Question: Preparing for Breaking Dawn

Hi!

I saw your (Tara's) recent post on the guidelines blog about coming up with something creative to do weekly or bi-weekly. I wanted to see if I should do the same, since I'm new, or if that was just for everyone else in the past.

Also, on a side note - I posted my first blog today and wanted to see if there was any feedback from Tara or Daryl and if there are things I should improve on for future posts!

Thanks so much!

Meghan

Preparing for "Breaking Dawn Part I"!

Hey Girls!

Tara here! Sorry it has been so long since y'all have heard from me--graduating and getting married makes one fall off the face of the earth. While I was gone, Misty (EdwardsBella) helped take over with blog and really pursued her own ideas and initiatives to get our readers further into the Twilight world and keep them coming to their favorite blog, US! Thank you, Misty, for stepping up! Daryl and I really appreciate someone taking initiative! As such, Daryl and I are announcing that Misty will be and is now officially a TwilightBlog.net Lead Journalist, and it allowed to refer to herself as such in any communications or articles she writes. Congratulations, Misty!

A couple of things to keep in mind with Breaking Dawn Part I hitting theaters November 18th!
1) Be EXCITED!
2) Post anything related to the actors, the movie, books, and/or promotions of the release.
3) Be careful to not infringe upon copyrights and/or steal/copy articles and pictures from other sites!

THINGS TO DO!:
1) Everyone should come up with their own idea of a weekly/bi-weekly promotion of Breaking Dawn Part I. This may be a read through of the portions of the book the movie will cover, anticipation reviews, contests specific to Breaking Dawn, countdowns that cover what you are excited to see/expect to see, creative short stories series of your version of Breaking Dawn, etc. You are NOT limited to these ideas! Within the next week (by August 14th), everyone e-mail me back or post here what your idea is, what you are calling it, whether it is weekly or bi-weekly, etc., and why you think your choice is beneficial.
2) Keep up the good work with tags! Just remember that we don't need a million little tags like "vampire" or "music," but some (2-3) good ones like "Breaking Dawn Update" or "Kristen Stewart." Also, remember not to create a new tag without permission.
3) Please, please remember that the title is what catches a readers attention. Making the perfect title IS VERY HARD, I know. However, the titles need to be short, if the title is long people will not be interested in reading the article. Moral of this story-titles are to be short, sweet, descriptive, and SHORT!

Also, we will be holding more interviews for journalists for the blog, so please be welcoming and helpful to anyone you see that is new in the near future!

Please Keep In Mind

Thank you to all the girls who have started their projects already! If you have not started yours, get started, or if you need an idea, let me know!

Somethings to keep in mind:

1) You are responsible for keeping up the catalog of your posts for your project that are in the original, main, introductory post. Make sure they are hyperlinked.

2) Please do not use short hand, or too many abbreviations.

3) Italicize the names of movies, books, etc.

4) You don't have to give credit for a single, random internet photo, just information, videos, photo galleries. Don't forget that when you do this is looks like this: {courtesy of NAMEOFPLACE} (and it is hyperlinked to the exact url).

4) Please, make sure you add tags to your posts. For most of you the general tag you need is: Debate Twilight

In fact, I ask that you all print off the main, guidelines post that tells you how to do many of these things and use it as a checklist next to your computer.

Good luck with your projects!

:)

We Want YOUR Ideas

With a new year starting, TwilightBlog needs some fresh ideas. With these ideas we hope that you will understand how much the readers and fans appreciate and love what y'all post and do.

We want you to come up with your own idea that you can work on and show with/interact with the readers for a few weeks or longer. For example, Misty has been doing a re-read of Breaking Dawn and here is all the hard work she has been doing: xhttp://www.twilightblog.net/2010/11/taking-it-back-to-pages-breaking-dawn_06.html . Misty talks with readers who comment and is able to really see what her work does. She posts once a week and has been doing it for just over two months!

So, do some brain storming and come up with ideas. Share your ideas in a comment below and say which idea you'd rather do and I'll respond. If we share enough ideas together everyone will have one!

Things to Consider/Ideas:

-TwilightBlog last year hosted a creative writing contest, so this could be done again to be made annual (talk to me if you want to do this)

-Weekly comparisons between Twilight and past vampires in movies and on TV

-Play devils advocate and do a weekly post on a controversial aspect of Twilight and start discussions

-Start an ongoing creative story yourself and post a small to medium sized part once a week

The Christmas Season

Dear Girls,

Okay, so another update and things to make sure they are taken care of.

1) Maja--now that an actress has been named for Renesmee do you mind updating that Character Bio for me and letting me know when it is done?

2) Will someone step up and do the Character Bio for Royce King II, let me know who will do it.

Christmas Theme Ideas:

We got two good ideas from Stefanie and Misty for getting fans engaged in the site for the Holiday season. I would like one person for each idea to step-up and bring these ideas to life. This would include write an intro post and doing follow up posts with information e-mailed to TwilightBlog from the readers. These e-mails from readers will get forwarded to you until the end of the promotion. Be creative with them and introducing them and what you do with the e-mails. This is a chance for you to really engage the readers. The two ideas we want to implement are:

1) Having readers write in about the "Perfect Twilight Present" that they HAVE RECEIVED. To introduce this the post would need to explain what we are looking for, ask for age, first name and last initial, give the TB e-mail, country, and whatever else you think is necessary.

2) "Letters to Santa/Twilight" is the idea that readers write a letter to their favorite Twilight character just as they would to Santa. Again with this one, you would have to introduce this the post would need to explain what we are looking for, ask for age, first name and last initial, give the TB e-mail, country, and whatever else you think is necessary.

For any of the above please comment below so that we all know who is doing what and that it is taken care of.

Thanks for all your hard work, girls!

-Tara

Christmas Get Involved With TB Ideas

Okay, girls!

Here is where I want you guys to share with me and the other girls your ideas for a contest or any other ways we can get our readers to be involved and hype up the Christmas season + Twilight!

Happy Thinking!

Facebook

I noticed recently that the posts have not been showing up on the Facebook page. I didn't know if you knew that, so I thought I would tell you! :)

-------

Thanks, we have had issues with that, it goes in and out!

-Tara

Question: font issues in posts

Tonight in my post I had some issues with fonts and font size. I'm not sure what happened because I haven't had the issue before. I was copying text from another website for quoted portions of the interview so I'm not sure if that's what started the problem.

When I previewed my post it looked fine and the when I posted it, the second half was in a different font. I went back and edited it and changed everything to one font and then when I published again, it was half in a smaller size. So, I edited one final time and selected the text to be the same font and normal size and it's all smaller. Please advise. What am I doing wrong? I checked the html code and didn't see anything about font size.

Thanks!

------

Jenni,

Blogger is weird about pasting information into a post when you are in the "Compose" tab. If you need to paste something in go to the "Edit Html" tab and paste where appropriate. Then mess with italics, bold, etc. when you go back to the "Compose" tab.

-Tara

Posting Ideas

Writers,

Here is a list of some ideas to branch out for information to look for and write about. I would like our posting to be more well rounded and not just pictures and obvious information.

-Sources about new cast members and characters

-Filming updates

-Events and/or spotlight Twilight people, fans, creators

-Interviews with cast members

-Your thoughts on Twilight (write a "review" of sorts for the books, movies...)

-Creative pieces found or originally written

-Discuss a relationship within the Twilight Saga

-Discuss expectations for Breaking Dawn, Renesmee, the conclusion of the Saga

Please, please, please, do not be afraid to express your opinions/thoughts and get into them. Some of our best interactive responses from readers have been controversial material and thoughts that were well expressed and discussed in a positive manner.

Character Biographies

Writers,

Here is the list and assignments for character biographies.

Format must be like all the other bios and must be saved (not published), reviewed by me, and then I will allow it to be posted.

Character Biography Assignments:
Vampires
-Nettie *done-Misty*
-Maria *Patrica-done*
-Renesmee *Maja-done*
Garett *done-Jenni F*

Human
-John *done*
-Royce King II *needs to be picked up!*
-Sue Clearwater *done-Stefanie*