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Wicked Small World.
The other night, I had a strange dream. It was about my first experience managing a small community -- a local IRC channel with a few tens of users, if I must be precise -- which was a learning experience, in a not-going-over-too-well sort of way. It was well over a decade ago; I was young and had no clue. I thought the job was about managing the technical aspects of IRC, when it was about managing people. I still feel bad about the mistakes I made then, and the dream, interestingly, was about people coming to me from the mists of that past and expressing forgiveness. Sweet closure.
Around the same time that particular adventure went awry and I quit IRC, I started a little community of my own, and maybe thanks to the hard-earned experience, that one, I've got to say, was rather a resounding success. Outwardly, it was a place for French-speaking people to discuss the works of Anne McCaffrey, though what made it great was never the subject matter as much as the people who came to discuss it. Some of us started meeting up IRL, and I found great friends on the way, the least of which not being![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kefen, and a girl to share my life in the person of jallora. Even now, as the community itself has mostly gone dormant, our group of friends is still in steady touch and see each other regularly.
Managing this community brought me other benefits, like a basic experience of organizing people and dealing with interpersonal politics. At some point we founded a fanzine; my first serious writing dates back from then. I... don't entirely hate what I wrote then, when the mood seizes me and I dive back into the archives. For me, that's saying a lot. Good times, and good work.
Fast-forward to this morning. A coworker from presales turns up in our room for the daily hellos, and we perform the ritual geek-oriented smalltalk. I like this guy; he sometimes tends to fall into the typical communication failure modes of purebred geeks, but as the whole he's the cool sort of geeky guy I get along great with. We often discuss sci-fi and fantasy and tabletop RPG, and we might have played a game of Magic or two in the rest area. At this point, as we discuss the latest series like Game of Thrones and fantasy books in general, he brings up Anne McCaffrey and Pern. He's a huge fan of Pern, he says; got all the books, do I know about them?
I most certainly know about them, yes, and have absolutely read them.
"Good," he says, and begins to expand upon how much he loves the series.
"So how come we've never seen you on Pern.fr, then?" I say, with a bit of teasing reproach.
He grins right back. "Because you don't know my nickname. I was a semi-regular there."
Floored. F-L-O-O-R-E-D.
And with that, his clients turn up and the bastard saunters off happily without telling me who the heck he is there.
Crazy small world. It's the second time in my career I end up realizing I know a coworker from way back.
Around the same time that particular adventure went awry and I quit IRC, I started a little community of my own, and maybe thanks to the hard-earned experience, that one, I've got to say, was rather a resounding success. Outwardly, it was a place for French-speaking people to discuss the works of Anne McCaffrey, though what made it great was never the subject matter as much as the people who came to discuss it. Some of us started meeting up IRL, and I found great friends on the way, the least of which not being
kefen, and a girl to share my life in the person of jallora. Even now, as the community itself has mostly gone dormant, our group of friends is still in steady touch and see each other regularly.Managing this community brought me other benefits, like a basic experience of organizing people and dealing with interpersonal politics. At some point we founded a fanzine; my first serious writing dates back from then. I... don't entirely hate what I wrote then, when the mood seizes me and I dive back into the archives. For me, that's saying a lot. Good times, and good work.
Fast-forward to this morning. A coworker from presales turns up in our room for the daily hellos, and we perform the ritual geek-oriented smalltalk. I like this guy; he sometimes tends to fall into the typical communication failure modes of purebred geeks, but as the whole he's the cool sort of geeky guy I get along great with. We often discuss sci-fi and fantasy and tabletop RPG, and we might have played a game of Magic or two in the rest area. At this point, as we discuss the latest series like Game of Thrones and fantasy books in general, he brings up Anne McCaffrey and Pern. He's a huge fan of Pern, he says; got all the books, do I know about them?
I most certainly know about them, yes, and have absolutely read them.
"Good," he says, and begins to expand upon how much he loves the series.
"So how come we've never seen you on Pern.fr, then?" I say, with a bit of teasing reproach.
He grins right back. "Because you don't know my nickname. I was a semi-regular there."
Floored. F-L-O-O-R-E-D.
And with that, his clients turn up and the bastard saunters off happily without telling me who the heck he is there.
Crazy small world. It's the second time in my career I end up realizing I know a coworker from way back.
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As for your coworker... did you say who you were on PernFR? He may be just a bit surprised as well... Well, then again, I wonder how easy it'd be for a PernFR regular, who meets you for the first time and out of context, to figure out you are our beloved Weyrleader!
(Also still leafing through the Chronicles PDFs now and then, but MAN how I wish I didn't entirely hate what I wrote back then either. Probably the reason why I still haven't gotten around to converting the oldest issues yet...)
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And yes, I had time to tell him before he had to leave. Presumably we'll talk more about the whole thing when we have time. But now I'm worried I'll find him angry at me over something I did or didn't do at some point while managing the ML. @_@ *flails*
(And also, I have kept good memories of your stories, so I'm not sure what you're unhappy about. But I can't berate you because I'm like that too.)
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Also, you were part of us guys, so, still thanks to you!
(And I dunno, when reading my stuff again, I always get the feeling I just have no imagination for stories. I kinda like scenes, characters or situations I come up with, but I swear I'm hopeless at coming up with, well, you know, a story.)
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And, dude. People made whole careers on scenes and characters and situations. To stay with Pern, can you tell me what the story of Dragonquest is? I thought not. :)
Besides, story, you know... you just come up with those disconnected scenes, you put on your evil hat and work to make them more striking (usually it involves being very mean to the characters), and then you try to figure out how to link the scenes into a vaguely cohesive narrative. Mishun accumplisht. (There are recipes to good stories, too; Kodayu gave a great presentation on that topic at the last EF.)
Anyway... Speaking of being evil to characters... Maybe I should be posting something. Perhaps after a few more revisions.
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Still have to buy Temeraire. Good thing they all come as ebook format.
I recently finished the DelaSangre series, I really loved it. It took me like less than a week to read all four.
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I don't know about DelaSangre. Will look it up. :)
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The novel is a first-person story of Peter DelaSangre, a shapeshifting dragon living on an island in Miami, among humans nowadays. He tells about his life and the search for a wife of his kind.
The series is of four books: Dragon DelaSangre, Dragon Moon, The Seadragon Daughter and A Host Of Dragon.
I personally really loved it. The adult moments just were a plus ;)