As many of you curse under your breath at the upgrading (you will love us for it in the end, I promise!) we’ve been given a little down time. Time to wreck havoc on April Fool’s; time to clean up the archive a bit; time to organize the forums a bit and, of course, some free time to work on our own stories that tend to get neglected during busy submissions time. So late last night I found myself cuddled up with a Writer’s Chai (although I think it has a new name now) from Starbucks and just for kicks opened the HPFF queue.

It was odd, I must admit. I stared at the blankness for a moment reveling in the empty page and then wondered what everyone else was doing during the shut down. Are you, like me, writing and re-writing chapters to make them perfect for when it is re-opened? Are you twiddling your thumbs because everything is already as good as its going to get? Or are you spending more time at the forum upping that all important post count?

Then, I realized, it didn’t matter. The point was we were all going through it together. HPFF users were stressed but happy knowing the upgrades are coming…staff are stressed wanting everything to be just perfect for you when it does get up and running. We are all in it together and (blame it on the chai tea) no matter where we live or that we know each other only online, we are all part of the HPFF family. It made me happy to know I wasn’t going through it alone and even happier to know that soon enough that empty queue will be full again with wonderful stories everyone has worked so hard on during the break. It made me warm and fuzzy all over and, happily, Jay’s given us a new spot to spill our guts to you at. Enjoy our ramblings, musings and funny anecdotes…your chance at a behind the scenes look at HPFF. Welcome to the staff blog.

# posted by timeturner @ 10:24 PM