Pirates of FM – First of Month

Pirates of FM Challenge LogoThe Pirates of FM: Blank Pages Tell No Tales has been active for a little over a month now. Congrats to everyone who earned badges and Pirate Gold during the past month! It’s been wonderful seeing so many make progress on their projects.

The beginning of the month is a great time to set new goals for your creativity. See the “Pirates of FM” menu above for all the juicy details.

Register in the forum or in the “Deadline Registration” Discord room.

Come join the fun!

New Challenge: Pirates of FM: Blank Pages Tell No Tales

…we really shouldn’t be left alone in chat unsupervised…

Ahoy ye maties! Yes, you heard that right. We have a new writing challenge! Inspired by C.E. Backstrom, who said, “…the 6yo in me needed a reward based system to keep me motivated. in American schools (and possibly overseas) teachers use these “Treasure Chests/Bags” with goodies in them that you have to earn points to spend to get a goodie from the chest/bag.”

Mooseythehut introduced the name of the challenge, which turned it pirate-themed, NeciaPhoenix mentioned loving the badges in the old FM forum… and the rest is history! LOL

We wanted to make this challenge accessible to a wide variety of people who work and write in different ways. You can do one challenge and never do anything again or you can do lots of things all the time and rack up tons of rewards. This is about goals with deadlines, not numbers of words, hours, scenes, chapter, or so on. This way the challenge works for anyone at any level of effort and commitment.

Pirates of FM Challenge LogoAfter a lot of brainstorming with FM members in our Discord server we finally ironed out (most) of the details. The challenge is now live! 

Here are quick links to the information pages:

Pirates of FM Introduction

PoFM Rules (how it works)

Take a look in the new drop-down menu up above for yet more pages including how to earn Pirate Gold, what to spend it on (Badges on FM are back!), and a list of participants and their goals.

Have fun fellow creative pirates!

Aaaaarrrrggghhhh!

Forward Motion Discord Server – Let’s Chat!

Computer ChattingThe Forward Motion Discord Server has officially taken over as the live chat space for our merry band of writers! For those who would like to join the fun, the invite link is: https://discord.gg/3SRF3xQ

If you prefer, you can use the interface under the chat tab here at FM once you have a Discord account. Or you can use any of Discord’s many options for chatting.

More site news to come!

Live Chat Software Change

Thought Question Text Speech Talk  - Clker-Free-Vector-Images / PixabayThe chat software we’d been using was overall nice. However, I kept getting complaints from some FMers that were having trouble with it. Either not connecting on whatever device they were using, not formatting correctly, or other small problems. So, I’ve been keeping my eye out for a good alternative. Which was surprisingly difficult.

One suggested alternative mentioned several times was Discord. It’s a good chat platform, and I’m a part of several servers myself. However, I wanted the ability for FMers to be able to access chat here on the website. Discord didn’t have a way to integrate with websites.

But that’s now starting to change.

I found a service that enables a Discord server to be embedded in a website. You can now see it on our Chat page here at FM!

Once you are logged into Discord (unfortunately this is not tied into the user database here) how you want to go into chat depends on you. You can hat using the embedded Discord window here on this site on our own live chat page (https://fmwriters.com/fm/chat/). Or you can use any of Discord’s apps to chat via your desktop, laptop, cell phones, pads, and so on.

Your choice!

This upgrade was also announced in the forum where you can make comments if you wish.

Start Out the New Year Right

Start Out the New Year Right

2020 is just around the corner. For many people this means goals for the coming year. How about starting out the year with a writing goal?

We are starting up the 2-month challenges again, with the first challenge will running from January 1 to February 28 (59 days). The challenge consists of several types of goals, with each goal having a tier. Choose one, two, or several!

Full post with types and tiers (Must be signed into see): https://fmwriters.com/fm/forums/topic/the-january-february-2013-challenge/

Novels:
New Material
Rewrite
Novel Submission

Short Stories:
New Material
Rewrite

Flash Fiction:
New Material
Rewrite

Poetry:
New Material
Rewrite

Nonfiction:
New Material
Submissions

World Building

Word Count

If you intend to join, post a message to the appropriate board(s) with your name as the subject. After you’ve signed up, you can post progress as additional posts below your initial ‘name’ post.

Many who are jumping in have been posting to the “2 Month Challenge” post with links to their personal ‘name’ post(s).

And remember: This is all for fun! Enjoy yourselves!

New Site is Live!

The new site for Forward Motion is now live! The old site still exists, with the link to it in the sidebar. Please post new posts in the new forum, as no further posts from the old forum will be ported over.

As the note says in the sidebar, all user accounts were successfully ported over. However, passwords were encrypted, so they could not. Please use the “Recover Password” option to reset your password. At that point, you should be good to go. Don’t forget to fill in your profile area!

I think I got all the Moderator roles and permissions set up, but if not, please let me know!

Some boards have been reorganized, moved to other areas, and so forth. The “Motivation” area has been left alone (so, please don’t scream in alarm!).

You will notice that there are several boards that are no longer live. They have not been deleted, but instead archived. Some haven’t been used in a while, others need permissions worked on, with others now combined with new live boards. We can always bring them out of retirement, recreate, or create new ones if needed. If you have any suggestions, please post to the “Suggestions and Troubleshooting” or “The Main Board” boards.