21,635

It's a good place to pause -- a bit over what I needed for the day -- and get some work done on Vision again. I have it virtually done, but I had to make a couple late minute changes. I've also opened up the pages for Back to School For Busy Writers. I'm very nearly ready for September, too.

I'm obviously running out of steam here, though.

I am back to work -- up to 19735 words. I'm just going to keep working and see how far I can get in the next couple hours. I'm still not feeling much better, unfortunately. But as long as I hit 20,000 I'll be on line for the 30,000 by the end of the dare.

Back to the story...

4:30 and taking a break. I have to feed the guys and maybe feed myself since I'm getting a headache. Or maybe I'll rest for a few hours instead. I'm just not feeling great.

Hour 11 -- 17,462

I'm looking over the notes to this chapter and realize that they don't work at all. Hmmm.... I think I can see what I need to do instead, but this might take a little more thought. And maybe some food.

Hour 10 (I think) = 15,842

Some of that was an addition to material from yesterday. After I went to bed I realized I needed to fill a bit of a plot hole, and better to do it with a couple lines now than miss it entirely and risk not catching it in the rewrite.

I woke up very ill this morning and ended up staying in bed for a couple hours longer than I intended. I'm still having trouble with the medications I'm taking, but I've been told that's pretty common for the first month or so. I think I feel better over all, though it's hard to tell when I'm so constantly sick to my stomach.

I did so well on the first 45 phases that I've been able to cut the needed word count down to 200 words per phase for the rest of the book. This is all subjective numbering of course -- but it gives me a feeling of something doable when I look at the numbers. I can reach 200 words at a shot. Not a problem. The fact that none of them have been less than 200 words -- and many of them 300 or more -- is not important. The numbers are just there to give me something to aim at and to feel like I'm reaching a goal.

So, off to hour 11 of the work. I hope I don't get ill again.

The first day total -- 42 phases, 14,175 words.

It's looking very good. I'm taking an hour off here to chat and stuff, and then I'll do a few more phases tonight before I go to bed. It was a good day of writing. I hope tomorrow goes as well. I hope I get done early, in fact, because I have just a little bit of Vision to get done still.

I like writing like this. I wish I could write everything this way -- not the huge word count, but the ease with which the words tend to come.

Hour 8 -- 12,170

Another hour until midnight. Only 3.5 phases to go to reach my goal for the day in phase count. I am, obviously, over word count.

Starting up again at 10pm -- dinner and a nice long relaxing bath may have taken a lot of time, but they were good!

Hour 7 -- 10,044!

I have made my first day goal, and I still have a few good hours to work after I go eat. I'm behind on my Phase count, but well ahead on my word count.

And now... food!

Hour 6 -- 8382

I am well ahead of where I need to be in word count. But that's only phase 23, so I'm a bit slow on that side. No complaints, though. I'm about 3000 words over what I need. And 10,000 doesn't look like a problem at all right now.

I'm going to try and make that count, in fact, before I think about dinner.

Hour 5 -- 6816

A surprise encounter is about to answer a few questions and give my MC and his people some new allies. I'll work for a couple more hours, and then it will be time for food, I think!

I started again at 2pm. Not typing too quickly, but doing well. I realize that I misnumbered my hours last night. I should have listed the first one as hour 1, not 2. I'd only been working for an hour at that point, even though it was my second entry.

Hour 4 -- 5387

4144... too tired to go on. But I did all right. I'll be back in eight to ten hours and see how well I do before midnight.

But right now... sleep!

Hour 3 -- 3718

And I inserted enough material for more than 4 phases when I found something I had not covered well enough in the outline. This is great. That gives me a lot of leeway for short falls later.

Hour 2 -- 2590

Going very well so far. I'm well over what I need for the phases, too.

I am now in the Labor of Love dare -- a three day dare to write at least 10,000 words and as much as 30,000. IN the first hour I wrote 1365 words. It's going to be a long weekend, I think.

But I'll post now and then... (grin)

Yes, well, I've been busy....

And ill. And hiding in bed a lot. Not getting as much done on my writing as I would like, but I'm finally getting other things caught up. My journal is moved, for instance. There's not much to it at the moment, but at least it's up and running still without missing a day yet. (I did the hospital stay like I did travel reports -- wrote out the stuff while I was there, typed it in and cleaned it up when I got home.

So, what's going on now? Lots of fun stuff at the site. I hope I'm up to the Challenge this weekend. This is the best I've felt in days, but it's still iffy when I stand up. Kind of an annoyance, in fact.

I did finish one short story in there -- Sins of Youth. I don't like the ending, and I'll redo it in a rewrite... but it was kind of fun to write.

Glory is still going strong. I have about 240 pages left to edit, though, so I need to really pick that up and get moving. The problem is that every time I try, I seem to get sucked into some other work instead.

But I'm still here. Just... falling behind!

This was the kind of day that started out bad, got worse... and then improved beyond all expectations.

Yesterday the doctor told me my blood pressure is still way too high, like I said. He gave me a new medication. I was to take it at night. I did.

And I could tell it just wasn't quite right from the start, but I thought I'd probably get better. I didn't. I went to bed about 4am hoping just to get past it by morning. I was back up at 9am about ready to go to the hospital. My heart was racing, my chest felt tight, and I felt increasingly ill. I knew the new medication was timed release, and I had hit the peak time. I figured if I could get past that, I'd be better. About 11:30 I finally took my other medication, which actually helped knock down some of the symptoms. By 2pm I felt well enough to go for a nice, relaxing ride with Russ. He took me down to DeSoto Wildlife refuge and I had one of the best days there that I ever remember. Everything seemed to show up for pictures -- frogs, deer, turkey, bunnies, butterflies, dragon flies...

I will not be taking the medication tonight. I'm still a bit off tonight, so I'm just going to do a little writing and not push anything. I had a good day despite how it started. And I'm in a good mood tonight, too. It looks like a good time just to kick back a bit.

Back from the doctor's appointment. My blood pressure was still very high -- 177/106. Sigh. I have a new medication to start taking tonight. I hope this works a bit better!

Anyway, I really do feel better, over all, than I have in quite a while. Very odd to find out that it's not looking all that much better.

At any rate, I'm a bit tired this afternoon. I'm going to go take a nice quiet nap for a little while.

I got more articles edited. I got class material put together. I got my journal uploading...

I have not gotten any writing done. And I'm going to spend a little time with Russ before I even start anything!

I'm pretty happy tonight. Everything seems to be going very well. I'll be happier when I get some writing done, of course, but over all... can't complain much tonight!

Well, that went very well! Three articles edited and off to the copy editor (Hi Mariko!). Now I need to feed the two herds of cats (indoor and outdoor) so that they stop swarming like little sharks at my feet.

Russ might have a class to teach tonight, so I should start considering what I want to eat. He might be by in the next hour, so I'll wait a little longer.

I have some FM work to get done, too. But as soon as I get past that, I'll be free to do some writing. I edited a lot of Glory yesterday -- actually got more words on it than I did on Badlands. I'd like to do that much again, but it's hard to say if it will happen.

And why is my cat acting like some strange, huge creature just ran out at my feet. I think I'll just get up now and feed them... and check under the desk.

There. I got the Estand stuff updated. Amazing how far behind you can get when something else leaps up and takes your attention. But that's one of the several non- Forward Motion things that I have to get done. Next up is editing more Vision articles.
Then I will do the schedule for the first set of classes at FM.

Then I'll do some writing. I hope. (grin)

Interesting day for email with both Holly and Sheila deciding they have to get a lock on their contracted work. I look at the amount of writing they've agreed to do and even I shudder.

If there had been no big problems with Forward Motion they likely wouldn't feel the need to completely cut off from it in order to get work done, but the kinds of blow ups like we just had take both time and energy. I wish the others had all just picked up their toys and gone to their new site without all the histrionics, and little chat games on their way out. We'd all be getting along fine now. I still think the new site is a wonderful idea because it apparently gives these people the outlet that they truly needed. I've never pretended that FM is the site that's perfect for everyone.

However, there are people for whom Forward Motion is the perfect point along the path -- it had been, in fact for several of the people who left. They never would have gone on to Evolution if they'd not had Forward Motion as a base to learn from, and no matter how well they are doing in their new site, they have to realize that they would have nothing if they hadn't had FM first. So they owe Holly, and that has to be annoying considering all the vilification that has been tossed her way in the last few weeks.

Well, despite their best efforts, Forward Motion is still going and will keep going. We have a new tech team -- one that actually does something, rather than talking about what they almost did in the past -- and a good set of moderators. Holly and Sheila are both still available, and both have said they'll be back when they get their contract work beaten into shape.

We have some neat new things going on at the site, like Back to School for Busy Writers. I'm about to write up the schedule of September classes for that one. I have a challenge ready for September that I'm going to post in the next couple days. Vision is about half done as well.

And most of us will be getting on with our own writing work. That's what it's really all about, after all.

The problem with editing like I'm doing with Glory is that it takes so long to make so few words. I know that sometimes it's hard for me to get past the 'word count' is important part of my mind set and into just enjoying this work. I love rewrites, and this one has been one of the most fun I've done in years. The novel has gone from 67,000 to about 102,000 (once I cut out a few things I know are going to go -- it's sitting at over 105,000 right now in actual count).

Sometimes a person writes a story and they know that it's a step forward in their ability. That's Glory. And part of the reason is that I'm not rushing it. It probably seems rushed still to most writers, but I'm moving along at a sedate pace right now compared to what I normally do.

I did top 600,000 new words yesterday, though, so I guess things are fine. (grin)

Okay, that didn't take as long as I thought it would. I have some more work to do on a couple pieces, but right now they're on hold while I contact the authors.

I think that means I can open Glory!

After I make a run through the web site, of course.

Good afternoon!

I've been up and working for over an hour. Amazingly, I haven't gotten anything done. Hmmm.... I spent most of the time trying to track down an email so that I could find out who had written a review for Vision. I never did find it, so the review gets put on hold.

If you write something, be sure to put your name under the title...

So I'm on to editing other things for Vision. I'm going to get two or three of them done this afternoon before I send them off to the copy editor.

Then... writing. I did very well yesterday, with over 4000 words -- but not nearly enough done on Glory, which will be what I start with today.

Okay, it's about a quarter to two. I'll work on Vision stuff until three and then write for a bit. Or I'll get to Glory sooner if I get enough of Vision done.

Which makes me think I ought to be working on that and not this, right?

Okay, so why did the new post post clear down there? Okay, we're back up here. So let me post that bit again...



Oh and my own good news. The two story chapbook submission I sent to Yard Dog Press has been accepted. Yay! Honor Bound will be published in January 2004.

PRINT publication. This is a micropress, and they're very big at the conventions, and I'm thrilled!

Contracts and edits will be on the way when they can get them to me.

This is good news! Finally!

Oh and my own good news. The two story chapbook submission I sent to Yard Dog Press has been accepted. Yay! Honor Bound will be published in January 2004.

PRINT publication. This is a micropress, and they're very big at the conventions, and I'm thrilled!

Contracts and edits will be on the way when they can get them to me.

This is good news! Finally!

My, that was a nice run. 48922 which puts me a little over 3000 for the day so far. Not even hard work. A little over 1000 more and I'll be at 50,000. Then I'll go to work on Glory.

Time to go make a check of the site first, though. And Russ will be home soon, so I likely won't get to that thousand very soon. Still, I don't see any reason why I can't do it tonigh!

Okay I went for a walk. 81f outside, not too bad really...

Except that I didn't check the humidity. 69%. Gack. That was miserable. I did get a couple nice flower pictures, though.

At any rate, I'm back and about ready to go to work again on Badlands, finally. Where do these days go? Well, okay, so I napped for a little while. Still...

Still, I'm doing very well really. And I do have several hours still to go.

So, Badlands -- 47,399

Let's see what I can get done by 9pm...

Actually, I didn't get to anything. Had a bit of a site problem. Now a bit of a headache. Going to rest for a little while and then go back to work on Badlands.

Okay, cats fed. towels washed, swept up the house a bit. Ate a little something. I think Russ is likely going to be home for a bit soon. He has a class to teach this evening, I think, so he won't be here for long.

Badlands is still open. 47,399. I'm going to do a little more work on it for awhile.

Or a long while. Just got a call from Russ who said he wont be home for about another five hours. So, I'm going to do an hour of Badlands, and then a bit of editing on Vision again. I might go over to Writing Only at FM, too. It's been very busy there lately. Lots of new members again, which is always fun.

Okay, I did about five or six update pages on Fmwriters.com! Yay! I finally hit on a template, that while it takes out some of the nicer features from the previous version, it does allow for very fast updates of pages so that they mesh with the new site and fix links easier. I've kept copies of all the previous page versions, so that's not a problem. I just want as many pages as possible to not have the broken pictures and broken links on them.

Yes, I'm kind of getting into the feel for this.

But now it's 4pm and the sharks have lined up. Time to go feed the hundred hungry hordes and maybe look into something for myself.

So far the work has gone well today.

Great news for Holly! She sold her non sf/fantasy novel Midnight Rain! This is so great! Branching out into a new genre has got to be a really nice feeling. Wow! It's been a long wait for this one, but I had faith it would happen.

47399, which means 1494 in the last hour. Good. That makes me feel better. And that despite several cats driving me totally nuts, and time wasted while I had long talks with them about screaming louder than my music, or knocking down the papers on the desk...

Time to go check out the site again, and do a little updating there for an hour.

Good plan. Right after I have words with this cat.

Okay, that one is edited. I think I'm going to open up Badlands and work on it, rather than Glory. Jumping from the editing of an nf piece to editing my own fiction just doesn't sound right today. So, attack of the novel rewrite instead...

Badlands starting count: 45,905

Well, let's see how a day goes, shall we? I'm trying to experimentation -- a bit of non-writing must do work followed by a good bout of writing. Today's first nonwriting was to check out the site, of course, and is followed by editing one of the articles for Vision. Just one at a time -- I usually do them in batches of three or four, and get too tired out by the end. Or try to rush them. Not this time...

So, I'm half way through the first article. I'll be back when that's done (and it won't take long), and post my next goal for the day... unless Russ comes home and I end up going off to do something else!

Busy, busy... but things are looking very good at Forward Motion. We came through the change with hardly any problems. The worst was that we didn't have our regular chat client for a few days, but we did have the backup. People were properly grateful when the new one showed back up, too.

Writing is going well. I'm concentrating better on Glory, which is a good sign. I think I'm going to have it done in time. I have 310 more pages to edit. That's a lot of work, but if I can keep concentrating on it, I have a good chance of getting it done by mid month. I would really like that.

Badlands is still going. I had not intended to rewrite the entire book -- the idea was to create a submission package. That's not going to work. I am just not capable of stopping 100 pages in and moving on to something else. Ah well. I'll get this rewrite done and then move on to the next project. I guess I'm just not going to be able to change that 'finish what you start' mentality, even if what you started was not intended to be a full rewrite.

Hey, it's all right. I'm really nearly half way through anyway.

But here's an on going lingering problem from my stay in the hospital. I have huge bruises right below both wrists where they jabbed for veins. I think they may have jabbed muscles a few too many times because they still ache. Any kind of knock or pressure against the part and it really aches so much I have to stop what I'm doing.

A full week later. I'm getting annoyed.

Patience. I know. Patience.

Well, I'm about 30 words short of 1000 for Glory. I'm going to work on it and then over to Badlands for a few thousand. I had a 4000 word day yesterday, and 3500 the day before. I'm almost at 1000 today. Such a shame about wanting to go nap... (grin)

Slow down, slow down. There's not big rush, Zette...

At least that's what I keep telling myself. Things are looking fairly good at Forward Motion. I've been correcting some problems that keep turning up. Fixing links here and there, and getting things all nice and neated up. Right at the moment, however, I would like to get back to writing stuff. I did very well last night -- over 3000 words, finally. Glory is going very well, though I think I lost some of the feel for it there for a few days, and that really slowed me down.

Time to get serious about it!

So, yes, off I go to try to do some work on writing for a few hours!

QUICK NOTE!

I'll be part of an author chat at Gotta Write Network tonight at 9 Eastern, 8 Central. Me and at least one other author will be discussing the From Within the Mist anthology that we're in:

http://www.gottawritenetwork.com/

Go to features, and then chat info and Writer to Writer Chat Now (I think... I've never been on this one before!)

If anyone is free, stop over!

(I'll put a picture in later...)

Well, yes, busy...

And not all together able to keep up with the work either. Very odd to be feeling this way, but I seem to be coming out of it. My body is adjusting to medications and my arms are healing from all the pokes and prods -- bruises are still pretty spectacular, though!

Writing has been going, but not at it's best. Not bad -- I've managed well over 1000 for the last couple days again. I've done some work on FM today, but I don't want to upload the changes until late tonight, in case I screw things up. So, I'll let that go for a bit and start writing now.

I wish they'd get the chat fixed... but I'm going to assume that some of these people are in the power outage area, and just assume that we're going to be on Cato for at least another day or so.

At any rate, I think things are going all right. I'm feeling better over all, but tonight I have a horrid shoulder/neck tension pain that I hope will clear up soon. I can't even guess what brought that on. Time, I think to take a break from typing, though!

Very soon Forward Motion will have it's own domain! The move has started tonight to fmwriters.com

The site is pretty much going to be exactly what it was. Holly will not be doing the day-to-day maintenance, and this may actually give her time to do more of the articles and such that everyone loves.

I am just a bit out of it still. I'm not sure if the medications are just not clicking in right, or if I am just still that tired. At any rate, I finally did more than 1000 words today. I even brought Glory up to over 100,000 words. I hope that I will be able to keep writing well over the next few days. That will help me feel much better.

And I hope that the change to fmwriters.com goes well. I really don't think I'm up to much stress right now... (grin)

Just dropping by. I am no where near back to normal, but I did get a little writing in this afternoon and I expect to do more tonight. Had a lovely ride out into the country and dinner with Russ. My arms are extremely sore though, and typing is a bit slow.

Still, good to be home...

Hello there.

Yes. I'm back. To find out what happened to me, you can read my regular journal report. If The Trip (to the Hospital) Report is not up, look for it in the archives.

I'm very tired. Time to take some meds and rest again, I think.

Neither Holly nor I have any idea why the website reverted to January 03 (I think) last night. It apparently has to do with an upgrade that went badly. At any rate, she closed the site itself down, but chat is still working and so is the regular backup site:

http://www.hollylisle.com/community/kablooey.htm

In the mean time, since I really can't reach anything to work on until it's settled, I'm taking advantage of this time to rest and hope that my back and neck continue to get better. I'm feeling far better today than I had yesterday, so there is hope.

May I say at this point how totally and completely confused I am.

I can handle web sites. I have handled them for years, on various types of servers and running many kinds of software.

But the problem with Forward Motion is that it is a dozen more more types of software, including php stuff which I have not worked with yet.

I'm learning.

I am not helped by the fact that yesterday evening my dog decided to go leap after a girl on a bike and I had to grab her back. This totally messed up my back and neck. I've spent a lot of the last two days flat in bed hoping it clears up enough to get back to work. I wrote just barely 500 words yesterday. I hope I can do as well today.

Timing is everything, isn't it? So, not only do I need to learn things, but I am on two or three medications for various problems, including pain pills that are making me sleep.

I would pound my head against the wall, but somehow I think that's the last thing I need to do today...

Yes, I know. You are all shocked, and some of you dismayed. I am now in charge of Forward Motion. I have taken over the daily running of the site for Holly, who will step back from the continual drain it has taken on her time and her emotions.

This isn't the first time Holly had suggested that I take it over. It was the first time that we both came very close to saying that we weren't sure we wanted to keep up the work. Remember, Holly has not only a family but a full time career with new contracts. So does Sheila.

I have more time than either of them. And while I came very close to saying, no -- just pull the plug, I found at the last moment that I could not do it. There are too many really great people on Forward Motion who do not deserve to be abandoned just because the others had just worn us down.

Like Holly said, this time was coming anyway. We had both talked about it... but it was one of those 'eventual' things that you don't suddenly expect to wake up one day and find has happened.

I got pretty emotional and hot about the last breach of trust that tore through the site. But that's over, the people have moved on, and the good people who are at the site to learn are going to stay there.

Forward Motion is not a site for everyone. There are people who cannot divorce their politics, religion or any other hot topic belief from themselves long enough to just stick to writing topics that don't include debate on those subjects. For them, that's the big important part of life. And it should be. But...

But some of us don't mind having a nice safe place to go where we can visit with each other, discuss the latest WIP and any technical problems we have with it, and not have to worry that if we say our main character is a Catholic Nun or a Wicca Priestess that one side or the other is going to start leaping up and down about how evil we are.

That's the point, people. Not to curtail what anyone thinks or believes, but to make a place where it doesn't matter. You can come to Forward Motion and know that you are not going to suddenly find yourself the center of a flamewar for your beliefs.

Forward Motion is not going to change. If it suits you, I hope that you stay around (or you come and join us). If you are not looking for a site devoted to writing to this extreme, then there are other sites. And no one has ever said you can't belong to as many as you have time for.

So I hope you enjoy everything at the site. As soon as the move comes to the new server (ack... again...), we're going to just keep going like we have all along.

I bet people can't tell I'm in a bad mood, right? (grin)

I am mostly making decisions about what I want to do. This whole bullshit throw a bomb parting has screwed up a weekend I had set aside to get editing done on a piece that I got a go ahead on after sending a query letter. Russ is going to be home in about six hours. I already told him the house is a pit. At best this weekend I've fed the creatures and thrown a TV dinner in for me.

But really... time to think about what I want and what I should be doing for me and my career.

I'm still not quite sure what that means.

Well, I have to admit that I don't know why I keep expecting better of people. I do, but it never really happens.

Nonny is into round two (or maybe three) of the revisionist history of what happened. She now says she gave Shay permission to talk about her age.

Yeah right. This child has repeatedly lied about stuff. And yes, not telling people your age because you know that it will have an affect on your status as moderator is lying. You can do all the 'the rules didn't say so' games you want with that one... but there was specifically stated that underage moderators will be given status as Junior Moderators.

She didn't know? Right. That's why she felt compelled to fess up right after her 18th birthday. And why she repeatedly asked that it not be mentioned -- which everyone but her good friend respected.

Shay's note said nothing about Nonny giving him permission. It did cover things specifically out of the Moderator Chat... not well, mind you, because he lied about why Nonny was removed from moderator status. It had nothing to do with her age and everything to do with trust.

And she thinks we should trust her word now as well?

Shay was not removed from being a moderator because of the letter. He had already lost that status, along with a handful of other people. He was removed from the site for not obeying a specific site rule he agreed to uphold when he became a moderator.

He screwed up, people. He got hot and angry because he had already been removed from a post before he could resign (I love the irony of that one!) and he posted something on the main board that was a flagrant disregard of the trust that had been put in him.

But then, understanding the meaning of trust seems to be common problem with this group.

I am changing this post so that it comes up first. The post below this one was actually made earlier. There are things that I need to say because there is so much misinformation being put out by Nonny and Shay. I'm sorry to do this. Don't feel obliged to read it, unless you want to see a different side of their complaint.

***

Emotions can run pretty high during an incident like this. And people are going to have different versions of what went on. So, since Nonny has posted hers, and conveniently forgotten parts that don't suit her, I'll fill in at least some of the rest. The truth, of course, will always be somewhere between. I will not say what other people in the moderator boards said during this entire incident. What I'm going to tell you is just what went on between Shay, Nonny, Holly and me. What the other moderators said, did or thought during this time is not going to be brought out, because... well, it's bad enough that Shay broke his trust to post some of it, and Nonny followed. Having gone that far, I'm not going to let their side be the only one that is told.

When I say 'children' in this post, it is not always meant as a sign of age. Quite often it is meant as a designation for actions. I've known a lot of younger members at the site who were mature and adults who were not. Nonny fell somewhere between. She could lie convincingly about her age, but she doesn't have the adult capacity for reasoning in some other cases.

Nonny was underage when she became a moderator. Yes, when Holly found out it bothered her -- not so much for the age, but for the fact that Nonny lied. Moderators have a place of trust, and Nonny betrayed that trust, and Nonny knew it. Never mind how she acted -- adult or not. Sometimes she did and sometimes she didn't, but then we are all that way. But...

She was not removed from the post nor was she banned because of her age. In fact, that part was not brought out in relation to her at the time it was learned. Even Shay points out that it didn't happen. We know if Holly is pissed about something, she acts right then. Always keep that in mind when you read this stuff from the two of them. Holly doesn't play the 'hold something over you for months and then react to it' game. If she thinks there is a reason, she will ban someone on the spot. You've all seen it happen.

Nonny's secret was kept. We continued on for some time that way...

...until Nonny told Holly -- posted it right on the moderator's board for all of us to read -- that she would lie again to Holly if she thought she had a reason to.

At that point, having given her trust and hoping it would work out, Nonny proved that she was... well a child. Hell, for all we knew at that point she had lied about being 18 and was much younger. Who could tell? How could she expect any trust at that point?

And that was when she was removed from her post and banned for awhile. It had been a heated discussion. She is not the only person who has ever gone through that process, nor the only person who was let back in when things calmed. Banning from the site allows tempers to calm and people to look at what has happened without further flames. Nonny got back in a few hours later. She was no longer a moderator.

Having had it so graphically shown to us that children can convincingly lie about their age, and having read Nonny's blog for a while and seeing that she thought her parents would go ballistic over things she had done at the site, we decided that something had to be done. One of the first things was to remove the Erotica section.

Oh, yes, I know. Freedom! Free Speech! But Erotica had not been a part of the site for very long and people managed without it before. They seem to be doing fine without it now.

We removed it because Nonny had shown the fallacy of trusting children to tell the truth. We trusted Nonny. We believed Nonny. We liked Nonny... but she had betrayed that trust. Erotica went off to a new site that we endorsed; we suggested people go to that site, and we thought was a very good plan and idea. The people who volunteered to start it were thanked for doing so.

It seems that recently they decided to expand out. Good plan, really. Nothing wrong with it and there was no reason for the secrecy. The 'steal' members line that Holly posted was a reaction to their way of dealing with this, not to what the members would do if they found out about the other site. People have told me that their approach, even though they like Nonny, Robert and Shay, made them uneasy with the secrecy and scheming and the backstabbing comments.

You want to know the real, blunt truth? Both Holly and I were more than happy to find that some of them had found another place to hang out where they could do whatever they wanted, and not feel hampered by any of Forward Motion's rules. It looks like a good alternate site, and like the Adult Writing site, if they had been open about setting it up instead of all the secrecy and theatrics, things would have gone far better. Instead, they wanted to make sure that everyone knew they were going because of Holly, and likely me. Because we would do something horrible if we found out. It's just not true. Having that other site looks like a perfect solution to what some people have found to be a troublesome at the site -- that they could not rant and rage about anything at all at any time they wanted. Some people like those kinds of sites. But that is not what Forward Motion is about, nor will it ever be about it.

Now why did we feel we had to protect the site?

Because Nonny lied about her age.

Doesn't quite follow? She didn't belong to the Erotica board when she was underage, right? Right (if you can believe anything about how old she really is, of course). However, she did do things that could have brought trouble to the site if her parents had decided that their 17 year old should not be having an on-line affair with someone older (and planning to join him) at a site that said they welcomed younger writers. She also wrote and sold erotica while she was underage, and with most of the people at the site telling her how great it was that she did so.

If the site had been Nonny's Forward Motion, then Nonny would get to decide how much trust she put into people who openly lied to her and did things that put the site in potential danger. It would be her name (well, if she used her real name) that was up there drawing the fire when things go wrong.

The site is Holly Lisle's Forward Motion. That means if an irate parent finds that their 17 year old daughter is hanging out in chat and discussing sex with an older member, it is Holly Lisle's name that will suddenly be on the top of the complaint. How long do you think Holly would bother to keep the site open if it came under those kinds of charges? You could count it in minutes, people. And who would that help?

(And Shay, once more... Age of Consent does not mean the child has the rights of an adult. It means that if there is sex, the older person will not be charged with statutory rape. Age of Consent varies in different states and sometimes even by gender. When a person is considered a true adult varies as well. A teen at the Age of Consent can still be under parental rule... and those parents can initiate actions for the safety of their child.)

Nonny could not be trusted. She lied about her age and then she used that lie to get into a situation that, if we had known she was younger, we would have discouraged -- at least on the site. What people do off the site is beyond our control... but at Forward Motion we expect at least the moderators to behave in a way that would not bring the site into trouble.

Wow. Too much to ask for, right?

The rest of this about the new site might not have come out until they were ready to go live if Shay hadn't been so horribly offended by Holly's reaction to Nonny's lies. He had planned to leave anyway. I believe that now, knowing about the new site and all. He says that he wanted Holly to know how he felt and why he was leaving, and that he didn't post the notice to hurt the community.

And it is all lies, of course. If he had really felt that way, he would have emailed her the notice, and not posted it on the main board and then everywhere he could on different boards. That part is obvious. He has, quite plainly, planned to make as much disruption in the site as he could.

If people want to belong to both sites, it is not going to bother us. If they want to play their 'poor, persecuted us' games over there... well, go for it. Enjoy it. If you don't feel that Forward Motion, with the policy to try and keep flame wars on non-writing related subjects down suits you, then you might want to go over there. It's bound to be a lively site in that respect. But you are welcome at Forward Motion as well.

Forward Motion is about writing. What you write is not important, and we have always welcomed diversity in that respect. We don't care about your political status or your religion or anything else about you, nor do we want to know your views on it in regards to others. If you want to learn more about writing, and spend time in the company of other writers, this is a good site for it. Not perfect, but no site ever will be. Like most of the moderators, I have not purposely put the site in danger. Not because it is MY site, but because I, at least, have thought about the others at Forward Motion and how my actions might affect the site.

Yes, I am a flaming liberal as Holly pointed out in that chat transcript. I have also disagreed with Holly on site policy, right there on the moderator's board, and disagreed with her on other things on the main board.

I have, however, never lied to her.

Okay, the trouble at Forward Motion... Can I say that I really dislike stupid, childish games.

Dstar -- Shalon -- was not doing the work of a moderator. That would be obvious to anyone who looked around the site. He was not the only one, and he was part of a group that got dropped from Moderator position. The deal was that if they picked up the work on the site in the next six months, they could reapply for the position.

Dstar is the most unethical, lying bastard that I've ever had the displeasure to have to associate with. His post, after his removal for not doing work, was the worst kind of grandstanding I have ever seen.

The whole secrecy behind the other site they're setting up was probably just a bad mistake on their part. I can understand how something like that can get out of hand. But they had made a couple members uneasy in the approach, and when the rest of this fell out, I started hearing about it.

Stupid stuff.

I'm taking a break. I might come back and rant more, later.

I have a short piece up at 'A Picture's Worth' right now. It will be moving off into the archives before long, I'm sure.

I have to say, it was very interesting writing it. If I had been writing fiction, it would have taken me just a few minutes. Nonfiction in general doesn't take me long, either. But this one took me a couple days to get just short of 1000 words.

Anyway, in other life... Russ is off in New York until Tuesday. I'm hiding out in the house and trying to figure out how I want to set up my work for this month. I have gone as far as I intended to go on Badlands before I put together a submission package and moved on to the next piece. As it happens, I have 22 chapters left -- if I stick to the older versions layout -- that often doesn't happen in these rewrite from scratch versions. But if I do stick to it, or close, I can do one chapter a week and still rewrite the entire book by the end of the year.

This appeals to me because at that few words per week, I can still get other novels ready for submission.

Glory is going well, but slowly... but that's all right too. I have to get past this feeling that I need to rush things. Yes, it's well past midway on the year. No, I have not done most of what I set out to do this year.

You know, the world isn't exactly going to end because of it.