About and FAQ *** Monthly Questions *** Resources ***
About and FAQ
About
#ScribesAndMakers is a hashtag game on Mastodon for writers and other creatives. I was inspired by a friend who started a monthly group where we met up at a local café for drinks, baked goods, and conversation about our creative work. We talked about our progress, asked for help if needed, and offered encouragement. I wanted to create something in a similar spirit for an online community, with goals, check in days, and daily questions. Please feel free to suggest any questions you would like to see. You can either pm or mention them to us (see below)
FAQ
(click on the little triangle on the left side to see the text)
How do I contact you when I have questions for the hashtag game, or when I want to be featured?
Either pm us, or or just post them under the monthly question posts. “We” are Walter Thinman (@saposcat), Will Elm @Willelm, and @gahlearner
What is the Talk To Me Day?
It is one or two days in the month where we feature one specific creative person. We give the names of the featured creators at the beginning of the month so people have enough time to look at profiles and posts, and think about what they would want to ask. Getting more engagement is the name of the game. We ask one starter question each to get the conversation going and then it's your turn. When you post your questions, please tag the featured person and add the hashtags #ScribesAndMakers and #TTMD
Tell us if you want to be featured too. You don't have to have a product available. We're interested in hearing from all kinds of creative people and what you do. Absolutely feel free to use it as a marketing opportunity if you've got things out there, but also don't feel like you have to. We want it to be an opportunity to talk about what you're into.
Please be kind. We will post the 'dos' and 'don'ts' we get from creators regarding personal questions, or things they don't want to discuss. Thank you for respecting their wishes.
This isn't a 'live chat' event. You post your questions if and whenever you want to, and the featured people will answer them, but people won't always be able to answer right away.
I don't know where to start with TTMD, where do I get information about the featured people?
If you want to ask questions on Talk To Me Day, and don't know where to start, there's a hashtag #SAMInfo – that gets you to my replies to all the people who introduced their activities on February 15. There's a lot of info there.
This, people's profiles, their webpages, and maybe their posts should give you a good idea about their creative activities.
And if you can't come up with your own questions, you can always join other conversations.
What is Shameless Self-Promotion Day? Do I need to have a published book to answer that?
This is a day, once a month, where you can promote yourself. You can tell us about your published books, or about your art exhibitions, about the socks you've just knitted, a prize you just won, or anything else creative you want to share with us. It can be a marketing event for you, but it doesn't have to be. And you get boosted. We support each other.
What are hashtag games and how do they work?
In the writing community different people post prompts or questions on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. These can be prompts for writing flash fiction or a poem, or they can be questions that are, more or less, related to writing. People answer these questions and use the hashtag, so others can easily find their answers. That's what many call hashtag games. The strictest rule for most of these is: be kind to each other.
The prompts are often written by individuals or a group of people who keep the game running and usually participate and interact with the people who play. These people usually post a list of questions for the month, or the daily prompt. The questions often also can be found on blogs, websites or google docs maintained by them, just check out their profiles.
Here's a short list of hashtag games about writing and creativity.
#SctibesAndMakers – details see above in the About section.
#WordWeavers – Has been around on Mastodon for years now, a classic. Daily questions about writing, plot and characters. Run by @AlinaLeonova@wandering.shop and @BranwenOShea@writing.exchange.
#WritersCoffeeClub – a spin off from #WordWeavers that focusses more on the technical aspect of writing. Invented by @johnhowesauthor@mastodonapp.uk, now run by @paris@wandering.shop.
#PennedPossibilites – daily questions about writing, plot, and characters. There isn't a list of monthly questions, the questions are posted daily by @floofpaldi@mindly.social.
There are many more games and prompts. If you have games you want to see on this list, please pm us.
Steve DeGroof @degroof@mastodon.social compiles a plain text list with the monthly questions of four of the hashtag games here in this google doc file
*** Monthly Questions ***