Welcome back to another month of the Merry Go Round Blog Tour. Our detailed discussion this month centers around on-line writing communities, or, more generically, community.  I’m going to reflect a little bit on both this month.  Specifically, the bulk of my on-line writing community experience has been with Forward Motion for Writers, affectionately called FM. I had brief experience with one or two others, but that experience was less than satisfying, so I’ll focus on the public community of FM and the private community which has grown from that public community.

My good friend, Holly Lisle, started Forward Motion back around 1998 or 1999.  I finally joined in September 2002. The idea was, and still is, to provide a place for writers of all types to gather and learn about the publication process from people who have been through the process or are going through the process together.  Originally, the site focused exclusively on the process for people wanted to break into traditional publishing.  In the last few years, we’ve expanded to helping people pursuing independent publishing goals.

In 2004, Holly transferred site ownership to her friend Lazette Gifford.  Zette has owned and operated the site since then with the help of a small core of moderators and administrators who volunteer their time.  The site is free to join.  There is a way to donate money to go toward the annual costs of operating the site — domain registration, web space, and things like that.  The site is operated on public domain or GNU licensed software and donated time for programming, administration, and moderation.  The suggested donation is $12 a year, which, as you can tell, breaks down to $1 a month.  I’m pretty sure donations don’t come close to covering operating costs.

The site rules are minimal, but the cardinal rule is not to call people names or get into personal attack-type discussions.  People can disagree, but they must maintain discussions at the idea level and not the personal level. Additionally, constructive criticism is required for critiques.  This is not to say critiques are sugar-coated.  If you ask someone for a critique, they are expected to provide honest feedback in a manner that will help the author improve their work.  Please, if you’re looking for a site where you can learn about the publication process at any stage, FM is worth a look, but read the Terms of Service first to avoid any embarrassing missteps.

I began participating as a member.  Eventually, Zette asked me to be a moderator, and over the last few years, I’ve been an administrator as well as a moderator.  Most of my participation in the site has been behind the scenes for the last few years.  But from my experiences on the site, I’ve become part of a community where we interact off the site and independently from it.

I’ve met each of the key members in person as I traveled around the country.  I still have a couple of people I interact with regularly to meet yet, but the core group, whom I primarily interact with on line, has also been met in person at least once.  These relationships, forged on FM, haven taken on an independent life of their own outside the FM community.  We support one another and cheer one another on as we pursue our various avenues toward publication and in our lives.  This is the richness both an on-line community and a community can offer.