Wednesday, July 29, 2009

A few donations for August site hosting needed

Thanks again for all the generous donations to date. In our fundraising for July we got a great start on August. We have $ 117.00, so we're close. We need only four $5 donations, because HASA's generous secret admirer is continuing to match donations; every dollar you donate will be matched.
HASA is an ad-free, fee-free Web site, run for the enjoyment of quality JRRT fanfiction. Our monthly hosting costs are $150 US. Donations pay for the dedicated server HASA needs to provide the features and fun visitors love - stories, comments, forums, alerts, challenges and more. HASA has many visitors every day. If only a fraction of that number can donate $5 each, we will be funded for next month. You can also show your support for HASA in other ways: why not write a comment or review a story, even if you cannot donate. But above all, enjoy the site!

Thanks for enjoying HASA,

Julie

Monday, July 6, 2009

HASA news - July 2009

HASA news - July 2009

The general news bulletin for July 2009, focusing on birthdays, reviews, resources and stories.

To start with: thanks to the generosity of our donors, costs for July are covered! Thank you all!

Of course, money (though welcome) isn't the only way you can "donate" to HASA. Just as much as funds to keep going, HASA needs you to write stories, make comments, perform reviews, post to forums etc. If you would like to donate, but your budget won't allow it, pick out a favourite story and post a comment. It just takes a minute and it will make that author's day!

Birthday Cards

If you have a birthday in July and would like a drabble about your favourite character or topic, you can request it here.

Not sure what the birthday cards are about? Have a look at the stories written for previous requests.


Reviews

Right now, there are 15 stories waiting for reviewers (remember to log in first).

If you are an active reviewer, why not go and check one out?

If you're not an active reviewer, but would like to be one... why not sign up? You're eligible if you've been a member of HASA for thirty days or more.

As you can perhaps guess, member participation is crucial for reviews. The more people are involved in the review process, the more opinions will be represented. Just as importantly, having more people involved means that stories pass through review more quickly - which is good for everyone.

By submitting a story for review, you are asking nine other members to read and evaluate it. So why not do unto other authors in reviews as you'd like other reviewers to do unto you: check out one of the stories already in review and give it a read. Put more simply: put one in, take one out.


Challenges and Nuzgul

We have one open Challenge: the HASA Birthday Challenge ‘09*. On July 1st, it's HASA's seventh birthday, and there is of course no better way to celebrate than with a challenge involving the number seven or any other 'lucky number': The Challenge will run over the summer to give all entrants enough time to write your story, be it an epic story or a ficlet, and closes on Bilbo and Frodo's birthday. We wish you luck and a Happy Birthday to HASA.

* (please note, you need to be logged in for this link to work)

If you have an idea that you’d like at least five people take on, grab that nuzgul by the scruff of the neck (mind the teeth!) and see if you can get four others to make it a Challenge?
Prospective Challenges can be found here


Resources

The HASA Research Library is a very useful resource for writers as well as for online discussions on book canon. You can find entries on characters, settings, events, and items, containing cited quotes about the item you are trying to find more information on. This portion of the site is available here.

Would you like to get involved with Resources? If you like researching and want to help develop this section of HASA you can contact the Resources & Research Library through the contact form at http://www.henneth-annun.net/about/contact.cfm.

Some recent articles in Resources:

Timeline Events:
Frodo and Sam set off for Mordor
Éomer pursues the Orc-raiders towards Fangorn

Character Biographies
Nerdanel
Isengrim Took II

Places
Argonath
Caragdûr

Things
Shire-reckoning
Shire-reform

Good luck researching your story! If you enjoy this section of the site, why not tell the researchers (they’re listed at the bottom of every entry).


June Stories

All of us writers love feedback. It is the lembas and miruvor that sustains us as we write our story, and leaving a few words about a story you read is always a nice thing to do, whether the story is new or old.

Every fifteen minutes HASA highlights a story chosen at random from the Reviewed and General stories in the archive. Why not go to http://www.henneth-annun.net/ and read the currently featured story?

Many talented writers are publishing every day. In June:

--- 13 Reviewed Stories were published or updated.
--- 42 General Stories were published or updated.
--- 2 Beta Stories were published or updated.
(Please note, you need to be logged in to view beta stories.)

Thank you for reading at HASA. Enjoy!

--Nath--

Friday, July 3, 2009

Quick funding update -- almost there for July

It's July and we're still a few dollars short. I updated the announcement box a
few days ago we got a good responce. Right now we only need 4 more $5 donations.
As I write this there's 135 visitors at HASA -- if just a few who are able and
haven't donated could do so, that would be great.

Thanks for enjoying HASA,

Julie