Every Monday, Kickstarter staff collect a few of our favorite, recently launched projects to share with the masses (we can't help it — we get excited!). You can check out our choices this week, below, but make sure to stop by our Discover page to find even more. So many good projects, so little time!

It Rides Upon Us — DC TO NYC & Back By Rail, In Photographs, by Ross Goodwin

Ross presents a compelling argument for why his project is politically and socially relevant (urban blight, abandoned homes, underutilized space) and why it's important for him to complete this book. It's often easy to disappear into our personal shells while walking, riding, or driving — a mentality easily reinforced by the universal presence of things like iPhones, headphones, and (I hate to admit it) e-books. Our private interests and personal distractions are so completely mobile! Watching Ross's video tugged at a part of me that feels like it should make more of an effort to be a conscious observer of the life immediately around me. I'm eager to see what he ultimately produces. — Cassie M. 

Flamingo Rampant! Gender Independent Kids Books, by S. Bear Bergman

Many years ago now, S. Bear Bergman visited my Gender Studies class at our little Midwestern, very Catholic college and blew all of our newly-radicalized, 20-year-old minds. Bear is a writer, storyteller, performer, "gender-jammer," and Flamingo Rampant is the really terrific name of his small press for "gender independent" children's books. Imagine stories full of wish fairies and kids named Tulip, stories that tackle things like little boys who want to be little girls, and stories where trans-identified kids or kids of trans-parents can see their families in books for what is probably the very first time, and feel a little bit better about who they are. — Meaghan O.

Project Coffee Pot, by James Kelly

Add cake and a cat to your morning coffee and you get — an experience. So say Ben Kelly and Adam Conrad, the writers behind a theater-come-performance-art piece called Project Coffee Pot. A fictional story based on factual events about St. Paul, Minnesota, the production incorporates live painting, dance, poetry, and song as audience members get taken on a guided tour through an evolving set. Come for the coffee and leave knowing a little bit more than you ever thought possible about the building of Interstate 94 and the resulting destruction of the Rondo neighborhood. — Daniella J. 

Roda: A Clumsy Robot Stumbles Through Happical Zoo, by Feric Feng

While Feric Feng has worked as a conceptual designer for major properties like Final Fantasy and Animatrix, RODA is a personal project that takes his beautiful east-meets-west illustrative work and transforms them into an interactive iOS game. The combination of one-of-a-kind artwork, a heartwarming story, and puzzle-based game mechanics means you'll be staring into your iPhone for (even more) hours on end. Check out some of Feric's jaw-dropping artwork here.  — Cindy A. 

Walk the Honey Road with Balyolu, by Catherine Jaffee

I am really, really addicted to honey. My old housemate would joke about how I'd go "crazy on the honey" when making glazes, or roasting sweet potatoes, or having breakfast, or using a spoon to straight eat it out of the jar, or you know...whatever. Turkey's Northeast is home to an insanely diverse array of flowers (over 2,000 species!), resulting in some of the "most sophisticated honey on earth." So yes, I want to go to there. These particular expeditions will be led by women training to be world-class beekeepers and rural entrepreneurs, which is another thing I love, plus there's the ample use of "buzz" as a pun throughout their project video. What a sweet adventure. — Cassie M. 

Threads, by Julia Wang

We here at Kickstarter are no strangers to Bhutan, though, in reality, we kind of are since, well, as far as I know, none of us have ventured to the distant land. Julia Wang's Threads project makes me hope to reverse this quite soon. Wang points us to the rich Bhutan's rich textile tradition, which she is profiling in a new documentary. Personally, I might have trouble watching this documentary, if only because the entire time I will be thinking about how these boots would look on me. — Mike M.

theNewerYork Lit Mag: We M∑§§ w/ Yoµr H£åd, by theNewerYork

TheNewerYork want to "hijack your internal narrative, get you out of your life for a bit and into something else." And I have faith they can do this, because they've done it before. I like what they're making — upside-down-inside-out stories, unfamous quotes, fake glossaries, and the like— and also kind of love their attitude problem toward the general literary establishment. As founder Josh says in the project video: "In general, we don't care about the greater literary culture. We simply want to publish the twenty or thirty lines, sometimes more, that will move you." Never heard a mission statement I've liked more in my life. — Cassie M. 

Our project creators make good teachers. Once a week, we ask one post-success project creator to take a break from the packing and shipping, put pen to paper, and give us their best lessons learned for making and running a great Kickstarter project. Today we talk to Ted Rall of Comix Journalism, a project to fund his return to Afghanistan as an independent journalist.

The most exciting part about launching my Kickstarter project was the sense of potentiality along with the democratization of the media. I've been working in print and online media since the early 1990s and throughout that time I've only really had a few customers: the editors and producers who approved or denied what I pitched them. Back in 2001, when I went to Afghanistan I met with newspaper editors and TV and radio producers to cobble together the funding for war correspondency, which is very expensive. By 2010 there were few if any media outlets willing to pay for independent, unembedded war reporting, especially by a radical political cartoonist. So I brought my idea to the public: a daily cartoon blog in real time, using satellite technology to transmit finished cartoons within hours of the events depicted. This time, it wasn't up to gatekeepers but to the public at large. If enough people were interested in my attempt to go to Afghanistan and find out what was going on there, they would pledge, the idea would get funded, and I would go. If not, I wouldn't. It's a more efficient system, really, because one recalcitrant editor can't stop a project people want to see from being greenlit, and on the other hand one overly enthusiastic editor can't approve something that few people are interested in.

My approach to making a project video was to ask a friend to make it for me, which worked because I'm the worst possible judge of myself. She filmed and edited me. It also worked because, quite frankly, I found the idea of learning how to edit video daunting. From what I hear, however, it's not very difficult. If and when I do another Kickstarter project, I'll try to do it myself. My point is, however, that even if you don't want to do it there's probably someone you know who would be happy to help if you take them out to lunch or something.

I started to experience some anxiety when the pledges remained static about halfway through the time frame allotted. At first they came in regularly. Then they trickled off. Then I was about two-thirds funded. I thought it would be kind of silly to have so many pledges without making it all the way, but then bloggers helped publicize the project during the last week or so, pledges began coming in, and that was so great! In the end I was actually over by $1,000.

One thing that I really didn't expect was how many people I didn't know directly or indirectly would make generous pledges toward this project.

 The one thing I wish I had known before launching my Kickstarter project was how much more fun it would be to be accountable to the public than to traditional media gatekeepers. The public wants me to be me. Gatekeepers want to crush any sort of edge or opinion.

 When I reached my goal, I felt happy and scared. On the one hand, I was going to Afghanistan. On the other hand, I was going back to Afghanistan. I had nearly gotten killed there in 2001. What if I'd just talked my way into an early grave?

The toughest part post-funding was issuing regular updates, since my tendency is not to say anything until there's something new and exciting to say. So my advice to future creators is to put a tickler into your smartphone organizer or whatever reminding you to issue updates regularly. It is important and it helps you remain focused on your project.

 My plans next are to complete a book about my trip to Afghanistan for Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. Publication date is currently scheduled for spring 2013 so I need to turn it in soon. After that I'm beginning a book on what revolution would like in the United States. I'm also thinking about doing a series of trips to places where revolutionary forces are ruling discrete areas.

My other tips are to use social networking ferociously. Without regular tweets and Facebook posts I doubt my project would have been funded.