Do I need to think more about "why" or should I just continue writing along?

Continue to write. Unless and until you get an itch that demands definition - if that question of why declares itself in your own head - then I'm damned if I see why it ought to get into the way of the experience you're sharing here.

For what it's worth, the first time I met ita F2F, I was picking her up at SFO. Her plane got in at half past two in the morning; I took her home with me, she spent that night at our place alone. Next night, she shared our guest room with Dana; the following night with Penny B. It's never once occurred to me to ask why, and I still don't much care. The fact is sufficient unto itself, which is why I can still open my doors to people I've never met (and, even more extraordinarily to me, Nic does the same).

But I'd say, go ahead and just tell the stories. The answers may well come out before you ever get around to asking. And the why may not be important anyway, and it certainly won't be the same for any of your readers.

Just write it, I think.

Don't think about the why. As you write, it will become apparent. But ferreting it out ahead of time and writing to that is going to force your perspective, make it lean to conform to the why. And what you want is for the why to emerge, as a thread the reader follows, through the whole.

Did that make sense?

I didn't mean you should use 1,000 words describing the Buffistas; rather that I thought a line or two of description illustrating that you & ita both find the board a compelling place would make the story more meaningful to the common reader. Perhaps you could say something like: it was refreshing to find site where everybody can spell (and then reference that Tara line, if it seems appropriate).

Anne Lamott said, write everything down. Sometimes you have to write 500 lines of crap to get to the part you'll ultimately keep.

Thanks, Robin, Beverly, Deb, Katerina.

I'm going to go with just writing, incorporating feedback that speaks to me, makes things more sensical in my world.

Katerina, I think I'll lay off explaining Buffistas in ita's story. I'll be putting together a piece explaining all the places I called home.

I don't know, Katerina. I think Annie's advice really only works for certain people. There are quite a few writers out there - I'm one of them - who do far better to not write everything down, because it's too easy to get lost in it. She also likes outlining, as I recall, and that's something that would flat-out kill me as a writer. Sometimes, implicit things are far more appealing and clarifying to a reader than having the dots connected for them.

Not saying Allyson shouldn't. But I do think I'd want to see a few more of the essays together with this one, before I decided she was being too sparse. Because, even invested in ita's story on a personal level, and finding it hard to distance myself? I got the inference of where she was going with the piece, no problem at all.

Yeah, I don't outline or write and write and then revise. Everything on ScoopMe was always written the night before deadline, spellchecked, and sent out into the world.

This is more disciplined, which is what has terrified me for so long. I'm not a disciplined writer. From my brain to the page to you.

And it's probably messy, but I find revision to be, you know, WORK.

Heh. I remember going to dinner with my agent's sernior partner and founder of the agency, Don Maass (who, as it happens, wrote a shitload of modern Nancy Drew stuff, including one in which he pulled a Doyle and killed off her boyfriend). I mentioned not being able to write "conventional" mysteries because I don't have the "A to B plus C gets you to the solution" kind of head. He grabbed a napkin and drew a bewildering series of lines that looked like some sort of deranged graph on crack; he then explained that the connect-a-line thing would enable me to do it, hey presto.

I stared it for a moment, and patted his hand. He stared at me for a moment and then said, "Oh! I didn't realise - you're one of those organic writers."

I have no idea what the hell that actually means - I think the term he wanted was fractal or chaos theory or something - but apparently, we're a breed apart or some junk.

As to revision being work? 'swhy I revise as I go along, and it's the reason that every single one of my beta readers gets thanked, by name, at the beginning of each book (Bev, juliana and Betsy are all thanked at the beginning of "Weaver" - FFoSM's list is a bit longer - Nilly and quite a few others get added in for "Matty Groves"). Because I'll ping and say, hey, anyone up for a beta read? Middle section, chapter whatever? And five people, bless 'em, will read and give me feedback as that section's in progress.

That's why I suggested a broad base. It makes it so much easier.

You asked who my audience was for this, and I think it's anyone who's every been involved in an online community, got a date through Match.com, or otherwise met, wanted to meet, or chatted with the other crazy axe murderers online. It's specifically from the perspective of someone overly involved in Mutant Enemy's fandoms, of course, but the common thread in all of these stories is that We Met on the Web.

That's what I thought. I'd asked, specifically, because when presenting to an agent, having that information right there for them puts you one or three or fifty seven steps ahead of the pack: very few people have that down ahead of time (shit, Novel Number Six comes out in two months and I still have no clue who my target audience is supposed to be). So, an agent and an editor will love you with a deep and abiding love if you can tell them that upfront.

But it's also pertinent because in some way, probably well below the surface of your awareness while you're actually writing? Knowing who you think is going to want to buy it and read it and say "HELL yes" is likely going to inform the way you put things down.

So in its way? It's already imposing the best kind of discipline on what seems to be a sister organic method to mine: you know who's going to want to read it, and the language, the information, the sense memories behind the people and the journey, are automatically likely to tilt that way.

That's the way of it, Deb. Trying to explain to someone who has never used the web to communicate with total strangers means I have to do a lot more defining of terms, a lot more boring explanation. The furthest I'm writing down to is the people within this fandom who don't know who I am, but chat with other chatterers at least once a week.

If people want to know what an internet community is, they can read Clay Shirky. And should. He's good at explaining it.