My Own Challenge

 There is just one week left (final date: 30th September) to submit your writing competition piece. Remember, there's no minimum or maximum length it has to be!

   I've been putting this off for some time, but I'm finally ready to reveal it.
   I mentioned in the past that I wanted to start my own WoW blogging challenge. But, being a fidgety soul, I had to do something creative. So, due also to the long-winded nature of my challenge, it is not necessarily something that everyone would be willing to follow, and so, instead, I leave it open. Join in a year from now, if you'd like, but don't be put off because it sounds 'hard'.

   I set myself a challenge to make something WoW-based out of every single creative medium I could think of and actually do. When I say actually do, I mean have the means to start, complete, and appropriately present. Music will not be part of my challenge because I cannot sing, I have no instruments, no recording equipment of any kind, no access to any, and no musical talent. My songs would just be poems that go along to the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star tune. Not good.
   I've really put myself in the spotlight here. Creativity is something I pride myself on. It's where almost all of my money comes from, and while I know that there are some things I can do well, there are a lot I'm not so confident about, and not because I haven't tried. Some things I'm just not good at, no matter what I do. But my goal of this challenge was to try new crafting mediums that I'd never tried before, and see how many of them could be applied to WoW.
   So far, at this moment, I have 7 completed projects, and 4 more immediately in mind and half prepared, but I have even more in mind that I've not fully planned out yet.
   I'm going to present them on my blog, one a week, starting from this weekend with the more obvious of creative mediums I've done so far, and some pieces I'm selling because I will either never use them, or I can make another of should I want one for myself, and will sell the original because I need the money. In these cases, there will be a link at the bottom of the item's post leading you to an Etsy listing (paypal payments) where it can be purchased from, and yes, I am used to shipping worldwide.

In case anyone is interested in participating, here are the guidelines I've set myself for the challenge:

1. Everything you make must be WoW-based. You can choose another game instead if you want, but you must stick to that game and that game only for the duration of the challenge.

2. Each item must be made from a different creative medium. You may not repeat mediums. In this case, 'creative' means anything that you have to be creative to achieve. It sounds obvious, I know, but it needs to be said. Anything that can be called an 'art' counts. However, there are some arts that have many subgenres, all of which can be acceptable as different mediums. An example of such a medium would be culinary - baking, cooking, confectionary, chocolatiering and cake decorating can all be classified, for the purpose of this challenge, as seperate mediums, but I wouldn't suggest you stick to just culinary arts. Try to broaden yourself.

3. If you try a medium that doesn't work all that well, you are still obligated to post it. This means if you make something and it goes horribly wrong, you're obligated to show it on your blog as a part of your challenge. However, in these cases, you can either choose not to bother with that medium, or you are allowed to retry a medium until you're confident that you've made something good with it. In such a case, you may feature the most successful of the two or so attempts as your main submission for that week, but you must show previous attempts that failed at the end, kind of like bloopers. Learn to laugh at yourself. Believe me, I know that, where creativity is concerned, it's hard to show things that didn't go well and open yourself to criticism, but there will always be people who think something you think is awesome, is awful, or will tell you something you did was awful, even if it truly was amazing. Some people are trolls, and are jealous and just looking to put people down because they don't possess the skill needed to create such things. I've encountered many of these in my time, and I likely will again in this very challenge. It's a matter of opinion, and you must be willing to accept that. However, if you're that concerned, you can always disable comments on the challenge posts and prevent both the good and the bad comments.

4. If you're looking for an end to this challenge - and in some ways, there could be a few hundred different mediums - then either 10 submissions, or when you really can't think of another medium to try. Whichever comes first. Alternatively, do away with such things and carry on until you can go no further, or lose interest. I initially though I could exceed 15, but now I'm not so sure. Some of these crafts are expensive, and money, unfortunately, is questionable at this time, which is part of the reason that I'm going to be selling some of these pieces.

This isn't an official challenge competition with a deadline, this is an on-going thing that anyone can join in with at any time they want. I may do a competition similar one day, but there will be a limit to around 5 pieces per person, rather than 15, and, hopefully, some actually really awesome prizes to compensate for the time taken. We'll have to see. In the mean time, consider this a leisure challenge. Don't feel the need to complete a new piece every week. I started this challenge 2 months ago, and have only announced it now because I have built up just enough pieces to cover the posts while I make others. Some things I made took only a few hours, others took a few days, and one in particular took three weeks. That one I am particularly proud of. So if you do want to try it out, feel free to make a few different pieces before making any kind of announcement on your blogs. You never know, you might find you're really good at something, and that is worth practising. You could make a little extra money on the side. I'm far from amazing at watercolour painting, but I had a natural knack for it the first time I tried it. I usually use acrylic paint, and I've used that stuff for years and had a lot more practice with it, but I'm nowhere near as good at that as I am with watercolours. Of course, I have a long way to go to reach the skill level of my dad with those paints.

To give you a nudge, here are 10 creative medium suggestions that you may not have thought of:

• Needlefelting
• Crochet
• Carpentry
• Flower arranging
• Photography
• Costuming
• Make up
• Writing
• Video
• Poster design