Storm's Fury is as 83,000 words (332 pages) and counting. (Thanks Deb, for your consultation services.) I'm trying to curve it toward an ending, but like everyone has known, it has a mind of its own.

I've been kicking around a few ideas for my fantasy and a horror. And I had a sudden bolt of inspiration on a robot story, but I have to mull it over.

Goals for this week: I'm aiming for the 90,000 word mark. Plotting out my short story/WOTF entry for next time.

This is the last week that I'll be bogged down in classwork. My last final is on Thursday, woot!

I do sometimes find time to write late at night. Last night I got a good amount of the relationship between two main characters thought out. Oh, my novel, you were so much easier when it was just Celeste wandering around the dry lands!

Anyhoo, in any spare time I have this week, my goals are to work more on the outline, because no matter how often I think I'm ready to proceed with a next chapter, I find I need to do more thinking!

And, thank you for the thank you. I only did it because you're too cool.

I'm still working on a backlog of critiques, and having a great time doing it. Bored Crow, I would love some more from you, if you're ready to send it. I'm probably way behind where everyone else is. Anyone else in need of a critique can send it over too.

I'm ready to start outlining the third(and probably final) book in this story. I have one of the story lines totally worked out in my head. The other story lines--not so much. So that's my goal for this week--start figuring out where this is all going. Once I have a working outline for the last story, I am going to make some changes to the first book and ask for some critiques.

I've got to get this idea out of my head and onto paper, it won't roll over and die. Well to be precise, the character won't, she is giving me an earache from all the chatting .

Weekly, we report our goals for pages/words, and keep each other informed. When you're ready and some others are ready, you can trade chapters. Just let them know what writing program you're using.

I promise to not be a pretentious blowhard

I'm now 44934 words into a YA Fantasy, tentively called Winternight, although I have changed the title now five times, and am still not settled on what I've got.

My elevator pitch line is...

After being infected with a disease that will destine her to turn dragon, and overdramatic young woman struggles to find the cure before she grows scales.

Sounds like a fun story. I'll definitely read chapter one.... but not quite yet. I have to survive finals first, and then return all the critiques I've promised to people lately. But I'll let you know when I'm ready.

Unfortunately, you are behind a mammoth crit for IB, so there will probably be some lag time before I can read your chapter, but I look forward to it.

I am excited to get help, or even just a kick in the pants occasionally. I have been off site for about the last six months as this darn story keeps taking up all of my computer time.

I am entering the third and final act of my story, and am having difficulty tying down to just one ending, hopefully something satisfactory, and somewhat surprising to the reader. I keep alternating between happy endings, and miserably sad yet ironic endings. I'm leaning towards the beautifully tragic, yet as I write closer to the ending, I find my attachment for my characters is causing me to want to find someway to make things happy for them, hence the dilema.

Heck though,for me any ending is fine, I just want to hold up this thick stack of paper I am enormously proud of and say,

On critting others:
I am happy to crit, just one at a time though, please spell check it first. If you don't, I may not be able to survive to the end, and you may see red lines everywhere.

I am ok with both US and UK English.
I do warn you that I am a grammar freak, and I tend to call a spade a spade.
If I find a problem, I try to help with a solution.
Tell me what level of crit you want, basic storyline truthful (polite) or truthful with sugarcoating (polite but not quite so harsh), I don't do other versions.
One chapter max at a time.
One person at a time.
I normally crit or edit my own work for an hour each evening.
I am six + hours out of sync with the US, as I live in France, so when you are going to bed, I'll be getting up. Use it to your advantage! If you are stuck with a short chapter (8 pages say) and really need help, email. I'll try to reply before you wake up.
I use Word 2000.
I read over 200 novels a year from the following: SF & F (all types), Crime, Historical, Thrillers and Horror.
Do not send me Romance or ChickLit, even if masquerading as the above fiction types. Also if you are writing about 'good' vampires, count me out.

My present writing obsession:

Working title: The Furies.
Genre: Dark Fantasy.
Brief synopsis: The winter solstice is the most dangerous magickal time of the year. For Lilith McRae it was almost her last night on earth, she survived. Two of her fellow Furies didn't, one was her best friend. She has 12 nights to avenge Isobel and stop her rising as a Grigori, and to find the killer before he becomes immortal.

Progress: World, and characters good to go. Brief plotline because I like my stories to be character driven.

I'd like to try for a first draft chapter per week.

Sheena, I am thrilled that you've buckled down and come so far. I should follow your example. I'd like to read your story, because I liked your characters so much over in Character Interviews. But please don't send it; I am not offering to crit anything until I get my own writing further along.

Wrote two paragraphs last night. Better than nothing.

Your story sounds very interesting; I'm looking forward to reading it.

Does anyone want me to crit anything? I do not claim to specialize in grammer, but I am good at character analasis, motivation, and trained in pacing and flow.

Way to go Mrs Brown. I have to tell you that I used the character interviews you did of Ida. They inspired me in the character of one of my Dragons. Ida is sassy and I really look forward to reading more about her, so keep going. I can't read it if you don't write it, that is just a fact.

I will crit in a style of your choice, storyline content, grammar, or both on any draft. Bad spelling is just rude though. It takes seconds to run a spell check program, but without the check the crit stalls whilst I'm figuring out what 'uresed' means. I feel that my time is worth that courtesy.

So be careful where you fling the "spellcheckers are easy to use" comments.

Normally I catch names, and the ad/as typos etc. The sentence itself gives that away. I've been critting over at Critters for 4 years.

Sometimes, getting those little bits of words out can be just as important as big chunks.

Beginning, middle and end. There you go.

Pacing is one of those things you can only really focus on when you are finished, and editing the unessentials. You really can't know what is unessential till you get to the end anyway. I find myself trimming as I go and then wishing I kept most of what I trimmed.

So unwritten, if you want you can send me whatever you want and I can help with layout and finding where transitions would be helpful for flow. Or you can wait till your almost figured out and I can help with picking out what isn't neccessary.
Whateve, I'm pretty easygoing.

It doesn't bug me that your stories end up love stories. Most of everything I write ends up that way too. I write about disease and disfigurment, and it ends up being a teenage love story and I'm left asking "How did that happen?"

Up until just recently, I've been struggling to just get my one short story a quarter out for WotF, but have someone found some way to start working again on my novel, which has been floating on the back burner nearly this entire last year. So, I thought that I'd see if I could jump on this bandwagon and give myself some good impetus toward getting more of it done.

My novel is in the realm of epic fantasy, but is very character oriented. I'm co-authoring it with a good friend of mine, and so far it's been the best experience of my writing career. We agreed early on to keep the novel to ourselves until the entire thing was out (definitely first draft, and probably through the second, consistency-focused, draft too). I know that there are lots of people looking for crits here for their novels. I'd be willing to crit, no problem. Just don't expect to see any chapters from me for a while. Don't know quite when it will all be done. Still have a ways to go. It's currently about 130K words, and I'm guessing it'll top out somewhere in the 225K range, dropping to around 200K by the time the second draft is complete.