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Yeah, they mean in an online magazine, or your own website or blog where you submit your work to the world to read.  They would be cutting off their nosesto spite their faces if they excluded workshopped manuscripts.  My advice:  submit it.  If they don't publish it, it's moot.  If they do, and find out later, well, too late.  Called a fait accompli by our French friends.  Called, 'Hah!  What you gonna to do about it?' here in the US.  You're not supposed to do multiple submissions either, but my PhD thesis advisor did, and it helped him get tenure. Startegy *trumps* requirements (yes, pun intended).

Sol looked up the legalities and shaped the site accordingly.  Posting to a private writers' workshop is not considered to be published or freely available.  You are ok.  We all are.  In fact, a lot of publishers won't consider works from writers who don't have agents, unless they have workshopped their material.

Gacela:

We did indeed already meet Red Mane  You asked about that.  If it wasn't you, then, C.J, we did indeed already meet Red Mane. (Further iterations at you're own descretion.)  He was one of the wolfen who were being attacked by the Terran squad when Rhiannon first entered the Bright Forest.  He asked her, "Your first kill?"

Congratulations, Jack!

Not sure why you felt you had to qualify your opinion, Norm.  I think the reason this post topic emerged is we all wanted to share our personal feelings--and you did.

Yeah, I can't get the Catherine the Great image out of my mind either, but itis  probably apocryphal.  She did have lovers, which was scandalous in a high born lady, so she attracts the same critics who think Beyonce is slutty (not that there is any comparison other than that).  She is one of my inspirations for Rhiannon, although Rhiannon handles some situations better than Catherine did, and isn't as disillusioned when peasants and workers act like, well, peasants and workers.  Digging deep is a good way to make your reading both more entertaining and educational for you.  (Educational isn't the right word, but as you look for levels, you get more insights.)  Makes you a better reviewer too and your comments worth waiting for.  One example of that is your point about making the reader think about scale.  Important, especially in fantasy, where people want it large scale, and esp. when describing dragons.  Dragons are supposed to be big, even if they shoot the curl with atrocious taste in shorts.

CJ:  Took me a moment, but right.  Drop the reference to Lido when Rosalyn encounters him.  And you did realize that the Goblin Ice was referring to the bolts.  What is is, of course, is not exactly clear, and I don't go into it at all until actually a chapter or two later, but I thought it was sufficient to give it a greenish glow, suggest it has goblin origins, and the suspiciously endowed Heather go, "Goblin Ice.  Cool."  That clues the reader into it being a supernaturally strong element.  The 'they' is why you know it was the bolts.  Besides, in context, it's to hold Lido's massive weight.  His description is based on some of the largest pre-historic animals on Earth.  The wingspan is from the biggest flying dinosaur, the tonnage is likewise from terrestrial animals.  All this to be consisent with the offworlder's "scientific" explanations for what the heck goes on in New Fairy.  That is more dealt with in the first book, but we get enough of it here to see their cultural point of view--the idea that fairy brains have some kind of subspatial property that allows them to interface with "subspace interference patterns" (shamelessly borrowed from Star Trek, although the notion of subspace as an alternative to hyperspace predates Star Trek. Cordwainer Smith and James Schmitz used it to name but two.)  The real explanation, as the reader gets clued into, is that yes, this is sorcery, yes, it is supernatural, yes, the laws of nature are trumped here (although in ways constrained by Welsh mythology and my own rules).

And thanks for kudos on Lido's description.  I suppose I should backtrack and put it in earlier.

I wonder how many people catch the really oblique and subtle reference to how Catherine the Great died.  ::wink::

Think James Joyce's Ulysses, which started in the middle and ended in the middle. Think of your typical unfocused day where one thought is followed by another, one perception by another--the only unification being whatever is focusing your consciousness' attention. That's stream of consciousness. Sort of a Jackson Pollock approach to writing. Think Jerry Brown first governorship. Think about recording, exactly as it happened, your first acid trip. William James first used the term to refer to thoughts flowing through the mind like a stream. Virginia Wolf is also an exponent.

Heh.  I once submitted a short story to an online horror e-magazine (Yes, I know online e-magazine is redundant.  It's a holiiday in America so, )  Their stated criteria?  "Make us think that this had to be written by a psychopathic serial killer who would kill us if we didn't print it."  I didn't get published.  Oh, well.

CJ:  You seem to have everything under control.  And on word count.  Sure, if you have in mind a several book series, then word count, as long as it's over 60,000 words is great.  I'm thinking of splitting my 2nd Rhiannon novel (written first) into two books.  When readers get to Part II, I'm going to ask about that, as Part II sometimes doesn't seem strong enough to stand on its own, but then, when I think that and see some of the novels out there, I get my Edgar Rice Burroughs voice speaking ("I can write it as bad as that.")  I don't think many novels today are in the vein of War and Peace, Les Miserables, Atlas Shrugged, and take up over 1000 pages.  I tink the Lord of the Rings was originally supposed to be one book, and it works a lot better as a trilogy--esp. for profits.

I tend to write in the stream of consciousness approach, in a sense.  But like I say, the main character is telling me her story, and I write it down.  Some things she does makes sense to her, but not to me.  I once read, in a 'How to Write Good" book a caveat.  The writer was saying you have to reign in your character, or they will end up in Chicago when they were supposed to be in LA.  lol  (Hmmm.  Wonder if that's how John Carter ended up on Mars?)  I can relate to that.  lol