[Message forwarded to entire list. To Shawn: You seem to have the
Reply-To: header set. This gets in the way of replying to the list. I
don't know Outlook Express 6.0, so I can't tell you how to disable it,
but if you don't know, ask and I'm sure someone here can help. Thanks.]

On Mon, 2003-02-24 at 01:52, Shawn Svacha wrote:
> Hello everyone!  This is my first post to the list.

Welcome! I hope this will be the first of many ;)

> My name is Shawn Svacha
> and I am in the process of writing stories that take place in a fantasy
> world.  I, like many of you I am sure, became very interested in creating
> languages, history, culture, etc. for my stories from reading the Tolkien
> books.

Well, for me, I became interested in linguistics through a friend who
was and from there onto conlanging. I'm yet to read anything but the
appendixes...

> Is there any advice you all could give on getting started?  I have looked at
> the Language Construction Kit as well as the How to create a language site
> by Pablo David Flores.  These will take me a while to digest, but should be
> really good.

Spend time on this list. One thing I find about hanging around here is
that whenever you actively read (actively posting is not necessary, but
is never detrimental to your health, unless you do *nothing* but post
here, which is tempting, but eating, sleeping and exercise *are*
necessary. The list has limits (something like 100 posts a day) so that
we don't spend too much collective time on here), you get too many ideas
for new conlangs. I think there's some sort of contagious condition you
get from staying here. And apparently, the only way to get over it is
death... A good source of information too.

Tristan