BronxWench

The entire Aimless Babble section, I believe, is limited to forum members. The forums were originally created as a venue for authors to talk and share ideas, so a lot of the sections are limited to forum members. Non-members can create threads in the Searching for a Fic and Challenges/Requests subsections. Obviously, all of the help-type sections are also open to non-members. In the Fan Fiction section, it will state right at the bottom of the sub-section whether or not registration is required.

If I’m not mistaken, that thread requires forum registration to post.

Thank you! I am in love with the cover art, really, and I love working with NineStar Press. Everyone’s been very professional and completely supportive, and I feel like I have my feet back under me again, at long last.

I am very, very excited about the upcoming republication of Ghost’s Sight, the first book in the Witch’s Apprentice series. NineStar Press has been good enough to give me a new home, and I couldn’t be happier. The book is now available for pre-order at the NineStar website, and I’ll add links for third party sites as soon as the book is released. There’s some new material, and a fabulous new cover, so take a peek!

And then, once you think you have the basics of editing yourself down, the Chicago Manual of Style releases a new edition and you find yourself relearning the correct use of commas.

I haven’t had any reports of slow loads the past couple of days. I was having an issue myself two weeks ago, but the most recent update to Windows 10 seems to have fixed that issue for me, at least. Generally, what I do when things seem a bit less responsive than usual is to clear my browser’s cache and history. Sometimes that can speed things up. It might also be an issue with the cookie strings AFF sets. They can become corrupted over time, and deleting them allows the site to set new cookies. I’m not sure either of those fixes will help, but they won’t hurt anything, either.

I really, REALLY hate having to repeat this over and over, but it seems for a fiction archive, no one reads… At the top of this thread, we have a notice: Do not use our forums to ask for hard copies, either.

madcow removed their work from the Internet altogether. Sorry about that!

The author has removed the story everywhere on the Internet that they had posted it, and asked that copies not be circulated.

Does the password contain only letters and/or numbers? Special characters and punctuation are not permitted. It must also be between 8-12 letters and/or numbers long. If it is longer than 12 letters and/or numbers, that too will cause an error message.

The author has changed pen names and removed all stories from this site.

Two things come immediately to mind. The first is that your password might be too long, or contain characters other than numbers or letters (which are case sensitive). Passwords should be between 8-12 letters and/or numbers long, and if you reset a password using the previous password, it will “blank” the field and force a new reset. The second is that you either have not allowed third party cookies, or you have a cookie string which is corrupted. If you are certain your password is fine, then I suggest you do this. Clear your browser cache and history, and close it down completely to ensure the deletions take place. Restart your browser, and log in to AFF using your exact email and password. The site will set new cookies, which should then allow you to log in. Just to clarify, you cannot register more than once here at AFF. The system will not allow it. If you are still having problems with the log-in, let us know, and if possible, give us as much detail as you can (without posting your email address or password publicly, of course!) so we can better assist you.

I’m looking into this, since from my end, it doesn’t appear your email address has been updated. Let me see if we can get that done. Once it’s done, you should be able to follow the usual procedures to revalidate your account, as outlined in this FAQ.

Let me start by saying I am fairly decent in Elvish, have a working knowledge of draconic and Ilythiiri, and have a few phrases in Klingon under my belt, just to establish my seriously geeky credentials. I use endearments in other languages. I might throw in a sentence or two, if my character is in a situation where the person with them has no clue what they’re saying. In that case, I want the reader to be as confused as the listener. Currently, I’m abusing Welsh, because I can, but I’ve mangled Irish Gaelic for my own purposes, too. And in fandoms, I do use the conlangs from those fandoms, because I expect my readers to understand the words and phrases, too. I guess that puts me on the fence, so to speak. I do use other languages, I don’t always translate or include a glossary, but I don’t do entire paragraphs or even frequent full sentences in those languages.

Oh, I like that one!

It might be Breaking Bad by mastershakeme.

Well, yes, because stealing my wallet is up close and personal, so I can smack you for that. But usually the parking offenses occur when I’m not looking, so it’s either I get to vaporize the car, or I channel 6 sumo wrestlers to pick it up, move it, and drop it into one space. And I do mean drop it.

The power to vaporize idiots who take more than one parking place. Really. I’m generally pretty easygoing, but I absolutely explode when faced with that sort of self-important, self-indulgent, self-centered behavior. And after I vaporize their car, I’m going to disintegrate all their participation awards, from preschool right on up.

I think this is another case of editing via blog, and it’s unfortunate. It’s on a par with the writing advice word police, who tell us to remove “that” from a manuscript...except the Chicago Manual of Style (6-27) clearly tells us “that” is used for restrictive/essential phrases and “which” is used for nonrestrictive phrases, i.e., the sky filled with clouds that held the promise of a storm versus the sky which was blue. Look, anything used poorly is awful, I agree. But a blog or writing advice column is not the be-all and end-all for an author. The very best writing shows, not tells, and a good door slamming is a great show.

I made the mistake of checking out our cocky friend, and I urge you all not to do it. Seriously. Talk about ego?

I think some people are definitely hoping to garner publicity for a novel that most likely is cocky enough to promise more than it can deliver, which I find exceedingly cheeky.

For me, the structure of having a fandom to play in gave me the courage to try to write the worlds in my head. I made my mistakes playing in someone else’s universe, which is not to say I’m not making mistakes in my own little worlds, but it feels rather nice to have them out there, warts and all.

I’m inclined to say let’s try it, and see how it goes. Just label them clearly so we don’t get a dozen plagiarism reports about you stealing from yourself.