  Noticing Newbies
This week: Welcome to the WDC Tour 2017 Edited by: ember_rain
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As a dyslexic writer, I understand how scary it can be to put yourself out there for others to read your work. But, it is something every writer needs to do. Whether you're submitting to a publisher or posting here for the WDC world to see, you have to get over it eventually or die forever in obscurity with your children wondering why Momma/Daddy never did anything with their work.
The purpose of my newsletter is to entertain a bit if I can, but it is also to help you look at writing ideas as a new member you might not have thought of. To address issues every writer faces at some point in time so you know you're not alone. On occasion, I will throw in a WDC technical issue on how to find your way around here or the ML. What I won't do is give you something that bores me. Yes, I know there will be spelling mistakes. I won't use every their, there or they're correctly. I may spell collage when I mean college. But, what you will get are real answers to problems I have conquered and some I'm still struggling just like some of you.
My one and only goal is to help our new members feel like the belong because you do. Different ideas are welcome. Different styles are welcome and yes even if you have in the past spelled cat K A T out loud and thought you were right or struggle to let characters lead and the plot follow, you have a place here on WDC. None of us are perfect. We all struggle and we are all here to help each other in that struggle.
Friends have jokingly suggested that I drank the WDC kool-aide. I will happily agree. I did and I am so glad I did. Here is to all of our new members finding their writing home with us as well.
Quick note: I lost my editor, He's moved three hours away and has very little internet access, all for the love of a girl. So please bear (or is it bare) with me there will be mistakes. I'm doing the best I can. Lucky for us all Firefox now offers a Grammarly app and it works here on WDC. |
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I enter through a side gate looking a little flustered. It has been a while since I have worked the registration desk as a guide. In fact, I was on leave for nearly a year and missed a lot of the upgrades that happened while I was away. I smile to all of the new faces and some old who are here for a refresher. Either they have been gone a while too or just want to remember all the things they have forgotten since they first entered these gates. Either way, it doesn't matter to me. I'm too busy hoping you don't notice how nervous I am, speaking to a crowd.
"Alright folks, I am Ember Rain and I will be your guide today. I can't promise I will be the best guide. I may be as surprised as you are about some of the things we find but I will do my very best. We are going to start today in my communication center so you can learn how to contact me, other people here on WDC as well as how to help people connect to you." I stop and look up, from my notes. to see if at least our newest members are paying attention and swallow hard. The crowd really is bigger than I expected and I am not a public speaker.
"So as you can see above the door that enters my personal writing space is my handle. If you move your laser pointer over my handle you will see a flash of my username. My username is my real name. My handle is whatever I feel like being called at the moment and it is subject to change. It is only in rare occasions members change their username. It takes as much paperwork as changing your name outside of the WDC world and most of the time it isn't allowed. It's a special occasion, dire straights kind of thing. So what you just saw is recreated when you make a post to a community board, email, or post in your writing room we call a portfolio. What you saw when you scrolled across my name was well my name... Ember_Rain. How the communication system and even you can make it happen is by writing. {user:ember_rain}. If you were to type that say into a community message board or newsfeed. I would get a notice that you are speaking to me and it would appear as ember_rain.
I pause a moment to let the info sink in and so people writing furiously in their notebooks can get everything smiling gently to one of your younger members. "I know its all confusing now but I promise it will be like second nature in the near future. So as you can see there are some images after my name when you write it like that. Those images allow our transport system to take you directly to my port aka writing room. You can see all the work I have displayed, read and comment on it. Next to it is an icon that will allow you access to a more direct and private communication device. If you click on it, it will take you to your own personal mailroom and put my name into the address location because that is the beauty of the modern age. All you need to contact me is my name. Then you will see another icon that looks like a +. If you click it it will turn into a hand with a pointing finger. Click it again, and it turns into a megaphone. These options allow you to add me first to your favorites list making it easier to find me quickly. The second click turns you into a fan. If you want to undo either option you simply click it a third time."
I motion for everyone to follow me into my port, by opening the door and moving everyone inside. "As you can see there are several doors here. It really is too much to do in one tour so We will wrap up for today and I will rejoin you again next month to pick up where we left off, though, most of this you will have figured a lot out for yourself, by then. Beside the little door that says community is a tiny broom closet of a door with an arrow on it. If you open that door you will find the listing of everyone you have favorited or fanned and everyone who has returned the favor."
"There is one last thing before we close our tour for the day. It is probably the most important door for you personally it's the one that reads, Create an Item. If you open that door you will see many options for other doors. These doors all lead you to the crafting rooms for items that you want to display in your port. The most commonly used among new members is what is known as a static item. It has customization tools just like your communications room. There are questions you will have to answer that might seem confusing at first but with enough time you will figure it out. What you need to know as we end this journey now is that there is a dedicated system to answering all of your questions. You can find the doors that link them high up near the ceiling of any room you are in. They are the getting started room, writing.com101, news and need help. You can also find the exit door there as well. It will send you back into the world at large and when you return allow you to reenter our little world. Next month we will take a closer look at your writing room and all the things you can create.
Oh one last thing. If you read the email posts that others send you in the reponse box you can pick up a lot on the code know as
WDC ML as well. |
Some of our Newest Members
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So what have you struggled to learn about WDC?
Readers Comments:
hbk16 - These are very helpful and interesting advice.It are told in a wise and nice way.You told about some mistakes and some interesting anecdotes which can serve the writers(Authors).Indeed writing success comes with a continual improvement.
S Ferguson~ Prepping for Prep  - Thank you for sharing this story. The first time I joined this site was about 6 years ago (I was 24) and I remember entering a contest and getting some off-putting reviews and not placing in it. I remember the winner was a published author. Whether he or she was self-published or an e-book or whatever, I'm not sure but I was thinking "Oh, this is bogus! This person wrote a book!" So, I left. Have no idea what my username was or anything. Came back a couple years ago and I'm here to stay 
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Noticing Newbies: February 08, 2017 Issue [#8116]
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