Trouble at the Valencommune: About the Story

Read on...

Whose fault is all this?

Though the first valenstory had only the core valentines (Sherlyn, Sage and Damon) writing it, enrollment grew considerably to encompass much of the valenperiphery in the creation of Trouble at the Valencommune. The first chapter was written with the above plus Todd and Christine; at this point we decided to expand it further (OK, the truth is Kevin wanted in on it and bugged me [Damon] until I got around to organising it). The following people (in no particular order) were involved in Trouble at the Valencommune:

Todd O'Reilly

http://www.yurtsweetyurt.com/

Philip "Fili" Sainty

Laur "Syren" Marshall

http://users.hartwick.edu/marshalll/

Sage "Tyrtle" Lunsford

http://www.tyrtle.com/sage/

Jeff Howell

Christine Torres

http://www.bensonassoc.com/pct/

Dave Cook

Damon "Kalaleq" Harper (editor)

Damon is a lot like his valen-alter-ego, Kalaleq: myopic and clumsy.
http://www.usrbin.ca/damon/

Kevin Contzen

Sherlyn "Piquet" Koo

How did this craziness start?

It all started, as so many things do, on IRC. Sherlyn and I (Damon) and Neil (a mutual friend) started making up a soap opera in which I was a central character. I kept a transcript of the whole thing, and Sherlyn later edited and formatted it to make it at least somewhat legible. And just now I htmlised it. What a convoluted journey!

A while after this, we decided it would be fun to actually write a story based on the sort of thing we'd been doing on IRC. So I set up a page and we, the valentines, began writing The Interactive Valentines Story, the first chapter of which is still available for viewing. I recommend that you read this and the transcript (above) before launching into Trouble at the Valencommune; they may not make the story make any more sense, but they should at least put you in the right frame of mind and supply you with a bit of background.

Unfortunately, soon after this first chapter was finished, Sherlyn, Sage and I all got quite busy and so we shelved the story. When we came back to work on it again, we found to our distress that we'd written ourselves into a proverbial corner and were no longer sure where to go with the story at all.

And now, months later, reinforced and aided by a few friends, we intrepidly begin anew...

Why do you waste your collective time this way?

Ummmm... 'cause it's fun?