Silmarillion Writers' Guild

Today is the SWG's tenth begetting day. Just like an Elf, the SWG has both begetting and birthdays since I created the group, chickened out about what I'd done, and then waited several months before, at the urging of ford_of_bruinen, actually inviting people to join. So today, ten years ago, I created the SWG here on LiveJournal and on Yahoo! Groups.

And what a ten years it has been! When I started the SWG, I was a completely fandom newbie, having only commented on a few stories and chimed in on a few discussions (usually pretty disastrously); I hadn't started posting my own work, and why I thought that I should start a group for Silmfic is something I don't really have an answer for except that I am glad that I did. I have learned so much in the last decade, grown a lot as a person, read some wonderful stories, become much more knowledgeable about Tolkien's world, and most importantly (in my mind) met many, many excellent people.

I want to thank you all for the last ten years and raise my virtual glass to many decades more. Even if we've never spoken, if you've supported the SWG in any way, I am grateful to you for helping to bring our group from its humble and more-than-a-little-awkward beginnings to what it is today. My dream in starting the SWG was to build a place where all Silmarillion fans could meet to discuss Tolkien's books and share stories without the incivility and judgment that were plaguing some fannish spaces at the time, and we've come pretty close to realizing that dream.

We will be doing something for our birthday in July; my comods and I felt that since our begetting day falls in the middle of March and, therefore, Back to Middle-earth Month, that is was best to wait. And, in my own mind, March 15 is the day the SWG came into being. Even if I didn't do much that was visible to others in the time between its advent in March and opening the group to new members in July, it was on my mind constantly, and the dream it represented never left me (which was why chickening out over its creation didn't involve deleting it outright). Watch this space for an announcement in the coming months about our birthday festivities.

Finally, when I presented about the Tolkien fan fiction community at Mythmoot this year, I was asked by Curtis Weyant, the editor of the Signum University Eagle, if I would write an article about founding and running the SWG. I did, and in a lovely coincidence, it was published two days before our ten-year anniversary. If you want to read more about how the SWG was founded and the everyday stuff that goes on behind the scenes, check out In a Stone House by the Sea in the Eagle.

Thank you all once again and here's to many more milestones like this one!