Eight years ago I joined GA. Time to reminisce—a lot of firsts. Sorry.

On September 21, 2011, I switched from lurker to member. I wanted to be able to comment and get notifications. Meanwhile, I wrote my first prompt story. Thank you GA for your encouraging comments and reactions. I became an author and wrote my first anthology story, The Wardrobe. Again, thank you GA for motivating and encouraging me to write my first mini-series, Four Perspectives.

The next step was my first multi-chapter story, RedRunning Shoes. The story’s discussion thread is one of the best things that ever happened to me. It was so much fun to read you guys ranting and cursing my characters, suggesting alternate tattoos or secretly killing them off. So cool. Oh and then I wrote my first poem in English, thanks to Irri and @AC Benus’s newly invented poetry prompts. I loved the original version. We were a bunch of people tentatively taking our first steps into writing poetry, lovingly instructed and encouraged by AC and our comrades in ar....err verse.

I found friends, you know who you are. I miss zombie, Lit Lover, Jo Ann, Lisa to mention a few. Oh and playing games like ‘Who am I?’

After eight years the general rule still applies: Read! Write! Enjoy! And don’t forget to react, comment and review.