On purpose, that is. :D

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Once again I was sipping coffee and lapsing into insanity. I do this on a regular basis (if you haven’t realized). This time, I was staring uselessly at the HPFF home page. Have you ever really looked at the home page? There are all kinds of neat links and news items (don’t miss those!) and over in the corner is the little stats box.

That stats box goes up daily. It astounds me actually. But they are just really really big numbers to me…so I decided to do some unofficial number crunching on those stats to figure out what they really mean. Take a lookie at what I found out:

-HPFF has been around for five years and has 36,120 stories. That averages 7,224 stories posted here a year!

-We have nearly 109,000 reviews that have been left (thank you devoted reviewers, we love you!). Now this gets a bit complicated to analyze (average reading per minute and average chapter length and other technical junk) but do you realize that our reviewers have spent over 20 thousand hours reading stories on the site? 20 THOUSAND!!!! I about peed my pants once I figured that out.

-Writers, your turn for acclaim – we have 16753 authors at the time of this post. You’ve written 2.1 stories each, composed of about 7 chapters each. Doesn’t sound like a lot but get this…in total, authors at HPFF have logged just under 204,000 hours writing stories for HPFF.

There is a post somewhere in the forum about “professional” writers who log 8 hours a day writing…I don’t know about you but I think, professional or not, we’ve got ‘em beat.

Happy Writing!

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Ever have those plot bunnies that creep up on you in the middle of the night? I’m not talking about the ones that actually make sense but those that appear during late nights with little sleep…the ones not even worthy of committing to a postie note. Come on, admit it, we all have bad ideas once in awhile.

In a recent late night validating session, several of us staffers got together and commiserated over those nasty little bunnies that (had we been face to face) we would not otherwise normally share with anyone. Although names have been withheld to save the guilty, here’s the “cream of the crop” from a group of your HPFF validating team:

-Harry takes Ginny to a rock concert and learns Hermione is leading a double life as the lead singer of a punk rock type band…so they become her groupies and carry her gear around

-Ron joins a World Cup team and falls to his death at a Quidditch tournament….the entire plot revolves around his musings during his Herculean length mid-air fall

-Professor Snape is actually Harry’s father…and has kept Lily hidden away at his house since the night of Voldemort’s attack (this also involved a bizarre scene from HBP with Peter serving Lily tea in the dungeon whilst no one was the wiser of her presence at Snape’s house)

-Moaning Myrtle comes alive from an ingenious potion concocted by Hermione…then she spends her Hogwarts days fist fighting with Hermione over who will get Draco for their very own

-Hogwarts isn’t really a school for witchcraft and wizardry….instead it’s actually a mental institution for those who BELIEVE they are magically inclined (I’m actually quite fond of this one myself)

So…before I share more and risk being kicked off staff (or committed myself) feel free to leave your precious little gems in the comment section so we don’t feel like we are alone in our goofy storylines. Who knows – someone with even less sleep than you may be able to turn your plot bunny into a great story!


Happy Writing!

Like, you so, like, have to totally check out this month's new recommended author, stories, and member's top five. They are, like, the coolest things ever! And, of course, most of them feature original characters in the Potterverse, though I'm sure that none of them are, like, as great as me, the one and only Mary Sue!

So, like, please go over and, like, take a look at these totally amazing stories. Don't forget to leave the author's a review. I'm sure they'll, like, totally adore that. =)

There is some belief out there that HPFF Staffers are myths…that we aren’t really real but made up characters from Jay’s imagination. It’s odd when I get the occasional response to an email I sent that says something like “oh, I expected an automatic response!” I hate to dispel this myth, really, because it has proved quite fun on many occasions. But, alas, it’s not true.

Now the story about the staffers being members of a secret society…well, that is pretty much true. Membership is required, a unique and rather embarrassing hazing practice takes place and there is an initiation phase. Not to mention that all staffers must be approved by current members so we have our own little voting procedures too. Okay, well, it’s perhaps not quite so dramatic as all that but being a staffer is a world unto itself.

Okay, Star Bucky has informed me that I am once again rambling and must get to my point: do you know that group of loyal users you hang around with? The ones that are there to review your every chapter? The ones that give you advice on your work and give you a pep talk when things aren’t going quite the way you planned? This is what the HPFF staff is to me.

They stand with me through the night, page after page, as we read stories in the queue together. Page after page, good fic or bad, they are there to keep me laughing, slip me glasses of virtual lemonade and fresh baked cookies just to keep me going when I’m weary. They are all wonderful, fantastic and helpful people. Even ones on different times zones where we meet up only occasionally – they are still the best little secret society I could ever hope to be a part of.

Yep, I suppose I’m rambling and don’t have much of a point here. I just thought a few staffers might need some hugs about now….whether from me or you fellow users. So hug your HPFF staffer when you get a chance – even they have down days and could use the same giggly feeling that a new fresh review or a newly validated chapter gives to you.

Happy Writing!

The server that hosts this site is shortly being upgraded and moved to new premises. The server running HPFF will be moved on the evening of Friday 8 September `06.

This should have no adverse affect on the site and you should not even notice it. But please be aware that this is happening and we cannot plan for unforseen circumstances. If the site appears to go down for any reason, do not panic. We will return.