Each week, participants will receive a theme for writing and each week we will meet twice:

Tuesdays after 9pm ET to share our rough drafts and critique our work and Saturdays after 10pm ET to proudly share our finished work and receive the next week’s theme.

Feel free to ask questions here or on the DPP message board!

The Board: http://www.imaginechat.com/forum/index.php?board=325.0

The Room: http://imaginechat.com/rooms/nonfiction/deadpoets

1) THE DESIGNERS- a group of av makers accessible through the IC boards with 2 IC exclusive artists and a resource board JUST for IC members.

2) MY IMAGINECHAT- This should get a list all it’s own:
- Edit your room pulldowns
- Save your av codes
- Edit your private room password** just added yesterday!!!
- Create your own whochat
- Backdoors to all the IC public rooms

3) The IC Member’s Only Message board for direct access to IC staff.

And let’s not forget, just back in January, we added The Imaginarians- a group of courteous, helpful artists who assist all new room controllers with the room creation process- including creating BEAUTIFUL entrances for your rooms!

There has never been a better time to be part of imaginechat.com!

When Mike started working for us, I had a long laundry list of things I wanted to accomplish, stuff I never thought I’d be able to have happen and that man is MAGIC. He’s got more than half of my requests just done or in the works.

But “My ImagineChat” was Mike’s brainstorm and as we introduced new features (like the BubbleChat and the Member’s Only Back Door into site rooms) it all just fell into his grand scheme: “My ImagineChat” , a customizable space just for members.

“My ImagineChat” - It’s a portal to the site rooms, a place to access your file manager for your webspace, the place where you can edit your profile and change your site password, a link to the pulldown editor for any rooms you run and now: saved codes for use with the site’s quick entryway and…“My Whochat”- a place you can view only your most favorite rooms and who’s in them. (You can even view and link your own private room!)

If you haven’t already, go check it out! It’s fun to use and such a time saver!
THIS is the reason imaginechat.com is a great place to call your home on the net!

PS- Members should also check out the MEMBERS ONLY section of the Imaginechat.com Forums for updates and exclusive access to staff!

First, I was a slacker.

THEN my home PC died and I couldn’t find the correct password to get into this thing!

THEN I couldn’t get it to email me the password!

FINALLY I can access this again.

Time for some catch up!

January 16th:
Have you heard about the Imaginarians? They are the courteous, friendly folks at IC that will help you make your chatroom beautiful and guide you through the steps of opening on IC! If you have membership questions or room leader questions or making pulldowns seems too daunting, the Imaginarians are here for you!
Contact the Imaginarians!

January 21st:
Congrats to our new site mods! Your service to Imaginechat is invaluable. Our new site wide mods are:

Dakota
Mizery
Diarslade
Julian
Darkfaith
Tasha
Grey
Kuro
dawiccankitten

February 1st:
It’s February and imaginechat.com regulars know what that means: The return of SHARE THE LOVE month!

I love February because we get to spread the love around to everyone!

For the THIRD year in a row, February is “Share the Love” month at imaginechat.com.

This month only, we will be offering special goodies to our chatters.

1) imaginechat.com loves: new people!

If you have been a member of imaginechat.com in the past or if you’ve never been a member of imaginechat.com- here’s your chance to find out what it’s like.
Email imaginechat2006@msn.com with “Share The Love” in the subject box and let me know your username for the site (the one you use to log into the rooms in the pop up box) and in 24 hours you will be the proud owner of a three month trial membership at imaginechat.com. This will give you access to our member webspace where you can host avatars & webpages and other simple files.

2) imaginechat.com loves: moving day!

If you have a room on another site and you’d like to move, but you just don’t have the funds: February is the month to do it.
Email imaginechat2006@msn.com with “Share The Love” in the subject box and let me know your username for the site (the one you use to log into the rooms in the pop up box) and the name of the room you will be moving and you will receive a free three month trial membership at imaginechat.com! Upload your room’s entrance pages & information into your new memberspace and post your request to the support board. Give us 24 hours and we’ll get you settled in to your new home at imaginechat.com including moderator rights to your room!

3) imaginechat.com loves: existing members!

If you are a current member of imaginechat.com, if you renew your membership this month- you get another membership to give to a sweetie or to keep for free! Renew for a year, get another year (of equal value) free! Share the love we have for you with yourself or a friend! Renew as usual and you will be emailed requesting the name of your friend!

This month, there’s a lot of love to go around! Get some and keep your eyes open for more!

February 8th:

Howdy folks! Daz here with fun news about Valentine’s Day at imaginechat.com! Do you have a special someone, a secret crush, or a really great friend? Now is your chance to send them a Cupid-Gram, delivered by IC’s very own Cupids! Check out the messageboard for more information and share some love!
Celebrate Valentine’s Day at ImagineChat

February 9th:

Hey, ya’ll! It’s Holiday, with some more V-day news! Got a character that makes the girls and/or boys sigh? Had your eye on a certain someone character for a while? Well, check out our first annual Win a Date at Imagine Chat Bachelor/Bachelorette Auction! All bid proceeds go toward a special members’ only auction in March, and winners get a special roleplay date with their crush!
Win a Date at ImagineChat!

There have been some technical difficulties with people receiving their registration emails- either through their ISP blocking our emails, the free email addresses blocking us or simple typos. For whatever reasons, sometimes people don’t get their response in a timely fashion. So, in an effort to open our doors all the more widely, I am removing the registration requirement for all public and personal rooms (save a few whose room owners were not comfortable with the idea). Private rooms will still require registration to enter (as well as the member’s password…).

Please be sure and let all of your friends know about this change and invite them to come in hassle- free and observe and try us out!

imaginechat.com: admission is free and easier!

The room is set in Edinburgh, in a bar called “Arthur’s Seat” (after the local volcano).

The time is after Ghost Story with Harry presumed dead and spoken of as a legend in wizarding circles.

No cannon characters may be played or even referenced as friends or relatives. You can be “twice removed” (a distant cousin or friend of a friend) of them, but not at all to Harry or the main characters.

The Nevernever sub room will be available shortly. Any wizard wanting to go into or through will have to use this room and there will be dice rolls to guide you through.

On the message board, there is a list of character types that are available for play.

Message board
Semi AutoMagic

See you there!

The “kids” (my chatters) asked me to send on the few questions you didn’t have time to answer the other night.

From Nyo: My characters are often rattling around in my head, some violent, some sweet, some playful – that I often feel like a bio-engineered sanitarium.
From myyrdneopia: Does Ivy know about the Oblivion War?

JIM:
Heh.

Ivy knows about /all/ the Wars.

From Julian: Okay so I have to know, simply because he’s cool and seems like an average Joe who puts on his jeans one leg at a time… is he… a Doctor Who fan?

JIM:

My enjoyment of Doctor Who was somewhat soured by the fact that I first watched it when it came to SyFy. I really dug Chris Eccleston as the Doctor and I just couldn’t get behind Barnabus Crouch Jr as the Doctor, so the series as a whole lost momentum for me. I keep meaning to pick up the original series on DVD and watch it. I’m far more likely to do that than I am to read through my Hemingway again. Smiley

From Aspen (Elyne): Do you have control over naming the title of your books or do the publishers select them?

JIM:

I name the books, but the publishers have veto power. They don’t pick a new name, but they’ll tell me if one of them is unacceptable.

From !Wrath!: Would you ever consider producing or something for Supernatural?

JIM:

Not if they turn Cas into a permanent villain jerky-jerk. The jerks. Smiley

But I kinda already have a more than full-time job. It’d be hard to go do another one and still keep writing. I must say, though, that I really love a lot of the storytelling they’ve done. I’m very down with Crowley as a villain. He’s got style. Smiley

From Ali: If you could be a character from your book, and not Harry, who would it be and why?

JIM:
Thomas, cause I’ve always wanted great abs and they’re difficult. Smiley

From Holiday: do you have a musical muse? or certain songs/artists that relate to certain characters?

JIM:

I go with specific songs that inspire me for specific stories and characters and situations. I usually round up a soundtrack of songs for any given novel. Included on the upcoming Cold Days soundtrack: Help is On the Way, by Rise Against, Monster, by Skillet, 45 by Shinedown, and Super Villain by Powerman 5000.

From Dave: “I got one more question, this being the most important to me. If there is no options for it yet, can I do the screenplay for The Dresden Files?”

JIM:

I currently hold all the rights. Feel free to get in touch with my agent!

From DarthMax: Is there any future possibilities of exploring TV series about Dresden again or maybe a movie?

JIM:

I’m open to possibilities! I think there is no chance of any further involvement with SyFy or a resurrection of the series, though. That’s kinda done.

Everyone who attended had a wonderful time- even the folks who had never read his books! (You know who you are! GO NOW! Get the books!)

For those of you not lucky enough to attend, I have scripts in two places:

http://www.imaginechat.com/forum/index.php?topic=8021.0

and

http://www.imaginechat.com/rooms/nonfiction/guest/jimbutcher/page1.html

I started to edit it down to just questions & answers, but Jim was really joining in with the chatting and conversations and to remove the “extra” would cheat everyone of the full fun of last night.

I plan on emailing Jim to beg to have our unasked questions answered. If he has time, I’ll post them here.

(Jim, if you’re reading this: Thank you AGAIN. I’m totally nerdcrushing. -w-)

Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files books and Codex Alera books, is coming to imaginechat.com on Thursday, October 27th at 8pm CST in our (to be made) guest room!

A few weeks ago, the typist of Zeno Giovanni, passed me an article about Jim Butcher and how he used to be involved with a mush- a role play chat like ours! In fact, in the article he credits a lot of his writing skill to time spent in that MUSH. I posted the article to our moderator board and said how I’d LOVE for him to come visit with us for our anniversary. Well, our lovely t-bird took the initiative and made FIRST CONTACT with his publisher and well- here we are!

Now, any of you that have read the intro to imaginechat.com knows that my goal for imaginechat has been to encourage writers – this is why we offer blogs and why I had the DWBN Original Fiction section on my original site, Dark World by Night. Jim Butcher is the ultimate role play chat success story and what a better way to kick off NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) than by a pep talk/chat with someone who parlayed his role playing skills into a career.

This is our first “Guest Speaker” event and I really want it to go smoothly! Not just for us, but for the guest as well!

With that in mind, I would like to collect everyone’s questions here and pare them down to 20 (max) to be asked the night of his visit and hopefully have a “free for all” session the last 15-20 minutes of his time. This is to ensure that we get a broad range of questions and don’t overwhelm the poor man!

So please, leave your questions (and suggestions for making things go smoothly!) here!

http://www.imaginechat.com/forum/index.php?topic=7948.0

The idea is this: an unknown God-like entity has taken your character, plucked him or her from their present reality and dropped them into present day New York City- well…an alternate reality version of it.

Bring any character from any genre, dead or living and for a few days, drop them in New York.

Figure out how to fit into the new environment.

Figure out who sent you here and why.

Figure out how to get home again.

It is up to you whether you allow what happens during this episode to affect your character in their own reality.
It could become part of their story, or a bad dream they had.
It’s all in your hands.

These are the rules:
There are no rules, no limitations except the site rules. Roll with it, baby.

How do you play, you ask? Jump right in.

This is where the story begins:
Wednesday October 13th through Sunday October 16th.

HOWEVER, if your character wishes to remain stuck, you may continue your story in the New York room in the Horror section.

By the way? If you have a character in present day reality, you are obviously a special exception- what would really be so unusual about you appearing in NY aside from the sudden move and lack of travel? Clearly you could just hop a plane and return home- right?

No.

For those of you whose characters exist in 2011 in your rooms, you suddenly find that you don’t exist. People you know or who should know you just don’t.
It’s as if you’ve never been born.

Also? If you are a vampire, you will find that the sun no longer kills you, but long exposure will start to damage you. Be careful and………

Have Fun!