River Twine Holt Forums

Dear RTH members,

This will probably not come as a big surprise to many of you, but, over the last few weeks, the council has been discussing the group's status, what we are doing, and where we are going. Due to a combination of factors, we have decided that it would be best for the group to declare a Hiatus at this time -- probably for 1 year, until next July, 2017.

We don't want anyone to feel guilty about this, and we hope you will all understand, and agree with us that a break might do the group good. We don't think it's anyone's fault, but it has become clear over the last six months to a year that while all of us are very fond of this group, the characters, and the stories and art, the majority of us are struggling (for a variety of reasons) to be productive, creatively. And, as everyone knows, our group has always been structured to encourage participation, and even require it for character ownership. But that can create a lot of stress, when people begin to fall behind. It's no fun for members, and it's no fun for the council to have to enforce rules. (To be clear, though, members of the council are also finding ourselves with low energy levels in 2016.)

The Hiatus is primarily meant to give everyone a break from any pressures they might feel as members, and especially as character owners. Here's how it will work:

During the period of the Hiatus, we will not be tracking participation requirements. We also will not be running organized trades, contests or events, or giving awards for members-of-the-quarter. All past-due trades are, as of this moment, forgiven. (We will make sure that people who produced something do receive something, at some point.) We'll re-start trades with a completely clean slate when the Hiatus is over. (If you *want* to still complete a trade, you may! But we won't be tracking it in an official way.)

Also during this period -- everyone is still very welcome to submit art and stories! If you do, we will put stories through the SAT, and we'll post what we receive.

This means that during this period, you may still be contacted for approvals, and we still encourage you to respond as promptly as possible. (But, everyone should also remember the 2-week time-out period. Feel free to use it and let us know if something you're submitting has a defaulted approval.)

However, we want to emphasize that because it's a hiatus, you should not feel pressured to participate or produce anything. Feel free to truly use this as "time off". The council/SAT will still be reviewing stories and art before they are posted, to try to catch potential issues.

If you want to be notified when art or stories are posted to the website, go to , and hit "subscribe" (right at the top left, under the "new topic" button). Make sure that your email is up to date here in the forum, and that you have not had trouble in the past receiving notifications like this; and you should receive an email whenever that thread is updated. (But, to make sure that nobody misses anything, we will do a round-up post of anything that was posted during the Hiatus, when it's over.)

After the new year, probably in February, the council will check in with the group to see how folks feel about the group re-starting in July of 2017. That will probably be via a thread here on the forums, but when we do start the discussion, we'll let folks know by email, too.

We really hope that having a break like this will allow people to recharge their batteries, without feeling a constant sense of pressure from the group. We also really hope that when it comes time to re-start, that enough interest remains for us to do so! We love River Twine Holt, and don't want to see it end. We hope a lot of you feel the same.

Please feel free to contact the council if you have any questions or concerns!

Hi Gang!

I still consider myself a relatively "new-ish" member, as I came on board Fall of '14.

I'm still reading all the stories and will be the resident Ghost in the Holt as I will still comment on them! Reading a River Twine story is part of my morning routine!!

So I was looking at a list of (mostly deader than dead by now) Holts. Some of the last posts were "On Hiatus". I think calling a Holt that is bit of a nail in the coffin. Personally, I think it's a mistake to have that on the Home Page.

All the current members know what's going on, but the rare potential new member could still join. What I suggest is taking the notice off, and then when/if someone is interested, say we've relaxed the rules for '16/'17 so there's no pressure, which elf would you want? Their new energy might pump some life blood into the Holt.

Dreamflight and Pathmark have a few more art pieces coming in this year, and next year there will be three stories coming up in the Winter/Spring. So you can suggest they can always play with me/them... and other people who are definitely around.

"Don't give up!" is what I'm saying.

I understand your concerns here, Ingrid. We talked about this a lot amongst ourselves -- including whether to call it something other than a "hiatus", for fear the word would scare people away. In the end, we went with it because it communicates things most clearly.

The thing is that if we are trying to give the group a break, in order to let people feel un-pressured and to recharge creatively, it really has to be a break. And that includes it being a break for those of us on the administrative side of things.

While it *would* be great to get some new members to join who have a lot of energy and enthusiasm -- that also creates a lot of admin work for us (work that can take away from the energy that we might otherwise use for creativity). And if other members are in a low-energy mode right now (which we think a lot of the group is, basing this on the low volume of submissions and posts during the last 4 months), then we feared that new people might find it more frustrating than not, to come into a group that "says" it's still active, but to find almost nobody responding to their attempts to make connections. We didn't want someone to join during this time, only to be disillusioned with how little activity there is. That's another reason why it felt best to be honest about this being a "hiatus".

Who knows, though? If we see that a lot of members are contributing steadily over the next half-year, maybe we'll re-evaluate how to proceed.

Well, I know I've been forced into a break. I still have many ideas rolling around in my head and art scanned and ready to start, some even just to finish, but I can't get it together enough to git-er-done...frustrating on my part, but having nothing to do with the site here.
I think a break is fine. Sad enough, but we can still submit and visit, just on a more quieter note. I wish I wasn't so distracted, but I am.
So I will be coming back often just to visit...that gives me an idea..