Nearly a decade ago, I discovered a neat little site with lots of great little groups made up of people that sent messages back and forth to each other via a single email address. I immediately signed up to about fifty different OneList groups, mostly pagan, some writing, some fan-based and a couple of ‘play by email’ rpgs.

OneList merged with eGroups, but the beat went on. Half the lists disappeared, others died of their own accord and I was left with fifteen or so. Yahoo bought out eGroups, and the lists went “wtf?”. Someone found Topica, someone else found smartgroups or whatever they were earlier on… blah blah blah. And the beat went on. Dead lists, new lists, lists lists until I had five pages at Yahoogroups (fifty subs, again) and two at smartgroups and one at Topica and my head exploded.

The beat stopped. I ditched Topica, smartgroups and half the privately owned lists I was on. I then focused on the Yahoogroups. Out of fifty subscriptions, conversations were active on eight. Others were monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly newsletters that had long since gone defunct. In the end, I was left with a page and a half (fifteen groups). One of those groups is The Parasitorium.

I’ll damned if I post more than twenty posts a month, to ALL of the lists I’m on. In fact, a good three-quarters of those I’m on now are set to send special notices only. I just can’t let go, even though I’m no longer interested… For the first year I was a Parasite, I didn’t speak. I read and digested every post, applied most of the writing advice, and often had a good laugh with the rest of ‘em… but I didn’t post. I think I intro’d myself and that was it. A year later, I said something like “hi” or whatever. Last year, I realized Keith was still on there (well, d’uh… ) and figured it’d be safe to crawl out from under the rock and participate once in a while.

Then I forgot to step back when someone mentioned volunteers (j/k Spider), and now… well, for all you horror-writerly types, Click Here and Become a Parasite. To be a part of this fun, ya gotta be a Parasite.

Soon, we will be undertaking a great masterpiece of the most terrifying, horrific, spine-chilling… Er, sorry. I’ve been watching Invader Zim again (did you know there’s a Bloody Gir in each one of the last fourteen episodes?!!) and my mind tends to wander. I promise not to yell anything about Moosey fate. At least for tonight.

Anyway, pretty much every year, the Parasites undertake creating an anthology of stories based off a theme – last year it was Parasitic Thoughts (see my book page!), and the year before it was Parasitic Sands and the first was Terrors Within. The theme hasn’t been chosen yet for this year, but between the main ideas that have been talked over… I’m likin’ the options. Although it’s technically “4theluv”, I prefer to think of projects like these as “4thefun”. A group of writers working towards a single goal, to better their craft… definitely more fun, but still a lotta luv. Yes, it goes to print, and yes it gets sold (I think the first two are even available via Amazon). I believe – but I’m not entirely sure – the monies are then split or put towards marketing.. I wasn’t paying attention. I was having a Gir moment and then there was the… er… yeah. I was in shock, damnit!

Here’s where the stepping back part comes in. I said I’d help out in any way I could, and…

I’m editing.

Now how was that for a rambling, seemingly pointless bit of chatter to get to the fifty words that were really important?