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Hi Wendy! GA is not good for your attention to writing span either ... but it can be very encouraging, if you can manage to go offline after you're here, lol. Welcome to GA, Uziel! There are plenty of stories to choose from too! Enjoy your reading.

LOL, Lisa, yes it is a zoo but I love it here anyway! Henry... questions happen! Thank you everyone, so much for the birthday wishes!!

Happy Birthday Bill! I hope you have a great day, hun!

Awww, thank you very much everyone! I love and appreciate all the birthday wishes, in both topics, lol.

Aww, thank you everyone! I didn't have cake since hubby apparently didn't think to pick me up anything, but I did buy some blueberry muffins at the bakery tonight to have for breakfast tomorrow. That's almost as bad for you as cake!

Apparently, Thorn! Thanks. Thanks so much, Dave. (hug) I let Lughbert get away with many things ... but don't worry, I torture him back in private.

We've been talking a lot about writing reviews, and not saying anything negative, but I think that honesty is still best when sharing thoughts on a story. I recently read an eBook I'd received in exchange for a review, so I didn't hold back on the truth as I saw it from my reader viewpoint. In His Command by Rie Warren My rating: 3 of 5 stars In His Command is a hard book for me to review. Post-apocalyptic fiction is on the rise and anti-homosexual views aren't exactly new in that scenario, easily leading to an overdone and predictable plot. Yet that was the lynch pin of this entire story. It didn't stand out enough to interest me and the elements of the plot that related to the action were so spaced out that I grew bored in the middle of the book, almost making this a dnf. I think that both main characters were well fleshed out. We got to see exactly why Caspar and Nathaniel are who they are. The backstory was revealed piece by piece, when it was relevant, and provided by the characters--not the author in narration--so I really liked that aspect of the author's writing. Still ... I didn't really feel for either character and their romance wasn't enough to pull me in either. The biggest issue I faced reading this story was boredom. If I hadn't been reading his for the purpose of reviewing it, I'd have quit reading during the scenes at the nomad camp. The internal monologues Caspar kept having, his indecision, the overly flowery language and writing ... it felt completely out of character. I rolled my eyes several times in disgust at his teenage girliness that seemed to go on and on. So, my thoughts overall? It was okay, and I finished it. If this story was about half the length, and a lot of the sex and internal drama were removed, I'd have liked it a lot more. View all my reviews

Awww, thank you Breeze, Bill, Slytherin, Mark, Iarwain, Scotty, Zombie, Talonrider, Bee, Stellar, NS, KC, and Kiltie. Whew... did I forget anyone? She's right, and thank you to Renee for the b-day wishes too, but Lugh wouldn't be 'being Lugh' if a wench wasn't thrown in there somewhere. Thanks Lughbert, I'm feeling the love! lol <3

To sum up ... Writing IS work, work, work! Could someone tell my husband that? Lol

BTW, you guys should follow that link and post your paragraphs, along with your email, on Kim's blog.

I like it Jo Ann but I get this mental picture of a ball and jewels, etc... so I don't know how boring the paragraph is, though Erin sounds like a real buzz kill.

No... sorry. I mean, I've had flavors that didn't mesh well when I was experimenting and ended up making sandwiches for dinner, but I have an oven timer and use it

LOL, Dolores! Very 'Genesis' which is extremely tedious to read. Thrown in a few thousand begats and you'd be right there with those ancient writers.

Ahh, a nice boring sentence Scotty, but the goal is a whole paragraph!

LMAO. Oh, that was hilarious. The part where his bride to be lets him sniff her butt was freaking off the wall. Great short story!

Wayne has some very good suggestions here for providing feedback to authors. I'll never stop saying what I think, but I do believe a bit of bitter goes down better with some sugar. I try to mention what I like or don't like specifically in a chapter, and why, and any suggestions I might have for the author when I review. Beta/editing ... Well, I always tell people to be prepared for my pure, unvarnished opinion. I am not quite as obvious about pointing out things that I like, though I try to remember that authors need to know what really works as well as what doesn't, but my main focus is always on what needs to be fixed. I am never an intentional flamer, however, and I do try to be politic when I know the review/comments will not be received well. That being said, I am ALWAYS up for discussion on something I've said. Don't like it/agree with me, want more info, or just to tell me that what I said didn't go over well... come talk to me!

LOL, Zombie. Paper clips, oh no, think of the myriad uses. I'm enthralled, enthralled I tell you! Didn't you know office supplies just do it for me?

Every once in a while it can be fun to go outside the box, away from the usual style, and go a bit wild with your words. Louis did an excellent article recently about weak writing and avoiding overused words and phrases. That stuck with me, as it is something I strive for as well. However, I just entered a contest on Kim Fielding's blog where the goal was to write a paragraph that her kids would find boring. I decided to do something ... different. Stepping outside the box from my normal style had me choosing my words with careful consideration to share an image, a thought, a scene but in the most flowery and complicated way possible. This is completely opposite of my usual style where my goal is to entertain in the simplest words possible. I've obviously not been stretching myself enough with writing projects lately, because this was the most fun I'd had in a long time, oddly enough. LOL I'd love to see what kind of boring paragraph you guys can come up with too (and her contest is running to the 19th for a copy of her eBook an a $10 GC to Dreamspinner Press). You can find it through this link, here. My boring paragraph: Hast thou come for me, at the waning of my twilight? No sound heralds thy approach, save that of my soul's entreaty. In winter night, at midnight's call, my bedchamber resounds with sonorousness of thy silent advent to sunder my mortal coils. Fosooth, most merrily dost I greet thee, a fulsome fate to some, but to this wearisome world I bid, not a lament from my lips, but a soft fare thee well.

I had an editor cream me repeatedly for 'independently moving body parts'. I'm guilty of using passive word choices all the time too; I've been dinged a few times and told search them and re-write. It is a struggle not to use them, but it's worth it if you want to present your plot and characters in the best light. This is a great list of words and phrases Louis has shared. If you want to know how guilty you are of using them, use Word's find feature on your latest work and see just how many times the word just, than, was, etc...

Aww, I didn't know I was going to be featured! Thank you so much for the wonderful review, Jo Ann! We have so much content in Premium from the great authors that have made GA their home over the years and more to come from them, and some of the newer popular authors as well. It's a great way to thank the members that have the ability to support the site with their premium subscription. Thank you again for the wonderful review of my story and writing in general. Without the great feedback I received here on GA I never would have gone beyond my first fumbles at writing a story. Every bit of feedback I received (even the reviews I sometimes miss replying to for a while, sorry!!) helps encourage me to keep writing.

My family would scream if desecrated pancakes that way, but it sounds really good Thorn!

Maybe you can use a combo of brown rice flour, potato starch, tapioca flour and xanthan gum? Wild Oats/Whole Foods might carry all that. My sister in law is gluten free so I've been trying things and that seems to be a good replacement for wheat flour. It'd be uh... 4 cups of brown rice flour, 1 1/3 c. potato starch, 2/3 c cup tapioca flour, 4 tsp. xanthan gum. Put it in a covered container in thee fridge for at least 8 hours before using for best flavor. It'll end up being more than you need, since you use the same amount of this mixture as you'd of regular flour, but if you like to bake you can leave it in a tightly covered bowl in the fridge for a few days. I'm sure you know all this but anyway.

That is because, as site staff, we are all busy already with life and the site tasks we already cover. Members are always free to create their own round robins or start games/projects to include other members, but we cannot regulate every project that goes beyond the individual. As I just told Myeige in the Nom topic, we can help with some aspects of projects or give advice, but we're just too busy to do all the footwork for everything site members come up with.

I think the sale part would be the rub. A free GA cookbook would be okay, but someone would have to get permission from all the participants and collate it into one consistent format before I could eBook it. I just don't have time to do the footwork myself. I could create a cover, convert it from Word, and post it for everyone though.

I was a bit like Jwolf. I used to tell my 2 younger step-siblings stories about a family of goo people to make them fall asleep, lol. I always just made up new ones each night; I wish I'd written them down because I failed to 'finish' a lot of stories for years until I started doing that.