Good morning one & all, I appreciate that new member introductions are often lost amongst the sea of posts. Nonetheless I wanted to say hi & introduce myself. At the end of the first week in November 2016 my life changed. My dearly loved father died following a long and exhausting battle with alcoholism. This, naturally, has caused me considerable mental strain as I set off down the winding muddy track that is the grief process. A mere five months later I was one of the first police officers on scene at the horrific Manchester arena bombing. Prior to joining the police I served as British Soldier who specialised as a trauma medic. I was told that writing is one of the best forms of expressive therapy and the rest is history. Looking forward to engaging with you all. Thank you!
Welcome Icognito! I'm Iain, one of the mods here. If you haven't had a chance to yet, be sure to check out New Member Quick Start and Forum Rules, and don't be shy about contacting me or one of the other active mods (jannert and big soft moose at the moment) if you have any questions or problems. You'll need to have two weeks' membership, twenty posts (which include two constructive critiques of others' writing) before you can post in the Workshop for critique of your own work, but until then, feel free to poke around and jump into any one of the numerous discussions that are ongoing here. Those initial requirements will fly by. On a more personal note, I'm a former Marine and police dispatcher, and one of our other mods, @big soft moose is former British forces. There are more than a few members of various military and criminal justice professions lurking in the general membership as well, so while we may not all share the same experiences, you're amongst people who can appreciate your experience. While we welcome robust discussion and critique, my fellow mods and I don't tolerate anyone taking the piss at other's sensitivities, so rest assured, this is what one might call a "safe space." I look forward to hearing as much as you'd care to share about your experiences.
Look into starting a blog here, and a progress journal. Each is a good way to express the day-to-day and make a connection to the WF community. Welcome!
Once you get regular member status (IIRC, it's late here) 20 posts and two weeks membership, you'll be allowed to link to your non-commercial blog in your signature. If you take a look at mine (not a plug, just as an example) I've got a link to my exorbitantly-expensive and rarely updated personal stories blog. Other than that, it's good old copy-paste to the blogs section...
Welcome and all that jazz, Also just to let you know I've merged your description thread into "share your first three sentences" - no harm, no foul but you can't start threads for critique outside the workshop (the first and last three sentence threads are an exception).
@big soft moose My apologies for my incursion. As they say in criminal courts- Ignorance is not an excuse. I’ll behave from here on in!
The Third Mod here ...the civvy one. No problem at all. A newcomer's mistake. Welcome to our writing community. Do check the links Iain provided. This will help get you oriented as well: https://www.writingforums.org/faq/. Our 'FAQ' is not a list of questions. It's a forum map with direct links to all areas of the forum. I use it a lot, myself.
