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Enthusiastic Monthly Exhortation
By: Erin
As many of you may know, I started college this year. It's a whole new world, and I'm learning many things--most especially ways to get things done more quickly or easily. Let's just say I'm not the only college student who has, at least half-seriously, considered putting her dishes through the clothes washing machine. (For those interested, you wash them on cold with a small amount of dish soap. I haven't actually tried this yet, but that's the word on the street.)
The day this issue--our five-year anniversary issue--publishes, I won't be able to read it. I'll be off in the middle of Ohio getting stabbed at a fencing tournament. If I'm especially lucky, I may be able to get a few points in before I go. I've had articles published in "The Exponent," Purdue's newspaper, and been paid for them. Admittedly, a pittance, but I wrote stuff and they paid me, and it feels good. I finished a short story and submitted it to a publisher (Don't get your hopes up, folks. That's roughly equivalent to saying "I bought a lottery ticket.").
You'd think that, with all this exciting new stuff in my life, that I'd be less appreciative of Terrouge, but the truth is exactly the opposite. Living on my own has given me the clarity to see exactly how unique and important Terrouge is.
Personally, it has had a monumental effect on me. . . The three things I listed just a few moments ago as my most exciting offline activities? I got into all of them, directly or indirectly, as a result of being involved with Terrouge. I began fencing because I knew a number of people who do fence--many of whom I met at Terrouge or in the rest of the Redwall Online Community(ROC). I decided to write for "The Exponent" as a direct result of Terrouge. The story I wrote after my involvement in the ROC: Survivor 2 competition, which I found out about through my work at Terrouge.
More generally, I am consistently amazed to see how Terrouge has grown, and how the Redwall Online Community has grown with it. Five years before, this was a mostly disparate collection of sites. Most of those sites, including the sites--including this fledgeling e-zine--had unexciting designs, and most sites were only slight variations on a few basic themes. The people, however, were of excellent caliber, and many friendships were forged. Over time, this has grown into a "community" in the true sense of the word. We are interconnected. We talk with each other, we share with each other, and we aid each other.
It is rare to find anywhere such a concentration of motivated, intelligent, and friendly people as you find in the ROC today. Nowadays, most of the major site or group leaders in the ROC know each other, and everywhere you look you see people pooling resources and lending each other a hand. Terrouge runs articles to help publicize events at major clubs. Retto of rwclub.org collaborated with several Terrouge staffers to create the Vulpine Imperium. The popular Redwall Warlords site was founded by Boze, but Sean A., a Terrouge reporter, and Retto, volunteered to help and soon ran the site. Most sites nowadays are run by a group of people, all cooperating to produce a better, more exciting, and more innovative page. If you have a great idea, and you're friendly and helpful, you're almost sure to find others here with the talent and ability to help you pull it off. It's amazing.
It's been a wonderful five years, and its awesome seeing what people have accomplished, perhaps in part because of our work here. People have read more, made more friends, written more, and written better than perhaps they would have otherwise. That's enough to make me look at all that I've done so far. . . and start planning for the next five years. Thank you all so much for everything you've done for us.