Cia

Time to vote! What are you waiting for?! You read, you liked, commented, and reviewed the Secret Author Story Contest stories so now it's time to get out and vote. Wait... not out, stay in! Just click on the vote picture below to go make your choice! Need a reminder of the stories first? Click on our Secret Author below (image) to visit the story listing

July has come and with it so many events for me I can't pick between if I'm coming or going... so I chose Graeme's story, Torn in Two, as this month's feature. Please enjoy this short story and leave him a comment or review! Length: 9,024 Description: Scott's heart is torn in two directions. He wants to leave Greenwood to be with his boyfriend, but he can't leave his grandfather, who needs him. A Reader said: I just read the story and loved it ❤️ As always, Graeme, thank you for sharing your great talent of writing amazing stories. ~ Wildone If you want to spread the word about Graeme's story, download the graphic below and add it to your signature! Make sure you come back on Wednesday to see the excerpt I chose to share!

Well, better late than never! You readers certainly haven't been slack in providing your feeback!! Wow! With just one more story to go, I have to feature how the 10 stories so far have been received, and we still have 1 to go. Keep it up! 10 stories in 10 days 323 Likes 190 Comments 45 Reviews Voting will start next Tuesday, so make sure you read all the Secret Author Contest stories so you're ready to vote for your favorite! Click on our Secret Author below (image) to visit the story listing or follow the profile to get notifications on all the stories.

I prefer to sandwich feedback to authors positive/constructive/positive. If a reader cannot give an author constructive criticism instead of a scathing critique, then I don't believe they hold worthwhile opinions. Some may consider me the Queen of Red Ink, but I always try to avoid squashing authors who are at different levels of proficiency or ability. Working with exceptional students, or with those with ACE trauma and behaviors, I've learned to check my assumptions, such as just because I write a certain way or have a certain level of ability that everyone else should as well. I might offer tips or links to websites to improve writing, but I also say that is because if an author wants to write their own way and break the rules, they should just know them first. Use of tropes, kitschy dialogue, instalove, etc... might be an author's choice for fun, because this isn't published, it's just for fun/love of writing.

Maybe he shouldn’t be so amazed by flying, considering the modern world he came from, but flying on Valrinda’s back was really different from the two hour flight in a jet to his aunt’s house. One big difference? His seat was a living, breathing being who liked to crane his neck back and talk to him whenever he got the chance to snap his wings out and glide along on a thermal wind. He answered a lot of questions Beckett had about the world they were gliding swiftly over. Watching the land ri

Yes, Secret Author still has more secrets to unveil! Have you been reading the stories posted so far? Many of you have and then shared likes, comments, and reviews, so thank you! How much fun are you having guessing who wrote what? Just don't tell if you think you have it all figured out! 🫢If you missed any stories, you can check out the story listing below, and follow so you don't miss the last few still to come. 1. 14,000 Days of Virtue 2. Adrift 3. Baring My Soul 4. Learned to Lie 5. Life of a Pet 6. River City 7. Searching for God 8. The Book of Poems Click on our Secret Author below (image) to visit the story listing or follow the profile to get notifications on all the stories.

Good morning and whew, what a great start to the Secret Author Story Contest. We've already had 45 likes, 39 comments, and 8 reviews on 3 stories, with one story just posting a few hours ago! Thank you all for taking the time to read these great stories and share your appreciation. The author(s) will share the love right back once Secret Author, that sneaky devil, gives them back! Click on our Secret Author below (image) to visit the story listing or follow the profile to get notifications on all the stories. Do you think you know who wrote what story? You can guess, but remember, authors....

Beckett should have waited until she had the spell and crescents, shouldn’t he? “Will she come back out?” he asked Valrinda. “Of course. A wizardess who doesn’t keep their word doesn’t get much business, would they?” Oh. Good point. “Okay.” He’d just wait. An incredibly tall, green-skinned man with yellow eyes and three black horns opened the door. “Here.” He thrust out two huge hands, one holding a bag and the other a water flask like the one Beckett had seen on other’s belts. Be

I was wondering if someone would post the link here... I put a post by the Secret Author in the topic for the Club yesterday. It was a final "secret trick", and I was coming 6 hours later to post a link if no one had. Myr beat me to it a few hours ago.

It's no longer a secret that 11 authors took up the challenge for the Secret Author Story Contest! From today, July 4th through July 14th, a new story will post each day and readers can enjoy these great stories with the theme "secret". Don't forget to like, comment, and review as the stories will revert back to authors once the contest ends. Voting for your favorite story happens on Tuesday, July 18th through Monday, July 24th, so remember, through this whole time... Tuesday, July 25th is our big winner reveal! One author will win custom advertising on GA, either for a story of their choice or themselves as an author and one reader who voted will win 3 months free Premium access! Thursday, July 27th, we'll do a blog look back over the whole contest and make sure you get a chance to see what stories were written by what favorite GA author. Click on our Secret Author below (image) to visit the story listing or follow the profile to get notifications on all the stories.

Delayed a bit, but worth the wait! I laughed out loud a few times, gasped at least once (too many books, no such thing!) and thoroughly enjoyed both CassieQ's story Geeks and her interview answers. Please make sure you leave your comments below for her to share your thoughts too! Who was the real villain, ACME or Wile E. Coyote? ACME. Coyote is just trying to eat. ACME looks like they supply terrorists. If you were an animal, what would you be? Probably a cat. I excel at lounging around and sleeping all day and have manic bursts of energy around midnight. What’s one location you’d love to go to research for a story? France. I’m learning the language (very slowly) but it just looks amazing and like the perfect setting for a romance. I also would have loved to be able to visit the Rocky Mountains for research on being trapped in the mountains (news flash: it sucks), but alas, I had to stick with my Appalachians. If you were writing a book about your life, what would the title be? Too Many Books. Seriously. They’re taking over my house. I need an intervention or something. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing? I’m a pantser and very character focused. There are parts of my writing where I have to think a lot about plot and plan those things out and I hate every second of it. Avoiding distractions is a struggle as well. I try to circumvent some of it by going to the library when I can instead of writing at home. Is your writing process a daily word count goal or more of a burst of inspiration writing flurry? Closer to a flurry. I write when I want to and while setting a daily habit is a great, having a daily word count goal doesn’t work for me. It’s too much pressure and I don’t want to sit and grind out words that don’t matter to me just to fill a preconceived quota. It’s a hobby for me, not a job. You said Geeks was your most popular story, but what has been your favorite to write and why? It’s not my best writing, but I loved writing Reach. Reach and Not The Sun were some of the first stories where I got to do some world-building and be really creative and I enjoy that. Anime is featured in Geeks, so I have to ask, do you like anime and what would you recommend (read, watch, write, etc…)? When I was growing up in the 90s, we had very few options of anime, it was Sailor Moon, DragonBall Z and whatever the Sci-Fi channel was featuring on Saturday Anime. I don’t care how cringey Sailor Moon was, I will STILL watch it today. I’ve tried a few current shows, but I’ve not really gotten into anything that has been recommended to me, except for Miyazaki’s works, which are the shit. If you haven’t seen Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away, please watch them. You won’t be sorry. Can you sum up Geeks in one sentence? Yes. Anime, Star Wars and lot and lots of sex. What can you share about your current story or an upcoming story with readers? I have a multi-book project currently titled Hazardous that is sitting at a very robust 128,000 words at the moment. I was hoping to have it wrapped up by 150,000 but that is looking highly unlikely at this point. I do have hopes that I’ll finish it this year. It’s currently in the beta reading process, but I have yet to find an editor, in case anyone is interested. I wanted to go back to my fantasy roots, and this features new worlds, adventures, friendship, fighting and a little bit of sex. My former beta reader had a thing for catboys, so it has that too. It’s gonna be wild.

Carlos was an amazing person, and we will all miss him. That said, please don't post any pictures that he didn't share publicly himself first (meet ups, privately shared images on/off site). GA respects a person's right on what they choose to post publicly about themselves, and he is no longer here to give permission.

Do you have a good story idea? Are you interested in writing for the Secret Author Story Contest where readers will vote on the Secret Author stories to determine the best of the bunch? STOP! Shhh! Don't tell anyone because it's a secret! The deadline is this Saturday, July 1st!! Time's running out, but you still have a few more days. If you haven't sent in your story, get it to me (Cia) fast!! Review the contest info here and please, please...

“What about this?” Beckett unstrapped his watch. “Do you think I could trade this?” His jeans had been a hit. For all the word human had been said to him with disdain, the gnome had looked pretty greedy when he’d asked for Beckett’s jeans in trade. It wasn’t even like he could trade them to just anyone either. How many creatures could actually wear them? “A human toy? It doesn’t work here, but the bits and pieces are valuable. You could get a lot for that. Barter for azure crescents, over t

He would have been nervous to sleep out in the open of the meadow they were in when night fell, but Valrinda curled around Beckett like a living wall that radiated heat to combat the chill of the air. He blended into the darkness of the night, other than the glow of his large eyes and the gleam of heat whenever he opened his mouth to talk. Plus he’d started a tiny fire for Beckett to warm his dinner, blowing a stream of fire with deadly accuracy onto the pile of sticks inside a ring of rock

@Anton_Cloche @Mancunian Posting other people's personal names and private information is also something we do not do online on GA without permission as well. Please remember that when 'sharing information' such as above; someone might not want their name associated with GA if it is Googled. The GA FMT (staff) have been responding to this situation. We would ask members to respect our member privacy guidelines at this time and to wait patiently for information we can share, which we will do as soon as we can.

The Dawn of Day was Monday's Signature story feature, and I hope you took the time to check it out. If not, this excerpt might change your mind. I've done two, since the story is one of those which gives you insight into two very different happenings.... Want to read more? Click here!

We are aware of Carlos' absence and will update when we do have information. Unfortunately, we do not have any answers to share at this time.

June and halfway through the year. I don't know about you, but I truly believe that entire ages have come and gone in 2023 so far. I thought this story, Dawn of Day by Dolores Esteban was intriguing when I read it in the past and so fits how I feel about June so far. What do you think? Length: 40,080 Description: A gravitational wave sweeps the USS Explorer to the star system 55 Cancri. The crew detects a deserted alien airport on a planet in the habitable zone. The planet, however, is not deserted. A young native and a stranded alien crew spots the arrival of the spaceship from Earth. Unsettling events follow. Will the humans ever return to Earth? A Reader said: What happens when an accident send a spaceship with a crew of three earth men on an unplanned trip through time and space? We see how they interact with a more primitive society and a more advanced alien flight crew. Ms. Esteban imagines interesting and some times unexpected interactions between the three groups. I enjoyed reading this story and found it was a thoughtful look at trying to get along. ~ JeffreyL If you want to spread the word about Dolores' story, download the graphic below and add it to your signature! Make sure you come back on Wednesday to see the excerpt I chose to share!

Light-hearted, love is just the right mix for the Pride month CSR, and I wanted to feature one of our long-term Signature authors on GA too! What better mix of the two than Geeks by CassieQ! Geeks by @CassieQ Length: 69,166 Description: A shy Star Wars geek love falls in love with an outgoing anime geek. As friends, family and old flames get in the way, will the two find a way to make it work? A Reader Said: Such a cute story, mikeal is beyond adorable and adam is such a stud. A tale about overcoming obstacles while trying to build a lasting relationship with the boy you love. Very heartwarming with lots of smoldering sex scenes 😍🥵 you won't be able to put this one down. ~ SnowBear Don't forget to come back and share your thoughts on Monday, June 26th!

I thought it was too funny not to share! Of course we are!!

By the time he was dry, Beckett and Valrinda had a long talk. Valrinda had flown all sorts of places, and he knew of the city that Beckett thought he’d seen, but he’d never been there. “I know the path at least.” “Of course you do,” Beckett mumbled. “Wouldn’t make sense for you to be my guide if you didn’t.” This was all too coincidental—too easy—for him to believe it was real. Maybe he was in a coma. He did have a great imagination, one teacher had once said. Too bad real life, and his dad

Did you read Demiurge's story, Dejection and Hope that was featured for this month's CSR? What did you think? Or you can share your thoughts on Demiurge's responses to my interview questions as I dared to let us all get to know them!! 🫣 Well, first (From Demi): Chocolate or Vanilla? Neither. What’s something personal about you people might be surprised to know? I’m an emergency dispatcher. What something you like to do when you’re not writing? I really enjoy hiking. Specifically in state/national parks with my partner. What brought you to GA? I came to read originally and then liquid courage persuaded me to post my writing. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing? I hate writing dialogue. I get taken out of a story if the characters I’m reading don’t make me feel something or are difficult to relate to. I feel like dialogue can make or break you and so I struggle to make it sound, “real”. How many stories have you written? Do you have a favorite? A lot. A metric eff ton. My favorite is a current work in progress that hasn’t made it to the site yet, but hopefully will soon! What about sharing your favorite scene in Dejection and Hope? My favorite scene, without giving too much away, is a wildly domestic moment between my characters that leads to a slightly traumatizing epiphany for Seth. Many authors write pieces of themselves or those they know into their characters. Do you connect with Noah or Seth, or with one more than the other? There are bits and pieces of me interwoven into both. This was really the first thing I wrote where I found myself in my characters’ reactions and mannerisms. Dejection and Hope lead to I Hate This town where one of my characters has some of the same mental health struggles/thought processes This is vitally important: What is the best add-in to ramen, either on or off a budget? Why is this the hardest question? Chasu pork…or yuzu….or chili oil. Can you share more of your current or upcoming work with readers? My current goal is to finish my fantasy trilogy. After that I have characters from, I Hate This Town that are getting a spin off. I normally have a few things working at once and I’d also really want to branch out into the horror theme.