News

[24 Sep 04] The forums exist!

[26 Sep 04] The Chat Howto is up. This will show you how to quickly install X-Chat and join our channel, and then explain some of the basic commands and such.

Welcome!

Welcome to SFFmuse, a community dedicated to the art of writing science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Readers, writers, and their friends are all welcome to leap into discussion on the forums, or skim through the Gallery when it's up. Like many writing communities, SFFmuse will feature crits forums and match-ups — however, our overall focus is inspiration.

Writing can be a lonely craft.

Community helps

When writers who gang together to post progress; discuss technique, resources, side topics and hobbies; or just to cheer each other on, they often write more and have more fun doing it. That's all this is — a place to hang out and get into your favorite genres while cheering and being cheered.

Forums

[24 Sep 04] The forums are here! We've got blather, venting, boards for every sense of media, all three of our genres, poetry, and catchall, worldbuilding, prose hammering, mews and roars, and the ubiquitous thingie! Twenty two in total! Come on into the coffeehouse and sip your favorite fantastical or mundane beverage while chattering about anything!

Wiki

Many writing sites have done site essays — writings on writing and life contributed by the community at large or ramblings by a site's big mamba. But have any of them done it with a wiki?

That's what we're doing. We know you know how to write. There's lots of topics out there, and any number of takes on any of them. Write your own essay or chatter comments on the words already scribed.

Chat

Real-time communication. While some of us will get the most out of the forums or the wiki, there are also some for whom chat is that final piece that makes the community seem real. Come brainstorm your WIP or worldbulding, cheer wordcount and acceptances, commiserate block and rejections, blather and beat the bush, and generally have a better-than-average time. It's also a great venue for admin and technical help (— perhaps because the main technical admin tends to live there . . . .)

We're currently holding an open IRC channel #sffmuse on irc.worldirc.org. See the Chat Information Page for more information.

Also, the Founders are often available on AIM and sometimes other instant messaging systems, and can be contacted by email. I suspect many of our members will have these services as well, they can list them on their board profile or wiki homepage at their discretion :).

Buildup and Shakedown

As of this writing, on 22 September 2004, the site is only partially functional. We should have the forum and the wiki both up in the next few days, but it will take a few weeks to get everything completely sorted out.

Feel free to comment; help and support are both appreciated. Until we have a place for you to post, founder Robert Sloan is currently taking site commentary on his Livejournal. And while we depend on active contributors, lurkers are a part of the community too — participate at your own level of comfort and energy.

What do you want in your SFF writing community?