That's a good point: When you are reviewing, you are studying the works of other authors, and analyzing them, both as a reader and as a writer. It will cut down on the time you can spend on outside reading, but it can pay you back handsomely in both learning and pleasure. Then you have to apply the lessons to your own work!
3,477 2015-01-21 21:57:52
Re: Introduction (13 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Oh, and when you find that a cluster of authors you want to exchange reviews with are in some group for that kind of work, join the group.
3,478 2015-01-21 17:31:42
Re: Introduction (13 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Why not start by reviewing a few chapters or stories? It will give you a idea of what writers have styles that might be similar to yours, and might be helpful as reviewers. And people usually try to reciprocate with reviews.
If you need a sense of what you might address in a review, you can look for stories that already have some chapters posted. Many of them will have reviews that you can read.
What genres and forms (short, novel, poetry) interest you?
Welcome and good luck!
3,479 2015-01-21 17:06:30
Re: Sensitive subject (28 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
bimmy wrote:
njc wrote:Just start a discussion on nipples ...
Bwahahaha! I'm going to do that. I need an angle though.
Don't forget this.
3,480 2015-01-21 16:18:09
Re: Sensitive subject (28 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Just start a discussion on nipples ...
3,481 2015-01-21 16:16:35
Re: New Enhancements Released - Jan 21, 2015 (2 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Thanks. I'll try it later--I can't promise it for today.
3,482 2015-01-21 14:43:55
Re: Sensitive subject (28 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
I agree 100%, Bimmy. IMO and FWIW, the new site was designed to Balkanize itself. I'm not that fond of the eye candy.
3,483 2015-01-21 14:39:44
Re: input appreciated (8 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Basic)
Temple Wang wrote:
I also think if you change one letter of your editor's you have a perfect word for the misuse of an apostrophe, such as:
It's head got stuck in the washing machine. (A "crapostrophe")
Hmm. I'd prefer a more descriptive name. How about "feral apostrophe"? (If this becomes a big topic, we should enshrine it in its own group.)
But we're two votes for the 't' version: 'craptastrophe'.
I like the coinage.
3,484 2015-01-20 22:09:02
Re: input appreciated (8 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Basic)
'Craptastic' is an existing usage. 'Craptastrophe' branches off from it.
3,485 2015-01-20 15:05:39
Re: NY Times Article on the Benefits of Writing (4 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Umm ... this is news?
3,486 2015-01-20 14:07:10
Re: just got burned by the "no inline reviews for free members" issue (48 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
When you type, your fingers are where they need to be and information pours out. When you mouse-and-click, you have to give your attention to the mechanics of input. When you have to do this over and over to get information, it is far more costly in time and far more disruptive of your mental work-stream than scanning down a page by eye movement.
3,487 2015-01-20 07:04:19
Re: just got burned by the "no inline reviews for free members" issue (48 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
As well as osteoarthritis of the clickfinger knuckles and nerve damage and numbness in the clickfinger.
3,488 2015-01-20 04:43:30
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
njc wrote:
Lurymants prefer large, tough things. An old bull might make a good meal, with something left over. What is this with you wanting to leave a trail of dead characters wherever my protagonists go? That's what the bad guys are supposed to do!
Oh, and Jessica Fletcher.
3,489 2015-01-20 01:11:53
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Go read The Child and the Beast. Read Dragons and Lurymants.
3,490 2015-01-19 20:26:32
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Uemiska is doing the job she was sent to do, reuniting a family. She does it faithfully and at personal cost. And you want to kill her off for it?
The lurymants are an inversion. They are a huge inversion.
Go read the chapter now sitting in Book 1 called The Child and the Beast.
3,491 2015-01-19 13:18:53
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Lurymants prefer large, tough things. An old bull might make a good meal, with something left over. What is this with you wanting to leave a trail of dead characters wherever my protagonists go? That's what the bad guys are supposed to do!
3,492 2015-01-19 12:45:40
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
I'm working now on the meeting with Erevain. What do you think about making the character female? I'm not actually flirting with the idea, but I am trying to see if it would be believable, and how it might affect the future arc(s).
3,493 2015-01-19 03:03:24
Re: Site Bugs 2 (342 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
njc wrote:
I just checked on the Android. The problem occurs with both Chrome and the OS-supplied browser.
Some service providers (like YOU, Optimum Online) insert ad overlays into other people's web pages as they pass through, especially when you are using wifi hotspots. If you can't find any other explanation, it would be interesting to bring up the page via https to see whether the problem still occurs when no service provider can poison the html.
3,494 2015-01-19 00:59:18
Re: Site Bugs 2 (342 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
njc wrote:
I'm seeing it with both Chrome and IE. Hold your mouse pointer over it and you should get a tooltips-like popup.
Let me know if I can help you reproduce it.
3,495 2015-01-19 00:58:07
Re: Site Bugs 2 (342 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Tried to do a search on author Amy S. Tried with and without caps, with space and with underscore, nothing found. Is there a problem with searching for authors with spaces in the name?
3,496 2015-01-18 23:39:43
Re: Site Bugs 2 (342 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
I just checked on the Android. The problem occurs with both Chrome and the OS-supplied browser.
3,497 2015-01-18 23:34:21
Re: Site Bugs 2 (342 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
I'm seeing it with both Chrome and IE. Hold your mouse pointer over it and you should get a tooltips-like popup.
3,498 2015-01-18 12:19:41
Re: just got burned by the "no inline reviews for free members" issue (48 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
There's no question that it's slick for entry, so long as you don't want to connect multiple sections of text, to compare or contrast. But the entry is marred somewhat by the way the input window parks itself over the text.
The problem comes when you want to read it, or put it all together, or print it out to review curled up in a chair without the limits of the computer (or tablet).
3,499 2015-01-18 06:22:50
Re: Site Bugs 2 (342 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
I just read an inline review by Wilma Bailey of Amy_s's I Yell a Lot. Words not involved in the review were turned into links with a tooltip that looked like what an ad-word processor produces. In this case, the words Certificates, Computer, and Register got the treatment. I've sent you a screencap with the debugger open on it.
3,500 2015-01-17 11:56:14
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
3-way Pigeon Flasher is working. The timing isn't quite what I would like, and the flash rate is a bit more voltage-sensitive than I would like, but it's good enough. Only, right now I have a bunch of components whose values I adjusted with parts in parallel. I need to get the equivalent values.
The input control circuits are working, but I have a layer of driver circuit to test before I can say the switching logic is working. Then I can put it together with the rest of the circuit and see if it all works together.
After that, it's all physical design, including the possibility of putting a lot of SMD capacitors in parallel to make up the main energy reserve for the big flasher (to reduce the voltage drop during the flash pulse). (It won't be cheap, but it will save other complications.) So far, I'm not doing well with SMD. I have some paste solder on order, and smaller tips for my soldering pencil. We'll see. These caps are about 2x2x3.5 mm, and 49.9 cents in quantity 100. I may end up using 20+ in each box, and the price break will make it cheaper to buy 100 than the 70+ that I would need.
Biggest open question is mounting the small LEDs (on the pigeon flasher). I may just put them through holes and epoxy them; they have neaar 180-degree radiation. Second biggest is mounting the big LED, which has a nice diffusion lens that makes it far more visible.
I will have another demand on my time. I have to brush up on new C++ developments.
