astroguy

I was still holding the diamond and the chain was beginning to cut into the back of my neck. The discomfort caused me to let go, and I felt the cold metal setting rest back on my chest. I couldn't see them anymore. I knew one day I might again, but I also knew that what Corther said was true: The jinni I had turned that scum into lacked the ability to give me back my world. Well, their world. All the magic essence he had gathered before had been used to fuel his transformation and entrapment.

A young man ventures into the human world after being raised by elves. His companion is a young jinni with little power and a blocked memory. Together and with contacts they make, the protagonist must figures out how to make a life without attracting the unwanted attention that you know will find them. A story about love, magic, and sacrifice.

Blank. Well, perhaps shadows flitting about, but in a blank canvas so empty it's not even black. That's when he tried to remember where he was, how he got there, and who he was. All he knew was he was falling through a long, narrow passageway and then landed on something soft. Catching his breath and propping himself up on his elbows, he looked down at the cushioned surface but could not tell what it was. He looked around and saw he was in a broad enclosure, large enough that he could not e

I like it when the stories are believable, as others said. Characters that have more dimension to them helps, but good descriptions and a host of tertiary characters make it more believable. I've noticed that of the stories I really like, there are maybe 1-4 main characters, 2-6 supporting secondary characters, but then dozens of named and unnamed tertiary characters to fill it up. Even something as simple as, "Emily kept getting bumped in the hallway so was late to class and had a hard time finding her seat in the crowded lecture hall," is much more satisfying to me than, "Emily walked to class and sat down, almost arriving late." It's something I'm working on in my own writing, and it's something I need to go back and add, I think. I also like stories that are paced well, which is hard (I personally think my stories are too slow moving). You need time to build sympathy for your main character(s) and turn them into "real" people for the reader, but at the same time, 5 chapters in a row about how they woke up, went to work, out to lunch, back to work, made dinner, and then went to bed is just boring. Yes, you get to know the character and may be more inclined to sympathize with them when they get into trouble, but you want to kill the author.

I'm having some issues with this lately. I have a beginning and I know how I want to end (final chapter or two). I'm having some issues getting from A to C, though (well, more like from G to X). This is a "short" story that I've been working on for 8 months, though there was a huge hiatus to finish my dissertation (and I just kinda forced that sucker out). But this short story comes on the heels of being half-way through Book 1 of a 2 or 3 book series that I started writing in 2007. That's been on a major pause for awhile because the bulk of it needs to be rewritten by changing a major secondary character (about whom this side-story is being written). At some point, I think I'll just skip over steps H, I, J, ... U, V, W, and write steps X, Y, and Z. I've asked my boyfriend for advice, but he's busy starting a new job so hasn't been able to get to it. Actually, this is why I just joined this site -- I'm hoping to now have my 5 forum posts (not just filler, but content posts!) up so that I can submit the first few chapters of this short story and get feedback and possibly ideas.

It depends. I have a lot of coping mechanisms "built in," but I remember the first time they all broke down. It was a physics lab where I had spent 7 hours (the lab was 4 hours) wiring up a memory circuit with wires crossing all over the place, fired it up, and it didn't work. The old sexist professor comes over and tells me it's probably a dead chip. Only problem is that removing the chip would require unwiring everything because of all the wires crossing over it, physically holding it down. I went into a corner and blew up several LEDs by putting one end to -12V and the other to +12V. That lasted several minutes. Then I went back to my dorm room and someone sent me REM's song, "Everybody Hurts." That's actually still my go-to song when I'm really upset. To relieve stress that's not caused / related to being upset, I try to watch a short TV show that's comedic (Big Bang Theory lately), stupid (Judge Judy, anyone?), or, well, I do something that only guys can do and take a nap. In writing, I actually have a document where I detail my main characters in about a page and a half. Under the basic information, one trait that I put in is their method of stress reduction. I have one character who just goes running. Another bakes ... a lot ... and mostly chocolate.

As an atheistic agnostic, I'm dating a guy who is some form of Christianity. I'll admit - there are issues. I find that I can very easily tick him off with what I consider to be legitimate if naïve questions (I asked him around Christmas why people thought Mary was a virgin versus just having gotten knocked up -- though I phrased it more kindly). In general, I try to avoid the topic with him. He's not orthodox nor ultra-religious, doesn't really go to Church, but, yeah, there are just some things we can't discuss.

Hmm. Around 7th grade when I first decided to find out what an orgasm was. I didn't realize that fantasizing about Aladdin (the Disney series was on TV then) was gay until about a month later.