A note about the last thread:
Shimiqua--
How far are you from the end? It sounds to me like you need to step back and just daydream for a while. When I stall like that, I like to grab a copy of OSC's Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy and read a few pages and then just ponder and daydream until a tiny path I hadn't noticed before opens up. Then I do it again and the path grows bigger, until finally it's a full fledged super highway and I can get going again.
Good luck!
Melanie

Well, I've finished editing chapter 3. It was much trickier than chapters 1 and 2, and I think I've hit one of those mushy areas where readers won't understand the world unless they've read the first novel (which I'm trying to incorporate into this novel, but it's later on in the time line). This chapter needs a few readers who can help me figure out what's working and what's not.

So, I'm just going to finish writing it and then put it in a figurative drawer for a while, until I can develop those things.

Before I got really sick in November, I was on pace with my YA series. The second novel,"The Nimble Hand and the Snake" is currently sitting at about four chapters and it is my goal to have it drafted by the end of February. It is an ambitious task because I also have two short story projects to finish this month and I need to hone my WOTF entry.

My goal is to write chapter sixteen this week.

I'm willing to read chapters if anyone needs, Unwritten, Bent Tree. I'm still working on IB's novel. I'm at part two, then got stalled with everything.

My goals - I feel like I should be adding new material to my novel and not continually revising. So I want to finish a new chapter. I also want to get the whole story written out for the sudden fiction contest so I can start cutting and revising.

I've finished mhistorical--just waiting on some crits (and for it to cool off) to polish it.

Tonight, my co-author and I have finished our almost-twenty-page (refined) outline--and we have loose outlines for two more.

I'm almost done with my next Historical project's outline.

And I'm almost 20 pages into a horror story (novel), that I've been doodling on.

How did you all do?

Thanks for the offer, IB. Once I get back in the groove I will start looking for some readers to go through chapters. I just don't want to get behind in the event that someone actually gets interested in the project and I fall behind their pace.

Satate, how far are you along in your novel and what is it about?

I'm back in the swing of writing now. I'm almost caught up on critiques, so if any of the newer people here would like another reader, I'd be very happy to read.

My goals this week: Keep working on characters for the second half. And try to figure out why I can't write the second half. I've been stuck there for a long time, and I'm starting to get the idea that there is a solution there, but I just have no
idea what it might be.

Working Title: Graveyard
Genre: futuristic fantasy
Quick plot summary: A young woman sets out to bring back the gods to the world they have abandoned.

Deadlings:

Robby Hall stormed along the shoulder of Route 131 and grumbled about his luck as he kicked the McDonald's cup he'd just moments ago thrown out the window of his '85 Firebird. He had zipped up the hill just before Union's town line and, as he rounded the curve at the top, saw the family of deer crossing from his right. A doe froze, mesmerized in his high-beams, as his foot hit the brake a hair too late. Now, his baby was crumpled to the windshield--the right side of her sloped in the ditch--and the doe lay in the angled beams like a sacrifice.

Title: Dreamer's Rose
Genre: Fantasy, possibly YA
Quick summary: A young woman has to learn to use her gift as a dream guide in order to help her only friend and save her family. And she may be getting herself involved in a war between the gods.

It was almost Rose’s first memory. The guard from the temple of the mad war god coming to take her father away. He had been accused of sorcery, they said. But Papa wasn’t a sorcerer. He was a dream guide. He could enter other people’s dreams, alter them. He could lead them out of a persistent nightmare or help them understand what their dreams were trying to tell them. He had never used his gift to harm anyone. In the days of the goddess, that had been a valued gift, something to be proud of. The goddess’ priestesses considered it a form of service to the goddess, a part of her healing touch. But not the priests of the war god. They called it magic and banned it.

They bound Papa’s hands behind his back and marched

Summary: The first of three young prophets is launched into actions which will shift the balance of evil. A young theif is tricked into using his magic born gifts to steal a powerful relic of the gods by a blind prophet(the God of time) He thinks he is avenging his dead brother when in fact he is fullfilling his destiny which will award him a better life with his late mother, father and brother in another...happier time.

Novels don't write themselves.

Once I exceed my goal this week, I should be set to swap some chapters so Bored Crow send me your chapter one at the end of the week and I'll have it back to you by the middle of next week.

“Why are there humans in my formal dining room?”

When Drew heard his father’s voice, his good mood deflated. He didn’t want much—just a chance to celebrate his birthday with his friends, not the politically powerful faeries on his father’s guest list. But when he looked into his father's eyes, his disappointment changed to fear and shame. His friends would take the blame for this. Drew’s dog, Major, growled softly, and Drew buried his hands in Major’s fur. A ribbon fell from his mother’s hand and drifted onto the edge of the table where it teetered and began its slow descent to the floor. It settled there, only to be stirred up when Drew’s father stalked by. He grabbed his wife's wrists and shook her. “Forcing your son to sit with slaves. Shame on you!”

New title: Dragon Fate. (Is that to hoaky?)

Summary: After becoming infected with a disease that destines her to turn dragon, an overdramatic young woman must find a cure before she grows scales.

Word count: 60,000 or so

First thirteen:
Joi waited in the dark for the dragons to attack her village. Her leg trembled against the long tablecloth that hid her and her brothers underneath the family’s table, like the fort they used to play in when she was a child, when dragons were a myth, only half-believed. Not creatures that stalked the night, and that took her father.
The village was silent, waiting for the signal from the guards that the dragons were within the walls.
Joi laid her head back against the wooden table leg in the dark, and listened to her mother sing Caleb’s lullaby and the wind rage outside. Caleb was five and usually fought against all things that made him feel like a baby, but not on dragon nights.

I just happen to have a completed YA novel (mainstream) in my possession. I'd be willing to read chapters of someone else's YA novel in exchange for them checking out a few pages of mine.

Now that I know this thread exists, I show up more often.

S!
S!...C!

I'm glad our group is growing.

Meredith, do you mind if I send you the whole thing and you give me an overview of what you think? I have only had women readers, and I'm afraid that its pulling to much into one market, and I want it to be accessable to men as well. I'm also afraid it feels false when I am in a male POV.
A fresh perspective would be good, I think.

My bad, I'm sorry. We really need pictures, or at least a tag saying, Woman or Man at the side underneath where it says member or new member.

Either way works for me. Whatever's easiest. If you want fast feedback, it might be quicker to break it up into groups of chapters. But, I'm open.

That sounds awesome.
I don't always have the quick turn around either, huh?