Sad to hear about the passing of author Holly Lisle the other day. She was one of my first inspirations and influences within the SFF genre, having read The Secret Texts trilogy in the late 90s, right about the same time that I was writing and revising The Phoenix Effect, which of course morphed into the Bridgetown Trilogy.
I remember seeing something in the acknowledgement pages of those books that intrigued me: she’d created what was essentially a BBS forum called Forward Motion, a smallish but very active online writing community. They — including Holly — were extremely welcoming, and being a member helped me figure out what I was trying to do with the Mendaihu Universe. I even had a few people beta read some of it at the time. I spent a lot of time at the Forward Motion site during the Belfry years, especially on the days we had ‘word wars’ — we’d all say, okay, let’s see how many words we can hit starting NOW! as a way to get ourselves geared up and excited about the projects we were working on. I’d pop into chat rooms just to see who was around…and often there would be someone asking a question or needing help, and we’d all chip in and offer advice. I got some great advice on my trilogy; one in particular that I remember is that I’d been stuck on a name for a certain character, and a few people suggested his name sound sibilant and harsh to fit his personality. Together we came up with a rather interesting name, and some years later during revision, it was shortened to Saisshalé.
I’d moved away from the FM site when I moved out to San Francisco, though to this day I still talk with a few people I met there. We still talk online and I’ve even met a few in person!
Holly stepped away from FM sometime in the early 00s if I’m not mistaken to focus on writing and teaching, but I never forgot how much that community helped me. It wasn’t just about the help, though — one of Holly’s mottos was ‘paying it forward’ and I certainly did that over the years, offering to beta read for others, and later on giving what information and suggestions I could about self-publishing during local conventions. I never forgot that either.
Thank you, Holly. Your influence as a writer may not have fully been through your writing, but your sense of community certainly stayed with me all these years.
Welcome to Bridgetown 