imagine you could eavesdrop on every radio message ever sent
and you set about making sure that history unfolded the way it was "supposed to."
Apple
Sol, I'm still not seeing behavior consistent with what you've told me. I read your latest post about the (apple) writing competition. It still shows up on my home page. I don't mean to beat this to death, but I think it would help us to know how it works so we know when/when not to rely on it as part of our workflow.
Thanks.
Dirk
Is there a timeout? Why/when do posts disappear from the home page? My post to a thread in the Medieval group is the newest one, yet it doesn't appear on my home page.
Thanks.
Dirk
Sol, can you please tell us the algorithm used to determine whether or not something is a new post? I posted a couple of replies to one of Amy's threads today, the last one timestamped shortly after 17:00 hours, and already the thread has disappeared off my home screen at 19:00 hours. Others seem to stick around longer, although I may be mistaken.
How does it work?
Thanks.
Dirk
Homer's Achilles, we suppose he added to the existing ancient legend, is a turning point in Western civilization in that Achilles is given a destiny but he also has a choice through his own action or inaction between two outcomes, so even in a culture of intervening-meddling gods, Man has effective freewill.
Free will is one of my options. One of my two MCs repeatedly has the ability to walk away, but believes so strongly in his course of action, that he ignores the ever-increasing insanity of his quest. Another option is to say that the MC was destined to lead the quest, though not necessarily succeed in it.
The other one I'm exploring is the case where the MC was never given a choice, but is trying his best to avoid his fate, which he believes would lead to all-out war for the human race. So far, he keeps failing to divert away from that destiny.
Finally, there is a very real possibility that either or both destinies are just imagined.
Eventually, it all collides. Should be a blast. Pun intended.
Connect with Janet Taylor-Perry here on the site. English teacher, author, and part-time editor. There are others too. If you can post your request to Premium, you should do so.
I'll be gone for 10 days. Off to Washington state to explore medical marijuana. I'll be staying here part of the time:
http://www.anchorage-inn.com/
Also, Gig Harbor with friends & the Paradise Inn to get inspiration for a horror novel like, The Shinning.Is this the right place to post trivia like this? Is this the community forum?
Good luck, Max. FYI, I read a news article recently that says the actual content of pot's active ingredient is very inconsistent. Only about 20% of edible products had the advertised content. 60% had too little. 20% too much.
Thanks, Karin. The idea of the prophecy being wrong is a good fit. I hadn't considered it since both boys are told about their destinies by God, or at least a voice that claims to be Him. The prophecy is only as real as the deity (as opposed to mental illness). I need to dedicate some time to making that connection more obvious.
Vern, surely there was never any doubt that I would respond. :-)
I need to adjust the wording I use in the book's next draft. I think it's more correct to say they're destined to lead the quest, without knowing if they'll succeed. Even that isn't quite right, since one of them is given the option to walk away even before he begins.
I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts about the use of fate/destiny in your writing. I have two characters, both of whom are told it is their destiny to save the human race from the Apocalypse, although they use different, even conflicting, methods in the attempt to do so.
Can someone fail to achieve one's destiny? The very word suggests otherwise. If it's fate, how dumb do you have to be to screw it up? Can you walk away from fate?
Thanks.
Dirk
Janet, what fraction of a Kindle e-book's price goes to the author? According to Lulu.com's website, it's a very small fraction. I'm curious how Lulu.com competes with CreateSpace....
It's too bad Google or Apple don't compete head-on with Amazon in the self-publishing space. It would take a Goliath to break Amazon's stranglehold on the book industry. Barnes & Noble should be the obvious competitor, but they can't compete as long as they're weighed down by brick and mortar overhead.
Nope, the best part is Sol and his team of magical elves! :-)
Hah! I said it first.
Dirk
For me, it's inline reviews, especially now that we can see/print all inline feedback at once. Love that!
Dirk
I use Premium for certain posts (e.g., "I need a futurist/biologist/chemist/geneticist for the year 4017") that logically belong in the sci-fi group, but the experts I need aren't necessarily members of that group. I'm not sure there's an ideal solution for that one.
I think I finally have a clue as to what makes posts visible or not on the home page. I'm betting it works by date/timestamp. A new thread or a follow-up post are probably considered new for a certain amount of time, not based on whether I've read it or not. Can anyone confirm/correct that assumption?
I can practically see Sol's eyes rolling back in his head as he tries to figure out how to make this all work. Get well soon, Sol! :-)
Max, are you aware that the group forum posts shown on the home page come and go without regard to whether you've read them or not? I'm all for a forum concept that brings a sense of community back to the site, but I'd at least like to see, at a glance from the home page, what's happening in the groups that I'm already a member of. That ought to be an easy change.
I love your wish list, njc. Hopefully, those ideas can be incorporated into whatever forum solution Sol is considering.
I tried to behave myself for once, limiting the request to something that "seems" like a relatively small change compared to the resurrected forums. This idea is not meant to replace those, just to make it easier to see and navigate quickly to new/updated threads from the home page. It ought to result in a lot more sharing/posting within groups, though probably not across groups.
I agree with Tom. They're like book covers. They're the first impression you make on readers out of a sea of books on Amazon. The next step is to have a compelling book summary for the back of the book. I usually advise new writers on the site to write their TNBW book summary as if it were the back of an actual book, so they capture the interest of more potential readers.
Sol, I'm not sure where you stand on this, but I think the list of posted threads down the right hand side of the home page could be easily improved for everyone's benefit. I commented on this in your forums thread, but thought it could use its own thread for people to comment on.
Currently, the group-related threads shown on the home page disappear before I've even had a chance to read them. Sometimes, they come and go without me even knowing that they even exist if I'm not on the site enough. Email notifications help, but there are only so many emails I'm willing to manage, which limits what I see to a handful of subscribed threads. Also, the emails (correctly) take us to the newest post in the thread, whereas the links from the home page take us to the top of the first page of the thread, requiring more clicking and scrolling.
Would it be possible to always show the most recently active five threads under each group listed on the home page, rather than the ones that come and go? There seems to be plenty of room down the right hand side of the screen. Could they also take us to the correct location in each thread? Finally, if you're going to show the top 5 from our group forums, it would be ideal to have some way to distinguish on the home page (by color?) if any of the five are new or have been updated since we last read them.
Perhaps there's a technical reason why this can't be implemented that I'm not aware of.
Thanks.
Dirk
On the home page, if would be very handy to have a checkmark to the left of each work (chapters, shorts, essays, etc.) showing which ones I've reviewed. That way, when I see something in the list of books or my connections, I'll know at a glance whether or not I've already reviewed it. This would probably be most useful for books, where we see that someone has posted a chapter (e.g., 17) but don't readily know if that's the latest of their chapters that we've already reviewed vs. a new one to be read.
Thanks.
Dirk
Vern, you didn't mention styles. The styles feature of MS Word is awesome for writing a book. I have a Normal style that is setup the way you suggest (Times New Roman 12 pt. double-spaced), and then I have a small number of extra styles that I use for special purposes. One is called Heading 1, which I use for all chapter titles. That style is very useful because it appears in the Word "document map", which allows me to jump directly to any chapter in the book directly, without having to scroll to look for it. I use quotes (epigraphs) in my book just below each chapter heading, so I have a style for that too. There are a few more, but I'll probably make Greg's head spin if I go into even more detail.
Greg, try the Google search that Vern mentioned, but if you don't find anything useful, rerun the search but include the word Microsoft. They have short tutorials on every feature in Word. I strongly suggest you spend a little time learning how to use styles. I can change the formatting of my entire document just by using styles consistently.
What version of Word are you using? I'm still on 2007, but I've tried 2010 and know that all the features I use in 2007 were carried forward into 2010. I don't know about 2013. Haven't tried it.
Dirk
I hope you find a release from all that stress, Karen. I'd recommend finding a new job, but that can be very stressful too. I know the feeling about not having the energy to write, although for different reasons than yours. I decided to stop writing at least until I get my office organized and my taxes done. So, however long that takes, I'll just be reading for a while. I don't know about you, but I always find starting a new chapter is the biggest hurdle. Once I've planned it, I can usually write it within a week, but it takes me several weeks to get up the desire to do the next chapter. At the rate I'm going this is going to be a five year odyssey just for the first book.
Sol, when you have a moment, can you please delete that review reply that's stuck in my account. It's from Don Chamber's book Frozen Tide. I left him a review, he responded but then took the chapter down from the site, so I can't access the deleted reply. It's been stuck there since March.
Thanks.
Dirk
Dave, thank you very much. That's great to know. Also, cool that memory is passed to our offspring.
I only know Annelie through her FB posts, but I'll keep her in mind.
Thanks
Dirk
Kenny showed me a very useful feature the other day that completely slipped my notice all this time. If there are unread replies to one of the posts in the forum, a link appears under the post's subject line that says New Posts that takes you directly to the new replies.
That link should be made *very* obvious. Maybe a bold, bright green. It's incredibly useful to have that. A quick glance at a forum page looking for bright green New Posts links would tell me if there's something I haven't read. (Technically, it should say New Replies not New Posts.)
Thanks.
Dirk
