Complex Numbers

Four and Twenty

"Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024"   [13+] by WakeUpAndLive~doingNaNo'24
Prompt 1. Sept 1.
It's the site's 24th Anniversary. Tell us about your love or fondness of Writing.com. What makes this a wonderful place for writers? Why are you (still) here?

My own site milestone is coming up: as of next Wednesday, I'll have been a member here for 20 years.

The funny thing is, I still consider myself a later transplant to the jungle here. When I joined, I met writers who had been around for as long as four years, and they had their communities, their cliques, their ways of doing things. And yet, they welcomed the newbie (me). Some of them are still around, and remain good friends. Some of them are not, and I miss them.

Objectively, I know that for a newbie today, there's not a lot of difference between a 20 and 24 year tenure here. And I admit, I'm not very good at paying that long-ago welcome forward; I never do know what to say to, or do for, a new member struggling to figure out the site or learn the ins and outs of WritingML, unless they ask me directly. To be fair to myself, when they do ask me directly (or in the Tech Support forum), I do my best to answer their questions.

It just occurred to me that my current daily blogging streak is longer than the time between the site's launch and the day I joined. Perhaps that's enough to change my perspective.

And I guess I've become a blogger. I mean, anyone can be a blogger, but I think this site focuses on fiction writing and poetry. I've done plenty of that, and I generally enjoy reading it, but this seems like this is the niche I've slotted myself into. Not what I'd planned, but I'll run with it.

The real treasure, as the cliché goes, is the friends we make along the way. I've met more people here than I can count, and I can count pretty high, what with being comfortable with exponential notation and all. And I've met many of them in person. I stood up for one at his wedding. I've helped with another member's business plan. I've gone on road trips with some. I've traveled throughout the US, and even to other countries, to meet up with WDC authors. And I'm willing to continue to do that.

Sometimes, the only thing I have in common with the people I've met is a love of reading and writing.

Sometimes, that's enough.

We get to give out a free Merit Badge every day this week. Want one? Anyone who comments here before 11:30 pm WDC time today could get today's (I'll need that extra half-hour to pick a winner and send the badge before midnight.)

To clarify:

When I say "comment," I mean comment. Not review. Though reviews are always welcome.
I also mean "here," not on the newsfeed post.
MB recipient will be chosen at random.
Maximum of one MB per commenter for the week.
If I don't get comments, I'll pick a previous commenter, and maybe not at random.
The MB will be the one I commissioned two years ago, "Complexity," which is a publicly available MB.
I appreciate all comments; this is just a little incentive.