Signal Boost - mostly writing and iconing

I want to try and do more signal boosting. I always mention communities when I've signed up for or completed something with them, from allbingo to unconventionalcourtship and sometimes signal boost/promote other communities, but I'll try and do even more to help visibility.
If we're going to sustain the uptick in activity and make DW more successful as a community based endeavour, we need to be able to find our people and share our interests! One of the many things Tumblr does badly is the lack of communities, which as one post mentioned "following people instead of joining communities based on interests has negative emotional and social implications"; on DW we join communities for shared activities and when we follow individuals it is because we are compatible with that person in some way and we treat them as friends not as "random person who reblogs other people's content".

I'll start with some writing communities because a lot of us here are writers or want to get into writing more.

It is the LAST DAY to pledge to join getyourwordsout for 2019 a community I highly recommend. There's no punitive measures if you don't meet your goal so set it as high or low as you want, choose from wordcount or days-spent-writing and get the shiny spreadsheet and access to a community of writers all striving to put down words this year.

Some non-bingo writing communities (not an exhaustive list!)

dailyprompt
fandomweekly weekly 1k or less fic challenge, fandom and original
fffc flash fiction Friday
fic_promptly comment fic multi-fandom
ficlet_zone monthly multi-fandom fic writing
thedailywriter
writingfrenzy

For wordcounts of specific length:
semidrabbles: 50 words
drabble_zone 100 words (and 200 word double drabbles)
sesquidrabbles: 150 words
doubledrabbles: 200 words
tripledrabbles: 300 words

thewritersherald is a great place to find and promote communities and events for writers.

Writing prompts:

luthien has a drabble challenge with 30 prompts here,
liquidtears would like more fic with shower scenes not necessarily smutty, just showering. As someone who loves shower scenes I approve!


Icons
And in the spirit of doing new things/returning to old practices, I entered some icons at iconthat (I'll make a post of all challenge icons when I have a few and the various deadlines have passed.) The current theme is Affection.
There's also fandom10in30, icons10in20, and a not challenge community, icontalking whose sticky post has a list of active iconmaking communities and communities that welcome icons/have challenges for them.

Others

onthedisc a Terry Pratchett community!

I've joined lands_of_magic a landcomm/challenge community now open to all fandoms. Next round begins in February so you've plenty of time to sign up.

Snowflake Challenge Day 15

Day 15 - Talk about why you participated in Snowflake &/or what you got out of it.

This is a lovely one, especially this year. I wasn't sure how much time I'd have to participate but after the first few days I managed to hit my stride and enjoy not just writing entries but reading other entries and getting to know people.

There's been such participation that this year it has made me feel positive about fandom and re-energised. All the love for journaling and the connections has been beautiful to see. I've found some new followers - *waves* so now I've got more activity on my reading page which is so much fun with a lot of new interests. Without the challenge I might never have crossed paths with some of these people, so I'm grateful!

fandomsecrets has a post here with 2 secrets that sum up some of the best things about fandom. Secret 02 talks about imagining getting support from a fictional character to get through some terrible times in their personal life and how they find that character inspiring even when all else seemed lost. Secret 03 talks about how listening to a podcast has got someone through a difficult time in their life.

I think we underestimate how much fiction and media can positively impact us. And part of fandom more generally is how it can help us connect with other people, and encourage us to create, and to build community. That's what fandom is or can/should be. And I think that's what Snowflake Challenge aims for, to remind us of the good in fandom, of what we do and why, to introduce us to new things and new people, and to give us a chance to express all of those things. Thank you all at snowflake_challenge!