Who You Talkin' To?

We're talking about online communities over here in MavenLand this week, and you can't really talk about online communities without talking about publisher-sponsored contests and forums. Ok, well, maybe you can, but it's my day so we have to go along with what I want to talk about.

When I first got the idea to try writing a novel, I went directly to the homepage of the authors I read the most at the time. Up to this point, I had only used their websites to figure out the order their backlists were supposed to be read and to get sneak peeks at new titles. I would savor excerpts and cover art and wish away the months before I could have that new book in my hot little hands. ARC was a term I'd never heard before. I had never even considered the possibility I could get a book before it was due out. (I didn't know I could find a book early by looking around town, either, my point being that I basically knew jack about the publishing world, period.)

From my favorite authors I found the Avon Authors Forum. WOW. From a reader's perspective, this was a goldmine. I could not BELIEVE all my favorite authors (because at the time, I read Avon authors almost exclusively without even realizing it) were collected right there in ONE place. And many of them were online, chatting with readers! They hit the discussion boards at least as often as I did!

From there, I found three sources of information: 1) Jenna Peterson, who is always, always generous with her time and knowledge, 2) the Aspiring Romance Writers loop, run by a fellow discussion board member, and 3) Romantic Inks, which at the time was called Romantically Inclined (which, turns out, if not entered into your browser correctly is also a porn site).

At each of those points, I made connections with other human beings. Those connections built upon each other so quickly that the internet became addictive in record time. I mean, SHOCKINGLY fast and surprisingly hard to quit. I would have told you three years ago that I would never, ever be addicted to things like online message boards, blogs, and email. It never would have crossed my mind as a possibility. But the very first time I saw someone respond to my comment on a forum... *chills* It was crack.

(I see Blogger has added an option to have comments posted after yours emailed directly to you. That's like crack on crack.)

Anyway, I think FanLit and Gather.com and the American Title contests all provide that first hit of crack for a lot of people. We start out as readers, or as readers dabbling with that first, second, or sixth book idea, and then we find out... people can read my stuff! I don't even have to be published! It's crack on speed!

Is crack speed? I have no idea.

So I know FanLit, in particular, did a great job of bringing all of the above together. They had a discussion forum, real, live multi-published authors commenting (on YOUR work!), blogging, and the like, and then they had a publishing venue for the masses. It was like the perfect trifecta of addictive, engaging crack, and it was perfect.

I just used perfect twice. Gah. That's how good it was.

I think the top really blew off when the people on the forums (using actual crack to stay up 36 hours in a row) realized there were other people on the forums who had blogs. Whoa. And those blogs were linked to other blogs. And the next thing you know, mom1974 is able to read through the archives of suzie59 and bam! instant connection. It's like you know that person. Only you don't. Because it's the illusion of the internet.

And now one of those imaginary people is at my house. Because we're all really real people, floating around Al Gore's internet, hoping to run into other real people -- preferably ones who will publish our books (and ones who will read them) -- making the internet that elusive mix of anonymous and not, creepy and absolutely perfect.

Just don't get me started on those SciFi people. Weirdos! :-)

Tell me: when you first got hooked on the internet, what was your biggest surprise? Was it that there's actually normal people on the internet? Was it that you could stand to look at yourself in the morning after spending all night chatting with a complete stranger through this backward, still-motion chat technology we call message boards? Was it that you can learn some stuff on the internet that's not only true, but actually useful? Have you ever met anyone online in real life through a venue that wasn't the National conference?