How to Join Forward Motion
he community came into existence for several reasons. First, I hadn't been able to be a part of a writers' group or attend conventions in a few years, and knew that situation wouldn't be changing in the foreseeable future, and I missed the company of readers. Second, I am fortunate to be able to do the thing I enjoy most for a living, and I wanted to be able to help others who shared my obsession find their way to living their dreams. Third, I knew a lot of people -- writers and readers - - who I thought should meet each other.
When the Internet suddenly erupted with free, easy-to-use community-building tools, I suddenly had the solution to bringing those many people together and sharing what I knew with them and letting them share what they knew with me and each other.
The community has three sections -- public boards, which anyone can read and in most cases anyone can post to; private boards, where writers can post sections of works-in-progress and receive critiques of them; and restricted boards, which include the Young Writers' Scene, the Erotica & Sensual Fiction board, and boards for various classes. The private areas require community membership and are password-protected to preserve all publication rights for each author's use. The restricted boards further require submission of an application -- in the case of Young Writers' Scene, to make sure the applicant is under seventeen years of age; and in the case of Erotica & Sensual Fiction, to make sure the applicant is eighteen years of age or older and that it is legal for him or her to participate in a board containing erotic content. All restricted class boards will have application procedures posted as new classes open.
To participate in the public boards , all you have to do is read them and post to them. If you register with the community, you gain the ability to post in HTML and use signatures, add your picture or avatar to your posts, use our private messaging and e-mail systems, rate other posts and other users, edit your posts, and so on. But in most cases there's no requirement to do either. (The Rants board, due to a short-lived problem with trolls, requires membership to post.)
To participate in the private portion of the community, where you can receive crits on your own work and crit the works of other writers and participate in various writing exercises, dares, and challenges, you must join the community. You will have to be logged in to gain access to the private boards.
To join the Young Writers' Scene, you must first join the community, then message me (http://www.hollylisle.com/community/cgi-bin/dcforum/
dcboard.cgi?az=send_mesg&userid=hollylisle ) with your application. In it, you must send your real name, your age, your birthdate, an affirmation that you are seventeen or under, and -- if you are thirteen or under, your parents must send to me at holly.lisle@sff.net by separate e-mail approval for you to participate in the community.To join the Erotica & Sensual Fiction section (commonly called Writerotic) you must first join the community, then message me (http://www.hollylisle.com/community/cgi-bin/dcforum/
dcboard.cgi?az=send_mesg&userid=hollylisle ) with your application. In it, you must send your real name, your age, your birthdate, and affirmation that you are eighteen years old or older, and an affirmation that your participation on this board is legal in your place of residence (defined as the place where you live when you're sending your application). Writers in military service stationed in areas where participation would be illegal are welcome to apply, but are asked to use discretion about when they participate. I don't want any of our folks getting into trouble.Anyone may join the community. Simple click this link (http://hollylisle.com/community/cgi-bin/dcforum/
dcboard.cgi?az=user_register ) and fill out an application. Membership is free and approval is automatic. The excellent site moderators can help you find your way to topics of interest to you, crit circles that can help you, and ongoing projects, challenges, exercises, workshops, articles, and contests that might inspire you.We have a good group of people in the HollyLisle.com community. Come look us over, introduce yourself, take part in a few conversations -- or jump straight into the deep water and start working on your book or short story.
We're here to help you make long-cherished dreams turn into reality. I hope you'll join us.
Holly Lisle