So what's your story?

[Iain Aschendale]

Good morning y'all. I was always interested in writing, wrote my first book when I was six. It needs some polish but I think it holds up pretty well, so I'll quote it in full here (not for workshop critique, I may put it up there later):

The Big War

Russia and America did not like each other, so they said "Let's have a war." Tanks came out. Ships came out. Planes came out. They fought each other and America won.
So yeah, you can see that I was really talented from an early age.

But in...2014 or so I discovered the term "flash fiction" and a now-defunct flash site called MicroHorror. 666 word limit, published at the discretion of the site owner, no payment, no awards, no medals, just a comments section. I found that the word limit was a very useful tool as I tend to wander verbosely without knowing where I'm going, so the idea that this story needs to end by this point taught me an important lesson.

Then the owner got bored or busy and shut Microhorror down, so I started looking for a writing forum. I wasn't a stranger to forum life; I'm a member of several RC car related forums (under a completely different username. Don't cross the streams), but I joined a few to see which was right for me. Not going to name names because I don't have anything good or bad to say about them, just that none of them seemed like a good fit for me except this WF.org and FictionPost dot com. I did okay there for a short time until...

...one day...

...I posted a brief snippet of my writing outside the Workshop. Y'see, I thought that the Workshop was just for completed stories or full chapters, I didn't realize it was the only place one should post any excerpted writing. And a very senior member, with a reputation for a sandpapery personality, very, very gently (I mean it, they were perfectly polite and friendly) explained to me that all writing belonged in the Workshop and they weren't going to offer any critique because I was still under my Workshop posting limit (2 weeks and thirty posts I think it was?).

I was mortified. I'd fucked up already, arrogating unto myself undeserved privileges, breaking site rules, and generally behaving like an entitled little prick.

So I fled. FictionPost dot com didn't have restrictions like that. It also had about fifteen active members (and an absentee owner/admin, there's a pattern here) and was a very friendly place. I was there for about a year before the owner decided they didn't have the time or the money and shut it down. Like WF.org, some members tried to build a lifeboat.

I hope this one floats better.

So I came back to WF.org and began the lengthy process of rebuilding a reputation as a decent forumite that I'd never really sullied in the first place. Eventually it was discovered that the former admin Wreybies and I are alumni of one of the most selective schools on the planet, and that we're cut from different shades of the same cloth. So, way cool.

It's weird. I'm an introvert IRL. I'm the guy over there in the corner who nods to you on the way in and doesn't talk to anyone but the same two people every day. I don't think I'm particularly witty in person, and I don't have a winning personality.

But by the flawed metric of the WF.org "like" system, I'm a really likable guy. I don't understand why I'm so different behind the keyboard (in a positive way, not the Internet Badass sort of thing) from my F2F persona, but here we are. Y'all are apparently actually seeing the best of me, FWIW.

Then in 2020 Moose, Jannert, and I got asked to join the mod team. Seven existing mods plus the three of us. Shortly afterwards it was just the three of us, and we made do. It wasn't always pretty behind the scenes, but all of us were just muddling through trying to keep this place going. We hired one more mod (EFMingo), then things with the owner of the old site got to the point where I (and I alone, I won't speak for anyone else on the team. They can tell their stories or not if they wish) got concerned about the legal status of what was going on, so I resigned the mod position and took a year or so break. Two years? Dunno, I popped in time to time but I was definitely on hiatus. But this has triggered the urge to write again, so I'm looking forward to being an active member here and helping out however I might.

That was long.

 

[Darkthought]

Hello friends old and new!

I am sure no one is left who remembers me, but I joined the old forum in January of 2008, right before I graduated high school and was a very active member of the roleplay sub forum for a long time thereafter. I shared the space with the likes AnonyMouse, Oasis Writer, Emerald, Foxxy, Bick, and Deathblade15, and others (please forgive me, its been a long time.) Together, we became kind of a little group of our own. We ran and participated in several RPs and I learned so much about the craft of writing from that space.
Its been almost two decades since I joined and a lot has happened in that timespan. I'm 35 now. I have a daughter who is nearly as old now as I was when I joined the old forum. I've gained and loved and lost 5 dogs in that time. I've married and unmarried. And I've survived.
Through it all I have reached a place where I'm looking to reconnect with the things that got the younger me really excited. One of those things is writing, and rejoining with a the larger community of people who share that passion. Imagine my surprise when, yesterday, I go to see what's happening with the old forum only to find the sad, perhaps inevitable, news of its struggles. I can recall times even in those early days when the site was having problems.
Well, I think that was sign if ever there was one. So here I am...again, and I look forward to being a part of this. Not a new beginning, but a continuation of a legacy.

Cheers!

 

[Dogberry's Watch]

I'm here because of @Iain Aschendale . He knew me from FP, and I was in search of a forum after it shutdown. I joined WFs, under a new moniker since Mercutio was taken, and felt like I landed in a good place. I don't post much of my work, not out of shyness or anything, just more of a "this is for me" kind of thing. I've self published three books, technically four but one is just for a friend, so I count it, but in the background. I like the varied personalities this place has, and I feel like I've made some solid friends.

 

[LEmerson]

It's been a long time. Thanks for the email.

When I was very young during dinner there would be a knock on the back door and my mom would make a plate of food and my dad would take it and hand it to a guy. My oldest brother explained what a hobo was. I was in third grade and my teacher asked the class to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I drew a hobo and the teacher was not happy. I got home and there was mom and I knew the teacher had called. She said "You might want to come up with a plan B just in case being a hobo doesn't work out." That shaped my attitude toward life.

That's my story.

 

[October Haale]

It says a lot about this community to see how fast a new site was made and how many familiar profiles are already here! I'm far from the most active person on the forum, but I'm still relieved to see that it didn't go under.

I joined Writing Forums in February of 2022 after picking through the internet for something just like it. It was the first forum I found that didn't want my real name, birth date, blood type, and first born child. At the time I didn't have anyone in my life to discuss writing with and was feeling rather isolated. I was also keen to find people who knew their stuff and could give me some feedback; I had been writing in a vacuum for too long. Family is great, but you can't trust them to honestly critique you!

I was very active for a few weeks before dropping off the face of the earth for a long while. I only recently came back a few months ago, right after I finally got back into writing after a long, unintentional break. I want to be more consistent here, but I'm starting to realize that may be a losing battle. I'm the type who will go MIA but will run into you five years later and start right where we left off.

This community has been nothing but supportive and I've had the pleasure of chatting with many kind and interesting people here. It will be sporadic, but I plan to be in the Workshop again with some critiques, in the Lounge with my nonsense, and every blue moon I'll crash a short story contest.

Cheers to a blank page, for it is full of potential and not yet burdened with my mistakes.

 

[wearywanderer64]

I was a lurker on the other one but the time gaps between posts were too long to bother about participating. I got an email the other day that the site had changed hands so I decided to lurk again. This time I've been more participative. As for my writing journey, a friend knew I wrote short stories, and told me about a competition run by the publisher Canongate (Edinburgh.) I entered and was a joint winner with sixteen others. The stories were published in a short story collection. That was in 1999. Since then I've had stuff published in magazines and my ebooks make a couple of bob every month.

 

[Hammer]

Morning All (afternoon to some, and maybe good evening... the joys of time-zones!)

I joined the old place back in 2018 and have enjoyed the sense of camaraderie it has alongside the huge variety of knowledge the members have!.

My writing journey began when I was about eight and wrote comic strips along with my friend Dasso which we copied by hand and gave out to school friends, I attempted my first novel-length work in my late twenties (I would love to find the floppy disc that that is on...), life happened which demanded an actual income, then I picked up my metaphorical pen again about ten years ago.. I have two completed fantasy books which I will publish at some point, a third in first-draft for the same world, and about half a dozen other things in varying degrees of completion (including a murder mystery which is a lot of fun as it's set in the real world so my characters can go for a pint...)

Thrilled to see so many of us getting out of the lifeboats relatively unscathed, looking forward to interacting with all of you and with the new members that the noise we make will attract, and helping to rebuild this wonderful community

 

[bACK iN mY dAY]

It's good to be back, for all kinds of reasons. Thank you to moose for calling the banners.

I've been wanting to return to something like this for a while. Firstly because I've been writing for a while, and need desperately to talk to more people in the writing space - while being out in the sticks and finding it hard to go to writing groups. Secondly, because I think it'll be more fun this time around. When I first started writing I wanted to make a living writing. The TL;DR of this story is that I let that need consume me and my writing, and now I write in my spare time between my jobs I'm happier for it and probably better for the experience.

Thirdly, well fuck, look what's happened to the internet. I think others have covered that pretty well and would rather not do that myself - but you get it, I'm sure. I find myself in that 'back in my day' mindset more now, where I didn't think I would. But I think it's different to what I heard from my parents - it's slightly more valid. Some things were better way back when and maybe this was one of them. Maybe I didn't know what I was missing amidst the desperate need to fulfill my dreams.

I'm glad to see this place be reborn in a sense, and I'm excited to contribute. Let's kick it.

 

[Bone2pick]

I joined the old forum back in the summer of 2018. I was a little hesitant to do so, as I didn’t consider myself an actual writer. I still don’t, truthfully, because I haven’t accomplished enough to earn that title, and I most likely never will. Forever a squire, never a knight. That’s probably not a popular sentiment regarding who should call themselves a writer, but it makes sense to me.

Anyway, I was (and remain) someone with a keen interest in creative writing. Enough of an interest to compel me to seek out people who were also passionate about it, who enjoyed discussing its various aspects, and who could help me improve.

Seven years ago my writing never went beyond forum roleplaying posts and elaborate backstories for my RPG characters. Think Dungeons and Dragons, Shadowrun, etcetera. Now, maybe a few times a year, I take a crack at a short story. A small step forward, admittedly, but progress nonetheless.

I was fairly active in the forum for two or three years. During that time, I was occasionally (frequently?) an interlocutor in some of the site’s most "spirited" conversations. Despite that, I did, as a result of regular participation on the forum, begin to think more deeply about storytelling, and I picked up several methods to write more effectively.

Now, thankfully, there’s a new, inviting forum to play in. With new vibes, new possibilities. I feel a little like Charlie Bucket seeing Wonka’s candy factory for the first time.

Ah, who am I kidding? I’m no Charlie; I’m more Veruca Salt.

 

[NobodySpecial]

So I go all the way back to 2015, and it’s been an interesting ride. The past few years I’ve been kinda spotty in my participation and I’ve only told a few people why. This post also officially lets those people off the hook for their promise to keep quiet. This the part where I ‘fess up to being sick. I’ve been dealing with cancer since late 2019. I’m in a good place with treatment and I’m doing well, but I haven’t been writing. There have been a couple scares in the past few years, and it’s all stuff that just consumes your every attention.
I know people say you have to keep writing even through stuff like this, but that’s usually being said by people who aren’t going through it. It just doesn’t always work like that.

To complicate matters further, I now have a job working ungodly hours. The hours suck- I leave the house at 4:30am -but I need the insurance.

I’m working on getting back to where I was.

 

[Night Herald]

I joined the old forum way back in 2012. I'd been dabbling in writing since childhood, and I signed up to learn and potentially connect with kindred spirits. I was hardly active for the first many years, but in 2017 (I think) I decided to participate in the short story contest, and that's how I successfully brainstormed and wrote to completion my first non-fanfic short. Didn't win, though I got a couple of votes and some words of praise. I ended up really liking that story so much that I wrote a sequel, and from there expanded it to a series of novels I'm still working on. I had a blast writing that short, and it flipped a switch in my head. This was the first time I felt like a real writer, like this was something I could actually be decent at. I'd enjoyed writing before, but that was when I learned to love the process.

So I've got the forum to thank for lighting that spark. Not sure I would've gotten there otherwise. From there on I mainly stuck to the short story and flash fiction contests, on a couple of occasions dipping my toes in the poetry one. I rarely write shorts these days, now I spend most my writing time working on a couple of novel series, so my main forum activity has been updating my progress journal.

I've always liked to try my hand at different genres and styles, exploring a range of subject matter, but my main thing I do now is a certain kind of comic fantasy. Both of my current series are written in a similar style. I write for the love of silliness and whimsy, to have fun with language and to go wild with strange ideas.

Not sure how active I'll be around here, but I'll at least keep my progress journal going, when and as there's any progress to speak of. Might well get involved in the workshop. And it'd be fun to write some shorts again and enter the contests. I'm assuming there'll be contests, seems a safe enough bet.

So that's my story, such as it is.

 

[thirdwind]

Hello friends old and new!

I am sure no one is left who remembers me, but I joined the old forum in January of 2008, right before I graduated high school and was a very active member of the roleplay sub forum for a long time thereafter. I shared the space with the likes AnonyMouse, Oasis Writer, Emerald, Foxxy, Bick, and Deathblade15, and others (please forgive me, its been a long time.) Together, we became kind of a little group of our own.

Holy crap, I wasn't expecting someone to beat me. I joined WF.org in July of 2008 based on what my profile says. I think I remember you, but I definitely remember some of those names you mentioned. I never did hang around in the roleplay area.

For some history, I joined the old forum when I was in college. I had taken two creative courses at that point, one in poetry and another in short stories. I really enjoyed both and wanted to continue learning and honing my craft. I think I just Googled "writing forum" and WF.org was one of the two that popped. I don't know why I chose the .org site vs. the .com one. Maybe because it was smaller, so it felt a bit cozier with a better chance to connect with people. Over the years, I did connect with a few people, but none of them are active anywhere, and we ended up losing touch. Who knows, maybe they'll show up here one day.

I remember a few things from my time there. One was all the spammers we used to get. I feel like there were 3 or 4 distinct periods where we were just getting bombarded with spam. I think the prevailing theory, at least for one of the incidents, was that someone (or multiple people) got banned and was retaliating with all these spam messages and accounts. There might have been a period of a few days where new sign ups were disabled while the mods cleaned up the mess.

The other thing is that debates frequently got heated. This was way before we had a Debate Room area. The Lounge would be filled with threads about religion and politics, and some of the discussions ended in people getting banned. I remember some of those people created new accounts, were found out, and were banned again. I also just remembered that another topic of debate was if MFA programs/creative writing classes were useful or necessary for writers of today. Oh, and using italics for thoughts was another big topic. I think it got to the point where one of the mods stickied and locked the thread that discussed using italics for thoughts because of how frequently people were posting about it.

For a while, we also had a book club going that I used to run. Basically, members would vote on which books to read, and we would discuss them over the course of a month. There were some challenges with running it. One was that we tried to find books that were easily accessible (i.e., could be found online through legal means). This limited our selection. The second was getting people to participate. Sometimes, the discussions would only involve two people. I think we did a few months of this before it died.

And of course, I ran the flash fiction contest for a long time. I used to do the poetry one to. I'm actually not sure how running it transitioned away from me. It's possible I got busy with life, stepped away from running it, and then was asked if I wanted to run the flash fiction contest because of some troublesome members. Or maybe I was running both at the same time at one point and wanted to only run one? I'm not sure.

I've seen a lot of people come and go over the years. There were some good discussions, and some bad ones, too. I think some of my favorite conversations took place in the Discussion of Published Works subforum (used to be called Book Discussion I think). It was always great to get recommendations from others and be able to read/discuss books from the point of view of aspiring writers.

I'm sure there's other stuff I'm missing, but it was great to take a trip down memory lane. A lot has changed in my life since I first signed up. I never did end up becoming a full-time writer like I once imagined, but my career did end up taking a good path, so I can't complain about it. One thing I'm looking forward to learning more about is the publication process (submitting, getting an agent, and all that). I think some of my hesitation in the past has come from being intimidated by what I don't know. I've only ever submitted to smaller magazines in the past and have had my fair share of rejections.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks to anyone who read the whole thing.

 

[Flashfire07]

Hello all. I joined the old forums back in... 2008 was as far back as my history went before the site couldn't load anymore. When I first signed up I was writing a wide array of horror, sci-fi and fantasy stories while hoping that the mysterious door to nowhere in the apartment was in fact just a very strange cupboard stretching along several houses. I was active off and on before sort of drifting off as my own writing muse likewise fizzled out, I last posted in 2018 and then sort of just faded off.

My muse has since returned strongly, and I am working on biopunk xenofiction and dark fantasy settings for tabletop games, board games, roleplaying games, and the occasional video game, alongside short story anthologies and a novel. I have fond memories of my few interactions with the community, so I am hoping that this new era will be both positive and fruitful for all involved.

 

[Woof]

Hi everyone! I'm old and new in many ways I was very active on .com some years ago but started to feel uncomfortable so came over to .org but just never found my stride and gradually just faded out and then life swallowed me up and I became very ill and am now chronically ill and significantly disabled and only just managing to find my way back to writing so this migration is actually really well timed for me and a nudge back in the right direction, I hope. I haven't really written in about 8 years. I've never stopped having ideas for both new and old projects but they've just been piling up again. I managed a little bit of napowrimo still for a couple of years but it's hard to keep up the pace. I've been back on the old .org today to see if there's anything I want to keep and I barely recognise my own words. I have a lot of figuring out to do how to get back to being myself and a writer with my new limitations but hopefully rejoining a community will be a good start. Bear with me if it ends up being a few stop/starts while I figure out what I can and can't manage. It seems I resurfaced a little around 2023 and then promptly dived again which I don't remember much of but that's not surprising. What did surprise me was how many voices I enjoyed before were since banned so I'm looking forward to finding some new ones I guess

ETA: I am really enjoying reading through all these posts where I feel I can genuinely relate to so many people and their experiences. Feeling like I am in the right place

 

[Pik]

I've written in various forums since I was a kid, probably because it makes the process of writing less lonely (and I later became interested in writing texts that have a lot of everyday speech, dialogue etc). I wasn't an active member in the original Writingforum (with an s) though I thought it was a resourceful, comforting and supportive place. I sometimes write in a local forum but feel like it can be too close to home and I often worry if I will say the wrong thing that could compromise the close people irl. Other than the local forum, there was another place where I was a regular, it wasn't exactly a writing forum but I was often using it to practice my creative and other writing skills and along the way I unintentionally improved in the specific field of study that the forum was intended for. Few subs there occasionally felt dangerous and were moving the lines on the freedom of speech issue but overall it was an inspiring place for me.

 

[Zmar]

I was far from an old timer on the previous site. I had been a member for a couple of months.

I'd heard chatter over on the 'other place', and saw that a few people who seemed to have their wits about them were active on dot org. (@Naomasa298 @Louanne Learning and @Set2Stun , if memory serves)

It's a shame that it's gone, as the old dot org carried the high water mark of my fledgling writing career - winning a poetry contest that had only one entry!

But the circle of life and all that, eh? Change and renewal (which I'll try to steal of spoonful of for myself).

 

[aside_dish]

Started writing 5-6 years ago after reading HHGTG and immediately falling in love with it. Began to just write a bunch of shitty ripoffs of it, and thought I was making progress. Put my work up (on the old forum and on reddit), and got eviscerated for the similarities. Got discouraged, and turned to screenwriting after binging Key & Peele and wanting to write sketches like that.

Completely abandoned novel writing in favor of screenwriting, and got good at it. To the point where I think if I can bring myself to finish anything (easily my biggest struggle), I may actually be able to sell some stuff soon-ish! But learned a lot of good habits from screenwriting. Pacing, brevity, the importance of whitespace (can apply to novels as well!), etc.

Had an idea for a fantasy novel, went back into writing, and been working on perfecting that now for a couple of years. Hoping I can finish my fantasy novel, Heading Off, this year or next, and get it traditionally published.

 

[SnugPugg]

Hello all. I've been on the old forum for a few years. I was kicked off AW for no reason after being bullied by the moderator and owner and was looking for a new writing community to join for support and I stumbled on the OG and the rest is history. I am an aspiring author and I love being able to ask for help when I'm stuck or to go over new ideas. And just being in the same community with other writers makes me feel at home.

I hope to self publish one day, mainly fantasy romance. I have several projects already done and am still being beta read and edited. But my first one won't be ready for awhile so I'm taking my time with it. One day I will share it with the world.

 

[Madman Starryteller]

To add some more. I still remember when I was fresh on the site, I made mistakes sometimes, and Cogito had to give me warnings. Then I made another mistake and Moose had to lock a thread I started. That's the thing, though, I was not banned outright, they gave me warnings and chances. I basically grew up a little. I'm so thankful that I was allowed to remain in the community, even if I sometimes stumbled. I remember Cogito giving some encouraging words in some writing related threads several times after my warnings. The fellow was a class act. I'm sad he's no longer with us, and that he could not join us here.

Another fellow I remember was Xoic, wherever he may have gone, he was very prolific on the forum, posted a lot of insightful things.

 

[Louanne Learning]

I remember was Xoic,

that was a big loss and I still think of him often.