one thing is, then read the vent I posted in my journal, "v3nt".
So I thought to myself, "That sucks, I really wanna do this camp thing." Then I thought, "Well, hang on a moment! What if I did the same thing...but for writing?"
See, the thing is, to animate, you need a device (preferably touchscreen), a good drawing app that doesn't break the bank, and skill. I can get those first two any day, but art skills have evaded me my entire life. (Again, to understand my artistic frustrations, see "v3nt" in my journal.)
On the other hand, all you need to write is a keyboard and a computer (preferably with working copy-paste). Even a potato computer can do it—which, actually, was a minor reason that writing appealed to me. When I started out, I had a potato computer, which meant that serious gaming, drawing, streaming, and watching non-240p videos on YouTube weren't an option. But inputting letters into a text editor was, which was why I loved it so much. (Thankfully, I got a new computer recently, so I can do more stuff I like, like making music and watching videos about the moon crashing into the earth.)
I connected the dots. I loved writing, I loved object camps, other people loved object camps, some other people were about as good as I was at art (read: our drawings are the spawn of Satan), and I liked the hosting aspect of reality shows.
Put them all together and you get an OBJECT WRITING CAMP, possibly the greatest innovation of the 21st century.
The premise of the camp would be simple: just like normal object camps, I would give out challenges, and all the campers would respond. Instead of animating, however, they would write out a short story or ficlet and send that to me. I would then judge the responses, and whoever's was the best would win. I'm pretty sure you all know how object camps work (and if not, look up how to compete in TROC on YouTube; explaining how TROC worked was actually one of their challenges).
I actually don't remember everything about object camp rules, but I do remember telling myself, "This is a great idea, but nobody's going to take the advertisement of a 10-follower newbie. I should wait until I have a bigger follower base." Bigger meaning a hundred. I tucked the thought away in the back of my mind, dismissing it as some flight of fancy and assuming that I'd never hit what I thought at the time was a stretch goal.
Well, I just realized that I did it.
I just realized that I've had over 100 followers for quite a while now. I totally forgot about this plan—I just assumed from how slow I was growing that I'd never hit it. But I remember telling myself that if I ever got 100 followers, I would advertise the possibility of an object writing camp to everyone in hopes that my now-larger audience would produce enough participants to actually get it going.
...Ah. That's the big thing I was forgetting, now that I think about it.
So, yeah. I haven't really worked out the details yet (and honestly, I've forgotten much of the rules). But if an object writing camp is something you guys would like to see, then let me know in the comments or on this chapter's announcement on my message board! This concept really has me excited, and I honestly hope that I can make this thing a reality. Even if someone else has done it before, it still would feel amazing to host something with actual competitors instead of randomly generated AI.
Another TL;DR — OBJECT WRITING CAMP. Let me know if you're interested. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next one!
