Ride The Wave Of Excitement

Hello Kiwi Writer,

The excitement and enthusiasm in this first week of SoCNoC has been palpable and damn contagious! The passion for stories, for writing, for characters is obvious and it's easy for us to forget it. It's easy to take advantage of this writing high, to take it for granted and forget it so quickly when things start getting harder. If this writing high has eluded you so far, don't fear! Any progress that you're able to make is setting you on the path to great things. Everyone's SoCNoC journey is different, every story is different and every writing is different. That writing high, The Zone, is there for all of us. We're all on our own rides of excitement and you may be in one of those corkscrews that makes your stomach turn, you may be climbing slowly higher and higher before the big exciting descent, or you may be riding the twists and turns with your arms flung above your head. It's all part of the ride but remember that you'll get off at the end, when the car pulls to a stop, flushed and giggling with your head spinning. That's the excitement of it all.

To make the most of your ride of excitement make sure you're checking in with the blog, the forums, the chatroom, twitter and participant blogs. As much as it's fun to ride the rollercoaster yourself it can be just as fun to watch everyone else riding along with you screaming and laughing and throwing their own arms up in the air.

We've had some questions about how to update your progress. Now we have a new Site Help tip that's featured on the home page. Along the way we've also discovered we can set everyone's attendance to Participant so we've set that bit up for you. Those who did figure out how to do it themselves may have noticed in the attendance list is Winner. You can look forward to changing your attendance to Winner later in the month when I know you'll pass the finish line. In the meantime see how your fellow participants are getting on in the attendance list and post your own word count tag telling how you're feeling. We're sorry to say that we're unable to sort the list by word count progress but you can search by username if you're looking for a particular user's progress.

Keep your spirits high and ride that rollercoaster with everything you've got.

Kerryn Angell