I like this. It's such a bizarre mixture of poignant letter and almost jocular form - I mean, who writes an emotional letter to a forum? - but that's kind of what makes it so cutting to read, because your audience is both your subject and a mutual friend of the subject. You're writing to a friend that we all know and, whether we're openly sentimental or put up a cynical facade, all of us love this place to some degree, too, or we wouldn't be here eight or nine years on.
You used metaphor well here; even if the idea of the forum being represented by a dying tree is probably a bit of a cliche, I can't easily think of a metaphor which would be more apt, to be honest. It works very well as a description without being particularly fresh or original, which is kind of fitting I suppose, considering you're discussing the demise of the forum's culture. I particularly liked the idea of TPM "sanding down the edges" of your craft: I feel that writing here really developed my teenage writing more than probably anything else could have - and for that, I'm really grateful to the forum too.
I don't really have many criticisms to make about this - it's such an inventive angle on the letter form that it really gives you license to do what you want, I reckon - but was there a particular reason for words like "Lass" and "Grateful" to be capitalised? If not, they ought to be all in lower case unless they are proper nouns or at the start of a sentence.
I'm glad you've written about this. We've all lamented the lack of activity before in the writer's lounge, but I don't know if anyone has ever written about it creatively. I think that if we all feel the same way - and I'm pretty sure we all do - then that's a good start. We need to reply to as much as we can, even if the replies aren't huge, to let people know that their work is being read and appreciated, and then they'll have access to a similar culture that we had access to eight years ago. We need to reply to our replies and get discussions going with our readers. We do have the opportunity here to create a more industrious writing culture here than we ever had before, even if we accept that it may not have the same level of membership that this forum once had. Also, us mods are always more than willing to get new suggestions and ideas from you guys about new projects and initiatives to liven up the forum - if you or anyone has any ideas, feel free to drop any of us a line.
A slight tangent to my reply to your piece, eevee-shayna, but that's evidence of how much your piece stirred me into wanting to see action as much as you seem to - we can get the ball rolling if we try to, I think.
In any case, good work with the attention-catching title here; I'm sure you'll get much more than just viewing from the forum - and I hope you start to hang out here more often?
Cheers,
Gavin.