Team Lift Fest: a charity auction for Sports RPF

Ahhh yeah, I was procrastinating on announcing this one. Thank you for the push.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to hold Team Lift Fest this year. I've been dealing with some pretty severe health issues that would make it too difficult for us to run, even with help.

Talahu'i and I are hoping we can bring it back next year. We're going to assess and see where my health is at and what our capacity is in the new year. I had a great time last year and would love to do it again, but unfortunately am just way too sick to run it, even with help.

There are a couple of loose ends that we still have to tie up, so apologies for that. I am hopeful my health stabilizes enough to wrap up those last pieces by the end of the year.

Also in "staffing" news, Max has decided to step back from TLF, and I just want to thank him for his enthusiasm for and his hard work with this project last year. He had such a hand in crafting that first year in so many ways ("Team Life Fest" as a name was his idea!) and I am so grateful for his contributions.

Additionally I asked Talahu'i help triage some stuff last summer - people probably noticed that she was answering emails for us! She stepped up in a huge way and I am grateful to her for her continued commitment to TLF (as well as keeping me sane!!!)

I'm sorry if this is disappointing to people, know that I am disappointed too. Unfortunately with my health being where it's at, I will not be able to run something this complicated and intense until I stabilize. Hoping we're able to come hack next year stronger than ever.

A couple of mod notes for creators as we head into the final days of our first year 🗣️

One - Works are due July 23rd, 2025 at 9PM UTC-8 (Pacific Time). ( What time is that for me? ) Yes, it's coming up, yes your mods are very frightened too, but we got this 💪

Two - when you have finished your work, please please please fill out the Completed Fanworks form 🤲 We need it for tracking purposes and it makes our lives easier in August and September when we start triaging, so we don't have to hunt through blogs and ao3 accounts to see if you finished 🥲

Three - if your offering was something more intangible, such as beta work, translation etc, and the creator you are working with isn't finished or the work you're doing together is still in progress and won't be done by July 23, please contact the mods so we know that you've been working with a creator, even if their work isn't finished yet.

Fourth - if you are concerned about your ability to finish by the deadline, need help navigating your workload, or just need to talk something about your work over, please email us at teamliftfest@gmail!! We want to help, we want to make sure you feel empowered to finish your work to the best of your abilities and not be completely miserable for the rest of the year or feel like you failed. We're here to help. (This goes for those of you who are creating works for the mods too! Do not be intimated by us, we are literally just some guys, please talk to us if you need some help.)

Coworking at 9am Pacific tomorrow! (What time is that for me?)

Join mod Max and maybe mod Goose and let's GET 'ER DONE!! Or more realistically make some progress 💛

We'll be hanging out in our Tumblr Community, where we host all our coworking hours, so be sure to join if you're interested!

Happy Friday, everyone!! We had a very small but mighty crew join us for our surprise coworking hours last night and we're excited to keep the energy going as we head into the last few months.

Two things:

First - There will be another coworking/hang-out TOMORROW, Saturday 6/7 from 10am-12pm ET/UTC-5 [what time is that for me?] in our Tumblr Community. Gentle reminder that this community is just for coworking and if you need to contact the mods, please do through our email. We hope we see some more of you tomorrow!

Second - Deadlines are coming up and we're seeing some people getting a touch stressed! That is fine and normal and we understand (and relate 🥹) completely. Please reach out to us if you need help! We have had several creators come to us to talk through issues with their projects, either in length or timing, with creative blocks or just needing some reassurance about their works, so please know you are not alone if you need some advice or guidance.

Third - when you have finished your work, please fill out the Completed Fanworks form 🤲 We need it for tracking purposes and it makes our lives easier in July and August.

Fourth - Works are due July 23rd, 2025 at 9PM UTC-8 (Pacific Time). ( What time is that for me? ) ohhh we got plany of time 😎

Happy Friday, everyone!! We had a very small but mighty crew join us for our surprise coworking hours last night and we're excited to keep the energy going as we head into the last few months.

Two things:

First - There will be another coworking/hang-out TOMORROW, Saturday 6/7 from 10am-12pm ET/UTC-5 [what time is that for me?] in our Tumblr Community. Gentle reminder that this community is just for coworking and if you need to contact the mods, please do through our email. We hope we see some more of you tomorrow!

Second - Deadlines are coming up and we're seeing some people getting a touch stressed! That is fine and normal and we understand (and relate 🥹) completely. Please reach out to us if you need help! We have had several creators come to us to talk through issues with their projects, either in length or timing, with creative blocks or just needing some reassurance about their works, so please know you are not alone if you need some advice or guidance.

Third - when you have finished your work, please fill out the Completed Fanworks form 🤲 We need it for tracking purposes and it makes our lives easier in July and August.

Fourth - Works are due July 23rd, 2025 at 9PM UTC-8 (Pacific Time). ( What time is that for me? ) ohhh we got plany of time 😎

Hello TLF creators!!! Thanks so much for joining me on this journey for the past little bit - I know I've gotten some good work done 🫡 And I hope you have too! I'm gonna start one final sprint at :40 for the last 20 minutes of our coworking time today.

In between now and then, sound off! Did you get any work done? Work through any troubles you've been having? Let's talk about it!!

That is so frustrating!! And I have been there too, am currently there, endlessly, etc. If I can offer advice on writer's block and lack of motivation that you did not request that was passed down to me from friends who went to MFA programs for fiction:

set a timer for 20 minutes, close all your tabs and/or put your laptop in airplane mode, and write. in those 20 minutes you have to write and only write. it is only 20 minutes, not 30, not an hour, not 2 hours. 20 minutes. then do that three times week and do it 3x a week for however long it takes until you are out of the place where writing is scary and frustrating and are back in love with your fic

practice what my mfa published novelist friend called "miniaturization" but what I would call "not!fic bedtime stories": instead of orienting yourself around your plot/outline/synopsis as scene 1, scene 2, scene 3 etc or x happens then y happens then z happens, you spend some time in a different google doc or ellipsus tab, writing the plot in the voice and tone of the story and dipping into scene and dialogue as approrpriate. this is not the actual fic, this is not even a first draft, this is you taking the outline (even if it's in your head) and giving it the voice of the story.

this is the kind of editorial exercise that only a truly mfa-pilled writer could come up with but it did unfortunately work for me once (and only once. but man it was crazy.) and I'm adapting for fic here: write the first draft of a scene, then go back and cut every single sentence except for the ones that are perfect. perfect depends on your own definition but for me it was the sentence that made me go damn!! I'm good at this!! and then after that you rewrite the scenes around those sentences.

The author who invented that last technique took ten years to write her first novel because she did this multiple times for entire novel drafts, but this is fanfic and we are not writing for a Pulitzer or a Next Gen award. So I think it's fine to do that once and never again bc it is a truly insanity-inducing way to write a one shot fanfic. But it did help me identify what I like in my writing and what I think I excel at.

I don't know if any of that helps - personally the first technique worked really well for me when I was under a deadline for a different charity auction. But maybe there's something in there that helps.

If anyone wants an accountability partner for things like sprints (writing together for 20 minutes ((or any other time)) and then taking a break), feel free to comment on this post or & y'all can find each other, and I might host a few sprints on the blog!

If anyone wants an accountability partner for things like sprints (writing together for 20 minutes ((or any other time)) and then taking a break), feel free to comment on this post or & y'all can find each other, and I might host a few sprints on the blog!