Rilbur

Sometimes, life just sucks. Jared Warren knows this better than anyone. His 'loving' marriage has had thirteen long, long years to explain it to him. In detail. But when the choice between an experimental life-saving procedure and dying comes up, he doesn't hesitate. After all, he has to protect his kids!

Hey, we've all had bad spots. I mean, it's been forever and a day since I actually worked on getting a new chapter of Redemption out! Mind you, part of that was focusing on the Novella contest last year... and then finishing off Guardians... then going back and polishing Guardians... but the fact is, it's been most of a year since the last chapter was posted. WAY too long! We all get caught up in things -- including writers block. Don't worry about it.

I'm sorry, but his anti-gay feelings? How does Ender's Game -- which, IMO, is a great book and a good series -- showcase 'anti-gay feelings'?

I could have sworn I commented on this already, but... Quoted for truth; while you are clearly departing (radically!) from the established storyline, the characters are, in general, pretty close to the books. Draco and his mother have been the single largest deviations to date, and those reasonably minimal. In general, a pretty interesting story so far, though a bit rough around the edges in places -- something that all new writers have to deal with, and the cure is 'practice practice practice'.

They have a ghost teaching history of magic. They have a forest chock full of hippogryphs, thestrals, centaurs, unicorns, and who knows what else. One year they have a werewolf for a professor. Lets not forget the poltergeist, or the house ghosts, much less the fact that one centaur becomes a member of the staff! House-elves in the kitchens, gnomes in gardens, doxies in curtains, boggarts in closests...

Zachary was a goody-two shoes born and bred. He'd never break a rule, or a confidence. And now he faces two 'right' choices, between duty to the law and duty to his friend. Whatever decision he makes, there will be no going back.

Choice By Rilbur Skryler Zachary Smith frowned as he listened to the news, dusting off the top of the TV. It was cleaning day, and he wore his usual, ratty blue jeans and dusty polo shirt for the job. It would take him most of the day to get the house cleaned right, and there were times he wondered why he did it. His mother had passed away last year, in her own house, just like she'd wanted. She was the one he cleaned for more than himself, and with her gone, it seemed like maybe h

That's... awesome. (Sorry, could'nt resist)

How much Crisco do you have to use, compared to the others? (more)

Of course not, hence 'games and humor'. It's just funnay

NSA?

Congratz!

I wonder... does bumping this thread simply annoy those of us who are waiting anxiously, by getting our hopes up, or does it actually remind Sir Author that we're (eagerly!) awaiting the next chapter?

OK, I've firmed up my intention and gone ahead and taken the plunge. Below is an 'advert' of sorts, please feel free to spread it around! Every writer has had to start somewhere. We all know the feeling of those first few words, the awe and wonder of looking at a finished story or chapter, and the fear of negative reactions. Some of us have pushed past that and managed to publish online, finding the reaction of our audience to our liking, or not. After experiencing a writing workshop for a class, I decided that a similar activity, done online, might be a beneficial activity. Therefore, I am setting up and running an online writing workshop through my website, open to authors of all experience levels and skills. The idea is to help each other improve our writing in any way we can. More skilled writers can assist each other as well as provide a 'hand up' to those just starting out, who will have an opportunity to learn. I can provide the workspace, the guidelines and rules, but the one thing I can't provide by myself is the authors needed for this to work. The more, the better! Please consider taking part, even if you can't write a story yourself you can still critique, read, and learn! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please contact the workshop team at workshop-team@rilburskryler.net and we will get back to you as soon as possible! Writing Rules: 1. All stories should be submitted to workshop-submit@rilburskryler.net in .doc format, in English. 2. To help reduce the 'personal' nature of the exercise, all stories shall be submitted anonymously -- the only person able to connect a story to it's author will be the moderator in charge of handling new entries. 3. Stories should be between 2,500 and 15,000 words in length. (Approximately 5 to 30 pages) These are to be short stories, which implies both a degree of concision and the ability to stand alone. Because of the anonymity requirement, stories which occur in established universes are disallowed. 4. While subject matter in general is open to the author's choice, stories are not to be pornographic or excessively violent. In movie terms, think 'R' or lower -- N-17 and above will be rejected. 5. These stories should be reasonably well polished by the author -- put the time in that you'd expect from others -- but they do not need to be fully edited / beta read. Workshop Rules: 1. Starting January Sixth, 2011, each week on Monday a story shall be posted. The stories will be chosen to fairly rotate amongst authors taking part in the workshop. 2. Within one week, every group member is responsible for turning in a written critique and a copy of the story 'marked up' with notes. Arrangements will be made to get these to the proper author. 3. Each week the floor shall be open to discuss various aspects of the previous week's story. 4. The author of the story shall refrain from posting anything in the discussion about the story -- the idea is to silently receive and accept the criticism of your peers. This will naturally reduce the anonymity factor, but it's a necessary trade-off for the process to work. 5. At the end of the week, the author is free to ask questions of the group. No one is required to answer, but the 'golden rule' applies. Moderation and Etiquette 1. Each author is expected to come with the intent to learn as much as possible. While it is certainly permissible to reject all advice given, you are presumably here to learn. 2. No personal attacks allowed. Period. Address the work, not the author. Conversely, if someone is addressing the work, don't take it personally -- they aren't insulting you. 3. Moderators will ensure that a civil tone and reasonable decorum is maintained. They are given a wide latitude of powers, but are expected to exercise restraint in their use. Appeal of their decisions is to the writing team, and all decisions of the writing team are final. 4. Apply common sense -- these rules are intended not to be exhaustive, but to provide a framework from which a person may reasonably infer the full body of the rules. The spirit of the law will be enforced, not the letter. 5. We reserve the right to change the rules as required without notice.

Great, so now those of us that rely on HTML formatting are screwed? (I'm assuming there is still some way to input in HTML... I hope I'm right!)

Just remember... Han shot first!

I think the point of splitting them up was that they needed 5 hours to do the movie justice, and movie theaters don't like it when a movie goes over 3 hours Edit: And the logistics of releasing both part 1 and 2 at the same time would have been... insupportable.

On firework, I wonder what it says about me that the single strongest scene in it -- to me -- is where the kid steps between his fighting parents. It's a touching song, but that makes me wonder about myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glGhmqOYqNA

I know a lot of people around here aren't students -- but I'm sure there are some. The Atlantic is holding a student writing contest, and I thought I'd bring it up so that other students might enter. I know that I'm planning to enter, though with some regrets -- the story I plan to submit is the one I was planning to use for the winter anthology.

What I find interesting is that there are two diametrically opposed 'sets' of reports on this incident. One shows it as a teacher kicking a student out for disagreeing with the teacher -- something that deserves punishment, yes. The other one is a teacher enforcing school policies forbidding certain articles of clothing, and then being unfairly punished for the situation that led to 'dismissing the student' from class. The truth, as always, is probably somewhere in the middle, muddied beyond all hope of recovery.

I'm not going to presume to even guess how long the first video took to set up and practice. The drum corp one? Months. At least. Mind you, that's almost certainly a college program, so they probably spend more time on it than a high school program can manage, but it's still a lot of time and effort to practice and memorize something like that. WOW.

No, I'm not that publicly out. Mostly because of family concerns. Not only am I still financially reliant on my family, but coming out could literally kill my grandmother. Her health has been on the edge for years, and giving her something extra to stress about could very well topple her over the edge. She's better than she used to be in a lot of ways, but still not what I'd call 'well'. It's nothing short of a miracle that she's still alive; and I'm actually starting to have hope she'll be alive this spring when I graduate from college, something I didn't dare dream of last year. It's not sure, but... That said, and slightly less OT, three cheers to those of you who are all the way out. One day I plan to join your ranks, and let the chips fall where they will. One day

Congrats!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEPH! Woo-hoo! Remember, you aren't any older, just better!