Anyway, some of you will know already, that the main reason I started up North Castle, was to provide a home for mine and my sister's first story, the Dark Empowerment. At the time, there were very few Zelda sites out there, probably less than 15, and the main one, was the infamous, Zelda Headquarters. I eagerly submitted the story to them, hoping they'd accept it. And heard... nothing. I emailed them a few times, only to get no reply. I then figured the story was a failure; indeed, it was like no other fanfictions out there at the time; it was long, for one thing (short by my standards today!), contained a lot of original characters (who I thought might be difficut for readers to keep track of!) and of course, had a fair bit of romance, which went into the sort of detail no other fics had bothered with. I did half-heartedly submit it to a few smaller sites who promised to post it, but the fact that it hadn't ended up on what I thought was the best Zelda site at the time, deeply upset me. During this period, it eventually dawned on me that if no sites would put up my fics (and they didn't seem to be), then I would make my own site where I could proudly post it. At the time, for over a year, I'd been running another site, The X-File Shrine, which was hugely popular. However, I'd begun to grow bored with it, and business was slowly diminishing, especially since I'd been forced to move the site from its first location to crappy Xoom. It seemed the ideal time to start up a 'side project'.
At first, I decided to dedicate the entire site to stuff for my stories. Me and my sister worked hard on character guides, maps and timelines to accompany the first book, so that visitors would have more information. I was considering a sequel to the first story at the time, but nothing was set in stone. So immersed, I was, that I started adding extra sections, hoping I'd get visitor submissions. At first, I 'stole' fan artwork from ZHQ (hehe, sorry!), not really having much good 'net ettiquette, and emailed people asking to post up their stories. Around August or so (could have been earlier or later, not really sure!), I got an email from a now old friend of mine, and er, ex partner in business, so to speak, Charlie Lemmink. He'd visited my site after I'd contacted him earlier, asking to post my story. Anyway, he really liked it, and started reading my story... we struck up a friendship, and were close friends for well over a year, until an incident last January. But anyway, he was the first person to properly read the Dark Empowerment, and he loved it, and gave me the drive to keep on writing. Although we're not as good friends as we use to be, I'll always be grateful to him, for doing that for me. It may not mean much to him, but it did to me, and so because of him, me and Kirsty wrote another story, because we knew we had at least one fan out there.
My next big break came sometime in November, when I encountered Ice, of Ice's Zelda Central. I casually offered to run the Zelda 2 section for his site, if he posted up my stories. I didn't have much contact with the guy myself at this point, being warned away by other staffers at his site, saying 'Navie' another staffer, would get jealous. At the same time, me and Charlie were cooking up a new site together, TGL (which eventually became zlda.com), which would overthrow ZHQ. I was to run the fanfiction and the Zelda 2 sections there, and help out with a few other things. I was so excited to be involved! Anyway, it turned out that most of IZC also hated ZHQ, and I ended up in a bit of mischief concerning one ZHQ member, Conrad VanderWoude. But enough on that!! Zelda meanwhile, was becoming more and more popular, with the onset of the release of Zelda V. Also, I became friends with Falco-X, who had a small site, Hyrule: The Land of Zelda... which eventually became one of the greatest sites of all. So, my stories were now getting popular, I had some good friends, everything was great...
Then personal problems set in, and 1999 was a very difficult year, after my dad left, leaving us in debt with little money to live on. I continued writing, and went on the 'net whenever I could, though my phone was often cut off for months at a time. It was a very difficult period, but I lived through it, and many people wrote to me during the times I was away from the community, keeping me updated on all the goings on. When things got back to normal, I worked on North Castle, trying to make it even better than before. But, it proved tough, alone. I'd always thought about staff, but never found the right people. I just kept on, knowing I had to fight to keep myself popular, since so many new sites had begun to spring up all over the place. New writers were on the scene too, threatening mine and my sisters crowns. North Castle kept growing. Slowly, but surely. Sometimes, I had so many submissions, I got real bogged down by them, but I posted things as quickly as I could. By this point, TGL had closed, and I had no need to work there, which made things easier. This year, although I grew busier and busier, I decided it was high time to get hold of some staff, who I'm busy prepping at the moment. Hopefully, when we sort everything out, we'll be back to more regular updates. I have lots of plans for this site, but if I work alone, I can't carry them out. But my new staff should help me get that time. I know North Castle in its design, is not the most technologically advanced site in the community. It's also not the most popular. 800-1000 hits per week is fine by me, though! I think it's important to have sites out there, that will archive the lovingly created works of fans, give them a good home, where other people can read them. That's what the site started out as, and in fact, still is. A showcase for the fans. And it always will be. I might never give you exclusive news on new games, or provide a fully interactive community, but you'll always be assured that one day, your work will be posted here...
Finally, I'd like to say a big, big thank you to all the people who faithfully visit the site each week, upate or not. Thank you for keeping North Castle alive! I'm going to go on and thank individuals now, if I miss out anyone, I'm sorry, but be sure I'm thinking of you all right now! Here we go...
Thank you first of all to my sister, Kirsty Singleton. Couldn't have done those fanfics without you, and you deserve far more credit than what you get currently. Here's to another few years of co-writing!
Next, I'd also like to thank my good friends, and fellow webmasters, John Rogos, Ice and Hylian for all their help an advice, and for all the good times we've shared. Thank you to Charlie Lemmink, for reading the Dark Empowerment and posting it, for letting me share TGL and well, just for everything. It's too bad things ended up the way they did. Thank you to Falco-X, we don't speak much now, but thank you for all your support in the past. Finally, thank you to Conrad VanderWoude; we didn't get off on the right foot, but you gave me a lot to think about and a lot of good advice in the end. I value all our friendships.
Onto some of the contributors... First of all, I just have to say a massive thank you to my friend, Megan O'Shea. She was the one person who wrote to me often during those hard times, with letters and so forth, and we're still good friends now. Thank you for all your great fanfics, and lovely art, and I wish you every success with it in the future. Thanks to Eon, Starseeker, Ted Anderson, Dave Adler, Sylvia, Cade Croix, Mack Costello, Yachiyo etc, who've been there since the start, and many of you still contributing today... to Post Rapture for all those brilliant discussions... Princess Ruto for starting Hylian Romance for all the Link and Zelda 'shippers out there (hehe)... MoonEcho, Shannon, Anna Larsson, Wolfgang VanKraus for all the fabulous artwork... Khar64 for some of the lovely graphics you contributed... Jay Potter, Arely Guerrero, Black Blaze, Zangora Daedinwen, Daniel Spain, Jill Denisse, Christi, Nikki DeFazio, Mallard, Ben Morelli, Mayen Escusa, Sheikah, The Lost Legend and Christian Warrior for your friendship... MiKe Townshend for being my personal agent (heh), writing a marvellous fanfic and keeping my spirits up, Razor Dog for simply just being the funniest guy alive... and Topaz for being the funniest girl... Geoffrey Hellstrand for looking after my Zelda music stuff... Arthur Hoffert for his great contributions... Liz for all the tips, snippits and great stories... Bobby Polosky and Brianna for being our No1 Fans...
Finally, the staff... Jack O'Reily for just being a complete life saver and offering to take on all the work when I need him to... Tammy for doing a fantastic job with the artwork... Quicksilver for offering to help me start up an editorials section... Jonathan for offering to take on the enormous job of fanfiction submissions... Sheiksilver for making my new messageboard... John Carmack and Jen for helping out in the past... DeAdWaStE at zeldagames.com, for hosting my site....all my affiliates... H:TLOZ, Desert Colossus, Zelda Legends, Zelda Legacy, Hidden Legend, Legend of Zelda...
And finally, one big thank you to the guy who inspired all this... Shiguru Miyamoto!
Webmistress of North Castle, Thursday, 13th July, 2000
Go Back
