BronxWench

I went on a pub crawl in London to visit the pubs featured in the Richard Jury mysteries by Martha Grimes. I'm strange that way, and I like a good pint of cider. But what makes me plop down money for a book is a story that draws me in because the world and/or characters promise to be interesting. Occasionally, this backfires, but I've also found books that were so unforgettable that they haunt me years later. I don't go for warm and fuzzy, for the most part, but I do like science, and I like my science fiction to be believable. There are authors I would hug and put on a shelf to talk to forever, if I could. Stephen King is one of them, actually. He can suck me into his world so fast that it's amazing. Mary Doria Russell's "Children of God" and "The Sparrow" will never stop haunting me. CJ Cherryh's Downbelow Station books are a favorite to return to for me. Of course, I mentioned George RR Martin, who is wonderful. Tolkien. Poe. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Samuel R Delany - "Dhalgren" is another book that will be with me forever. I also love Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books because I adore her humor. Lawrence Sander's "The Tomorrow File." I read Forgotten Realms books because I love the universe, even if some of the writers are a little less polished. I loved the Dune epic. The only thing my likes have in common is that I like them, I think...

Nope. But even the best writer in the world needs someone objective to pick up the things they miss. As an author, I know what I want to happen. I know what's going on in the heads of all my characters. But am I slipping something in that throws off the story's chronology? Did I have a dread point of view wobble, and let the reader look into the wrong head for a moment? The very hardest part for me was POV wobbles. To my dismay, if I'm writing from A's point of view, I can't refer to A as the blond. Why? Because it's A's point of view and he's not seeing himself. He doesn't think of himself as the blond. He doesn't notice his own eye color, or build, or height. So if I want to describe A, I need to wait to do it through someone else's point of view, which means a break. And you can't change point of view every two paragraphs, because you make the reader carsick that way. You yank them out of the world you're trying to build for them. It's not easy to see this in your own writing at all, and now I find I'm actually looking for it. And that will make me a better writer in the long run, because my goal is to make my editor work hard to find my mistakes. (Hint: adverbs. I still like them too much.)

I can say, having just been through my first experience with being edited for publication, that you need to put your ego on the side and focus on what your editor is trying to do. Their goal is a story that is readable and marketable. They want you to sell books. That means the publisher makes money, and they get paid. They're not being mean, but they're not going to soft-soap things, either. Now, being very honest, I knew that from friends who'd been published. It still felt awful when it happened to me, and I was ready to chuck it all in at least twice. But I didn't. I stuck with it, listened to what my editor told me, rewrote the bits that needed it, and in the end, my story is enormously better for it.And I apologized to my editor for whining, too.

At this time, we don't have an update notification feature, and I honestly can't say if it will be part of the new code as it's rolled out. You might want to check the story and the author profile, to see if the author maintains a mailing list or other method of notifying readers directly. A great many of our authors do try and notify readers via email, Twitter, FB or other media.

Honestly, fan fiction is a good way to get a feel for your voice as a writer. You have a cast of canon characters to play with, you have a world ready for you, and you even have, if not a plot line, certainly a good jumping off point for a story. Have you seen these little packets in the stores? They have premeasured spices, a recipe, and an ingredient list. If you've never made chicken tikka masala, or apple and sage pork chops, these might be a good way to learn how to make the dish. After a few times, you'll find yourself improvising with the spices or proportions. Before you know it, you've made the recipe your own, and it's led you to create another recipe. One that doesn't rely on premeasured spices and a recipe card. I still write a bit of fan fiction, but it led me to writing original work. It also taught me to sustain novel length writing. Don't knock fan fiction, because it's what gave me the courage to write.

"Good writing" is the most nebulous phrase in existence. Personally, I think Hemingway was a troll and Fitzgerald was a parvenu. Having summarily dismissed two literary icons so cavalierly, I define good writing as two things. One, it is technically correct. Two, I enjoy reading it. Technically correct means getting the basics straight, and from your post above, I don't think that's an issue. Grammar and spelling are two things people neglect dreadfully, and schools no longer teach them adequately. Punctuation is a lost art. But especially when publishing online, they make a story readable. Without them, I personally won't even bother to try and puzzle my way through. Enjoyment is the other thing that makes good writing, and that's so individual and impossible to define. I will read almost anything, although I have a preference for science fiction, fantasy, and historical settings. "Twilight" has largely ruined vampires for me, and we won't discuss the other fanfic-turned-original nonsense. I like characters who act, and talk, and engage me in their lives and plights. I like a bit of humor from time to time, especially at the worst possible moment. I like to have my imagination on full when I read. Yes, I do want to know what your character looks like in general terms, but let me imagine some things. Don't describe them down to the last mole. And guess what? Other people will have very different ideas of what makes for enjoyable reading. That's the beauty of it all. No book will appeal to everyone, and no story is going to make everyone love it. As long as you are telling the story you want to tell, and as long as you do have a few people out there will to tell you that they like it because, you're doing good. If the hit counter goes up consistently, you're doing great. It means you may have shy readers, but they come back. You've hooked them. There's no magic formula. There are basic rules, and while here online you can get away with flouting them, publishers and your editor will insist that you comply. Don't shift point of view from paragraph to paragraph. It makes readers dizzy. If you have two people of the same gender interacting, only one "he" or "she" per paragraph. Don't make the reader guess which one you mean. Read dialogue out loud. If it sounds silly when you say it, it'll sound silly when a reader reads it. But aside from that, and the conventions of grammar and punctuation, it's your story to tell, and your voice that should tell it. Try writing without going back every few sentences to edit yourself. Like we do for National Novel Writers Month (and NaNo is a great deal of fun), get the rough draft down. Get a beginning and an end, know a bit about your characters and world, and then go for it. You can make it pretty afterward, with the help of a beta or not, as you choose. I love the three crises and an end gambit. It makes for fun writing middles, as I figure out what three awful things I can do to my poor characters. Most of all, enjoy it. It comes across in your writing when you love being a writer. Readers can feel the passion you put into your work. Hells, I've forgiven George RR Martin for making me wait so long for Book 5 of his saga, because he loves his work and I love his passion. And his story.

Hi! It's not a button that you're missing. What it does require is that you go in and edit the story details. Tags are part of the Summary Field, and are added initially after you choose them from the dropdown menu when you first publish. Adding tags is slightly different once the story is published. To edit the tags, just access your Control Panel in your archive profile, going to the appropriate subdomain in the list on the left, and selecting 'Edit' from the options. Then choose the story in question from the dropdown menu on the left, and 'Edit Details' from the dropdown menu on the right. From there, you would choose the Summary Field and add the tags there. You need to type them in by hand, since there is no dropdown for those once you've posted the story. If they won't fit because the field only permits 240 characters, you can add the tags at the top of your first chapter, and mark it "Warnings" or "Additional Tags."

When you're publishing for money, you enter into a contract with your publisher that often gives them exclusive rights to the work in question for a period of time. It's not uncommon to see authors taking down things that might infringe on a contract.

For Almost Home: Thank you! This is exactly the sort of review an author lives for, because it gives me an idea of what I did right, and where I can improve. We can ALWAYS improve, in my opinion. I'm going to admit that this is a personal favorite of mine, if only because it was a thousand word flashfic, and I needed to be very precise to convey as much as I wanted to in that short space. I came close! It's also a peek at a world that is part of a novel in the works. One day, I'll get it out the door, but most of the science fiction type flashfics I've posted here do relate back to that work. They're outtakes, character sketches, and sometimes just for fun.. But thank you again!

Bring it on! Seriously, having just been through the process, I'm amazed at how much stronger my story is on the far side of the edit. I've been guilty of some completely amateur errors, and I've learned so much. I find myself thinking more as I write the new story that sat down in my lap and made eyes at me, and with any luck, it will be an easier edit. Or maybe not...I could find other things that need work. ::grins::

::grins:: I have a few pieces up here in serious need of revision, which I will get to soon, I hope! Some of those have reviews with some seriously good concrit, and I intend to use that to clean up the stories in question. Do I love it when people like what I write, and tell me? Of course I do. But I love it when people take the time to give me a detailed and well thought out review. I love to know what worked and what didn't. I'm no kid, but that doesn't mean I don't learn every single day, and that I can't try to improve every time I sit down at the keyboard.

Now mind you, my water never broke on its own. Both times, my OB had to break my water. In fact, Teenboy's was broken right as they told me to push. It would have been nicer had they told me what it was, but that particular OB was vying for a spontaneous orchidectomy. I still get teased because my Teengirl, the C-section baby, was 5 lbs 9 ounces. Teenboy, the VBAC, was 7 lbs 13 ounces. Yeah, I do things backward. Holy fecking shite! I hope you're VERY kind to your mum!

I walked up and down hills, and drove over bumpy roads. Teenboy was a week late, too, the little darling. LMAO!

I'm in total agreement with all that DG and Rogue have said. You really don't know until you've missed your first period, and even then, it's not like you'd rush out and buy a test if you were a day late. I was extremely regular for the most part, but was late once or twice when I was trying for children without being pregnant. I've had both a Cesarean delivery and what they call a VBAC - Vaginal Birth After Delivery. The Cesarean was not scheduled, but Teengirl was having deceleration of her heart beat with each contraction, and since I was "older" my OB wanted to err on the side of caution. You feel nothing past the pinch of the spinal, and since you;re generally draped, you see nothing until they hold up the baby, which is surprisingly quick. Vaginal birth for me was fairly uneventful. I was in actual labor intermittently. I began in the late afternoon, it stopped at around midnight, and resumed at about three am with a vengeance, and Teenboy arrived a little more than six hours later. I had a late epidural (9.5cm dilation because my OB for that birth was an idiot and waited until shift change to call for the epi). But he was still an easy enough birth as things go. Yes, I yelled, because I focused on pushing better when I yelled. (My OB frowned at me and I asked him if he wanted to give it a go.) Yes, until the epidural, there was pain, but it never hit unendurable for me. As far as the physical experiences of pregnancy, again, it varies with every woman you talk to. I had no morning sickness with Teengirl, gained around thirty pounds, and was not ungainly. With Teenboy, I had morning sickness from about 2 months to 4 months along, and I was fecking huge, although I still didn't gain more than thirty-five pounds. It was ALL belly, to the point where people were asking me if I was having twins. But I was fairly energetic through both pregnancies, and can't say that it was terrible, although I could have done without the awkwardness in the last trimester of Teenboy's gestation.

You'll be notified, but it's been a bit hectic here with the false reports to Google. Bear with us!

Hi, What you need to do is to send an email to technicalsupport@adult-fanfiction.org and include your archive penname, the old email address, the new email address and any pertinent information that can identify you as the owner of the archive account.

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That was at least decent response time for a false report! HUZZAH!

I'm not getting the red screen anymore. A tentative "Huzzah" is in order?

Hi, Under our Profile How To's in the FAQs thread, we have FAQS for How to use the new Recommended Reading and How to use the new Recommended Authors that should help answer your question.

The first thing is that you can't use the same password when resetting. If you tend to use the same few passwords across various sites, you may have inadvertently done just that. If you're sure you didn't, then was it at least 8 characters long? And don't forget, passwords are case sensitive, so that means if you used a capital letter when you created the password, you need to use it when you log in as well.

Round two of reporting done. Is there a contact at the admin level I can email? This is utterly objectionable, to read her racist, bigoted, vile rants. If a site that allows 13 year old children to join can't see fit to remove this, then maybe they need to understand that their advertisers may find it as objectionable as we do.

Reported everything last night, and I'll do it again today if the site lets me.