October is almost upon us, and that means it’s time to get your engines revving, because in just three(-ish) short days, our road trip challenge sets off. (I said I was gonna stop punning, I lied!)

If you read the event announcement, you should already know that: 

• fics for this event must be a minimum of 1,500 words. *
• your stories must include or address road trips in some fashion (if you’re unsure if you’ve done enough to satisfy this requirement, please ask a Mod).
• your first chapter needs to be posted during October––no earlier, no later––but that does not mean you need to have the entire thing finished and uploaded by month’s end. 

On October 1st, from 0.01am site time (which can always be found under the shoutbox on our homepage), you will see a tick-box appear when adding a new story. This is to indicate your story is part of the challenge, to make sure it appears in the official list of challenge fics, and so it can be featured alongside the others throughout the month. 

It looks like so:

Additionally, if and when you’ve ticked that box, a special icon of some car keys will appear beside your story, as depicted in the example here:

Note: while sequels (or indeed prequels, or companion stories) to existing fics can be eligible to be part of this event, it’s important that they are a new work, as in not previously shared elsewhere already.

Now, in the aforementioned event announcement we gave a lot of details for how banners were going to work, but––in case you missed it––we heard your feedback and your desire to arrange banners yourselves, and so that element has been dropped from this event. 

If you plan to make your own banner, the dimensions are the same as they’ve always been, as outlined on our FAQ page. All we ask is that you add a small line of text stating “designed for the 2022 Elysian Fields Road Trip Challenge.” 

If someone else has made you a banner, please credit them so they can get an award for their profile. Please also make sure to credit your betas. The awards, lovingly designed by MillennialCryBaby, are as pictured at the top of this news post. 

There is a custom site skin for this event, also designed by MillennialCryBaby, which we showed in the event announcement post. But, speaking of site artwork, Holly has been working hard to bring to life a number of new skins.

There are a number of site skins we are permanently retiring and replacing with skins that better reflect the current membership (they’re made with art supplied by our members!) and where we are taking the archive in the future. But don’t worry—there will be options for everyone. Light, dark, and monochromatic will all be represented.

Of the current site skins, these are the ones we’re keeping:

• Better Together
• Dead Poet’s Society
• Fierce
• Trapped
• Kisses in the Rain
• Holiday
• Secret Santa
• Simple (Light and Dark)

Keep your eyes peeled for a follow-up announcement regarding the new site skins shortly.

In the meantime, and as always, happy writing! 

*UPDATE: Since we recently made accommodations for Elysian Field's many talented artists to post artwork-only pieces, we have been asked if they can take part in this event and still be eligible for an artist award, even if they don't make banners. This was such a good question, and of course the answer is yes! As such, we've removed the word count requirement.