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Okay... so I have a bit of a question.
I have two stories that aren't complete and need some work but I kind of need a bit of feedback on them. Since I plan on getting them actually published I have been trying to decide if I should give you all a little bit of them or not, just to get feedback. They won't be up for long but the feedback would help.
Since Nancy and Persephone posted Alfhilder and then removed it I figure that it is a possibility.
What do you think? And Nancy? it would be great to get your 2 cents.
Comments
No
Honestly, if you are going to post something and then take it down, don't bother posting it in the first place. I've now blocked Nancy and Percy for that, and will block anybody else who does so. Nor will I buy any of their works. I bought one of Nancy's earlier works, but won't buy anynore. But that's just one reader's opinion, in the end it's your decision.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
The Need to Withdraw
Gee, I am sorry to hear you are upset, but this happens to be the nature of the writing business. No publisher in their right mind is going to invest in a work if it is also being given away free on line. That, dear girl makes absolutely zero business sense.
But there is more at stake going on here. I do not wish to sound as if I am being a selfless crusader or anything, but stop and think. If even a few of our works are published and become available to the general public, the transgender community will finally be able to start telling its own story though its literature. To a large measure, the GLB community succeeded in gaining wider acceptance thought its own literature. There once was a time when all gay characters in books were farcical figures. Once the GLB community started telling their own story, that changed.
So pushing to be published in an important step in getting our story out. That it means we have to do things like withdraw our stories from the web when we submit them to agents, so be it.
If there are more people like Omega Girl who gets upset when I pull a story and would rather I not post any stories here on TS/BC before I submit them to my agent for consideration, please, tell me and I promise, I will stop posting here.
Nancy Cole
www.nancycole.org
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
Saddened but understanding
First, Heather, I'm sorry to use your blog like this but please bear with me.
Omega Girl, I'm truly sorry that the withdrawal of 'Legend of Alfhildr' has upset you. It wasn't meant to cause offence to anyone. Nancy and I have just spoken and I would be more than happy to email the complete tale to anyone from BCTS who asks for it; on the understanding that it is for their personal use only and will not be shared, published or posted on any other site.
We do so want to reach a wider audience for all the reasons Nancy outlined, but also recognise that so many of you here have been incredibly helpful and supportive as we wrote.
Persephone
Persephone
Non sum qualis eram
Persophone, You Are A Class Act my friend!
"...Nancy and I have just spoken and I would be more than happy to email the complete tale to anyone from BCTS who asks for it; on the understanding that it is for their personal use only and will not be shared, published or posted on any other site.
We do so want to reach a wider audience for all the reasons Nancy outlined, but also recognise that so many of you here have been incredibly helpful and supportive as we wrote.
Persephone"
Now this is an author I can respect and really appreciates their readership and what they have done for them!
Thank You Persephone!
Huggles
Angel
"Be Your-Self, So Easy to Say, So Hard to Live!"
"Be Your-Self, So Easy to Say, So Hard to Live!"
now that's pretty funny
your response reminds me of the first response in this poll:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/someone-should...
not as think as i smart i am
Uh?
Rebecca: I went to the blog, and I don't quite understand how it connects with my comment. Not being sure if I'm supposed to feel complimented (probably not) or insulted (likely), I'm just confused.
Persephone and Nancy: No, I'll pass on your kind offer. I'd gotten part-way through the story before issues in my life forced me to stop. I figured I could come back and finish it later when the stress levels were alot lower. Then I saw that it was gone, and that upset me.
Mind you, I should have expected this as Nancy has done so before, but it still pissed me off. No indication this was going to happen. No advance warning, nothing.
Perhaps if you had placed a warning disclaimer on the story from the beginning, (as suggested in a comment below) things would have been different. But it is too late for that now. Right or wrong, feelings have been hurt, and things have changed. "All the King's horses and all the King's men, couldn't put Humpty together again."
Had this blog/question not been posted I wouldn't have said a word. I do know a little about publishing, and I understand that the story couldn't exist as a freebie and be published for sale at the same time. I also understand that the two of you put an incredible amount of effort into it, so selling it to a publisher is a natural thing to do. And totally your right to do so.
However my admittedly limited knowledge of the publishing world says that test readers are either close friends of the writers or paid by either the writers or publisher. But I'm guessing that neither of those applies to 90+% of the readers on BC. So some of us (at least me) might feel just a bit taken advantage of.
So if anybody else, like you, Heather, wants us to test-read for you, at least give fair warning up front. This way we'll know what we are getting into beforehand.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
snark
Rebecca: I went to the blog, and I don't quite understand how it connects with my comment. Not being sure if I'm supposed to feel complimented (probably not) or insulted (likely), I'm just confused.
yeah, i was being snarky. my apologies.
but don't you think there is the issue of cutting off your nose to spite your face? the poll i pointed to was about advertising, but it amounts to the same thing. there's this assumption that everything on the web ought to be free. not that i want to side with rupert murdoch, but it seems reasonable to me that if persephone and nancy want to sell their story they have every right to, and kind of churlish for you to say "well then i won't read your stuff".
which seemed to me to also be a bit snarky. i'm not sure what you were trying to prove by the comment.
anyway, that doesn't excuse me being rude. i am sorry. there was no excuse.
personally i won't read incomplete stories until they *are* complete (on account of i'm a serial offender myself in that regard and know how people get pissed about it). so that's a story i won't see at all. we have that in common. my reasons are different than yours though.
not as think as i smart i am
Rebecca
Going away for a moment from the topic of discussion, just a little bit of advice. You said you prefer not to read serials until they are complete. But, how about giving authors with a good track record (Nancy, Persephone, and many, many others who are renowned for completing their stories no matter what, come tide, war or taxes) a more lenient treatment?
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
seems like omega girl and i have several things in common
and one of them, it seems, is difficulty following stories from one 'episode' to the next. so now, like her, i try to wait until the stories are complete before attempting them.
there is one exception to this rule, which is lilith langtree. i don't care for several of the genres she writes in (i'm not much of a one for super-powers or whatever), but i do appreciate her writing talents, so she's kept me hanging on at least one of her incomplete stories for some time now. i will read her stories as they're posted, because i don't know that i'll live long enough to see the end of something like 'royalty consists'... ;)
i suppose i'm juat a mass of inconsistencies attached to a keyboard.
not as think as i smart i am
To Snark Or Not To Snark
yeah, i was being snarky. my apologies.
Apology accepted.
but don't you think there is the issue of cutting off your nose to spite your face?
You could say that. However, it is a small matter of principle to me, believe it or not. As Angel says further down, (and I paraphrase Angel here) it breaks a sort of implied contract between author and reader when the author uses readers to improve their work to make it more salable. They get this for free with nothing stated in advance, then after the readers serve as unpaid and uncredited associate editors, they pull the story and expect us to pay to see the improvements in the story that we enabled.
I'm not saying that I would refuse to offer unpaid advice, but I want to know in advance that is what I'm doing, and perhaps be given the chance to store the original story purely for personal use. If not, I'm not going to read anymore of an author's stories. I doubt this hurts the author in any significant fashion, but I know.
the poll i pointed to was about advertising, but it amounts to the same thing. there's this assumption that everything on the web ought to be free.
I have no problems with a site making some profit from activities I would do anyway. In fact, I tend to visit a few sites that may carry advertising for products or services I want to purchase so I can click through and gain whatever percentage for that site I can. I see it as a win-win for everybody. I get something I am willing to pay for anyway, the advertiser gets the sale, and the website makes the odd shekel or two from my clicking through them.
but it seems reasonable to me that if persephone and nancy want to sell their story they have every right to,
I said it earlier, but I'll say it again: Persephone and Nancy poured an incredible amount of effort into writing Alfhilder and they deserve to make something back for their efforts. I'm not saying they don't have the right to, just that the way they went about it is a bit deceptive, IMHO.
kind of churlish for you to say "well then i won't read your stuff".***(see note below) which seemed to me to also be a bit snarky. i'm not sure what you were trying to prove by the comment.
Again, I think Angel did an excellent job of explaining it from a reader's POV, I would direct you to her post, titled "More than a few of us authors have pulled or deleted a..." With something like the disclaimer she suggested posted at the top of each chapter, I would know what was going on and have no problem with it. (BTW, That's not what I said, please see the ***note below.)
That's really all I ask, tell us readers what you are planning. As I said earlier, some issues in my personal life prevented me from reading the story all the way through, so I put it off until those issues were resolved or at least under control. There was no indication the story was going to be removed, so I didn't store the chapters on my harddrive. The first indication I had was when I saw the notice here that the story had already been pulled.
If a story is posted on a paysite, then it is my option to pay for access or not. If it is made available as a hardcopy from a publisher, again it is my option to pay or not. All in all, it comes down to knowing the author's intention.
personally i won't read incomplete stories until they *are* complete
I have been doing much the same since my life became complicated.
my reasons are different than yours though.
My primary reason for not reading serial 'works in progress' is that I haven't been able to retain the details of a story between chapter postings very well. Since I end up going back and at least glancing through the preceding chapters everytime a new ones is posted, it just becomes simpler to wait until the entire story is posted and read it all at once.
In the end, my stand is a purely emotion-based decision. As the saying goes: 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.' At the time I saw the post saying the story had been pulled, I decided not to read anymore of their works, but I did not see the need to articulate that decision. Only when I saw this blog, where Nancy's opinion was being sought as a kind of rolemodel did I decide to speak out publicly to offer a countering viewpoint to the suitability of of her actions.
In closing I'll say that I'm not going to take up anymore of Heather's blog with my opinions. I think I have expressed myself adequately, and whether others agree with me or not, I am not going to "argue" the points anymore. My decision has been made, and I intend to stick with it.
Omega Girl
*** Not what I said, actually, in spite of the quote marks you put around that sentence. What I said was "I've now blocked Nancy and Percy for that, and will block anybody else who does so. Nor will I buy any of their works. I bought one of Nancy's earlier works, but won't buy anynore."
PS: Everything above that is not in quotes is my wording. Even where I have used others to make a point, I'm paraphrasing what I understood them to say and I may not have understood them correctly. So, Angel, if I have wrongly attributed a viewpoint to you, please say so here in public and I will correct my comments and apologize to you, also here in public. I have no intention of putting words in anybody's mouth.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
points well made
i probably read extra snark into your original post where there wasn't any. i've been doing that to several people lately. entirely my fault, and i understand your decision to 'speak out'.
not as think as i smart i am
Sure!
If the feedback will help and you'll post them again when they're all finished and shiny, I'm not on any righteous downer about it...
But you might want to put something at the top, LIMITED TIME ONLY or whatever so that those commenting will know their
pearls of commentary are gonna vanish with it. Or maybe do these rough drafts as blogs, although fewer folks look at those.
~~~hugs, Laika
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Perhaps?
I'm sure you have authors here whom you respect and trust. It might be helpful to approach them individually to have them review your work in progress rather than post them here partially only to remove them. That way your readers won't be disappointed and you'll receive feedback at the same time?
She was born for all the wrong reasons but grew up for all the right ones.
Con grande amore e di affetto, Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
A bit of the answer
Heather
I for one would be delighted to comment and offer my thoughts, just as you very kindly did for 'The Frozen Balance' (and which I am currently using as I re-edit the tale prior to Book II). As you know commercial publishers are notoriously strict and, once you offer them a story, they insist it is not published for free anywhere else.
I know some feel that it is a betrayal to offer a story here for a while, then remove it later; but the more writers from BCTS who achieve mainstream publication do us all a favour in helping change perceptions.
At the end of the day these are your stories and if you achieve commercial success with them having allowed us an early sight then I for one will be delighted.
Persephone
Persephone
Non sum qualis eram
My 2p worth
I'd personally suggest that if you want to get feedback on a currently unpublished story before sending it to be published commercially, then it's probably best to share it with a handful of the editors here for feedback / analysis / corrections etc. rather than making a partial version available. If you do succeed in getting it published, then feel free to post a page or two as a teaser, together with a link to somewhere where a copy can be bought (and don't forget Lulu if 'ordinary' publishers won't touch it)
However, I think Nancy and Persephone decided to try publishing LoA commercially after they'd started posting the installments to this site (possibly buoyed up by positive feedback from readers), then it makes sense to publish the lot, wait until the last installment has dropped of the front page, then (preferably with a few days warning!) unpublish it.
As both Nancy and Persephone have said, publishers won't consider commercial publication of a story if it's already freely available (otherwise what would be the incentive to buy the book?), so therefore it's necessary to unpublish the story from wherever it's hosted before submitting it to the publishers. It's also one of the few occasions when the fact the search engines aren't very good at indexing BCTS is positive!
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Wrong About the Search Engine
I wish what you said were true, but unfortunately it was not.
Just before I pulled LoA from BC/TS, I did a Google Search typing in the name of the story. The forth item listed took me right to the Epilogue, which in turn took me to the preceding chapter as do all serialized stories on TS/BC. My dog could have found LoA, and he's a dumb blond with no itty bits.
So the need to pull it was very real.
Nancy Cole
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
Partly my doing
I had actually been blocking some of the search engines from indexing BC because they are resource hogs. During the time when we were having database problems, I uninstalled the spider blocking module I had, just as part of trying to find out what the heck was going on. I haven't put it back, yet and probably won't because the site seems able now to handle the extra hits and this means that stories do get seen more.
The small number of authors who use BC to post and refine drafts are important but do have to realize that it is a public site and can affect chances of selling anything posted here. I'm happy to host anyone's stories for such purposes but that isn't the main reason I have the site here. Nancy, Barbara, and a few others have posted stories then withdrawn them to be polished for publication. That's fine and I welcome them. The site was deliberately set up to accommodate that purpose without being dedicated to it.
And yes, if you're going to do that, unpubbing the story is not what you want to do, you want to delete it. Unpubbed stories still exist on the database and you might be violating a contract if you left them up. I suggest you save off comments that have been made for your own reference before deleting stories, though.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I say go ahead.
But I support the other poster who says to just put it into a transient category.
The people who are too poor to buy it ( an all too common problem with TS folks! ) still at least get a chance to read it. The authors who worked very hard to write on a professional level get to publish it and get paid for it. To stop reading somebody's work because they opt to have it publish it is to cut off your nose to spite your face.
However, be warned that if I am paying for it, I expect a polished work commensurate with the price being solicited and I will ding a lazy author who makes no effort to refine it before selling it. I also respectfully ask sellers of works which have a goodly number of problems to offer if possible buyers of the faulty work a replacement if and when the problems are fixed in version 2.0. That is why I do not buy Lulu dead wood formats until I have read the downloaded version.
So no problems, as long as the work is worth it, as long as the market will bear it.
Kim
Test away!
I'll gladly be a test reader be it via PMs or regular posts. Sometimes RL interferes but I try to find the time. And a riveting story will MAKE me find the time.
Reader feedback is so very useful. I do agree that to be fair to the reader a writer should indicate clearly that a story will be available for a limited time only and only for personal enjoyment -- IE no one may copy it to another site as the work is later to be submitted to a publisher for possible printing.
You two, well three if you add in PoetHeather, are not the first to use BC as a test bed. And as long as you explicitly inform us of it with each post, IMHO NFD.
In other words, no harm no foul.
I do understand that it could appear to be a blatant trick to make us buy a copy, a variant on the razor blade theory of marketing IE sell the razor dirt cheap but make money selling the disposable blades. Or if one is cynical it's perhaps a variant on the drug pusher model of business, the first few doses are free but once hooked you pay dearly. A bit over the top I admit but then sometimes we are very wary people here at BC what with all the difficulties many have endured in their lives.
At the same time how else can one get solid feedback AND generate useful marketing information? TG literature is a niche market, anything one can do to convince a publisher that a story has *crossover potential* can only be good for the writer and for the TG community as a whole.
Oooooh, a follow-up to The Frozen Balance !
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Not A Good Idea
At least, not in my opinion.
Why?
Well, because once something has been released for free, you can't really UNrelease it. It doesn't matter how quickly you remove it, someone is bound to have saved or copied it.
Even without that, I'm against the whole idea of "release it for a short time then remove it and make 'em pay for it." No offense to either Nancy Cole or Persephone, but it's pretty much guaranteed that I won't be reading Alfhidir for that very reason. I can understand an author releasing a print version of something they have posted and offering it for sale, with the hopes that readers who enjoy their work will support them, similar to what Maddy Bell does, or many webcomic authors do, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth to pull the free version down when you do so.
If you want to charge for it AND release part of it free, that could be a good idea, even only releasing, say, the first half for free and continuing the rest in the print version. But I would recommend against releasing anything online you don't want to leave online. Like I said, once it's on the web you can't ever really take it back off, there will always be a way to find it if someone searches dedicatedly enough, and it's too much of a "hah, gotcha!" to readers in my opinion to post and then remove something.
A better idea would be to have something like a private blog or web page that only a handful of selected people have access to. Pick a few people you would like to read the story and give you feedback, and give them the address to go read it. That way you can get the feedback and readers without having to release the story to everyone before publishing it.
If the story sounds interesting to me, I'd be willing to beta read it, or just wait until you publish it :P But I do highly recommend against releasing it online then taking it down.
Melanie E.
Probably the best way...
...to make people feel good about it would be to leave the original as a draft and do a bit more work to present a revised and expanded version as a paper book or electronic download. In a very real sense, we readers are patrons of the arts, and our monetary payments are all completely voluntary. It's not as if there were any shortage of things to read, after all. One could spend a long lifetime reading and never have to pay for anything. Doctorow has a little exercise he likes to present as a thought experiment: How many of us have a favourite author, and how many of us paid for the first book we ever read, written by that favourite author?
We buy books by our favorite authors because we want to own them, and in many cases not the reverse. An author may become our favourite, or second favourite, because that first book was given to us by someone we love, or we discovered it whilst browsing through the shelves of a library, or borrowed it from a friend. In many cases, I think authors would be just as well off publishing free of any restriction other than copyright. One might alternatively offer readers an easy method of becoming real patrons by sending in a few bucks, or clicking on a payment button, and putting a price tag on *looking* at the book also builds a wall behind which one may feel secure, but may also be cut off from people who may wish one well. This approach, of course, requires a little faith, but it makes people feel good.
We note that Shakespeare wasn't on a salary, but took a share from what people were willing to pay.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Interesting conundrum
Cory Doctorow gives a lot of his stories away, and doesn't seem to have been hurt by it. Here are his thoughts on publication and ownership:
http://thevarsity.ca/articles/23855
We're all of us "cribbing" from the entire written and oral history of our language, and every couple of words we manage to string together has probably been strung before, so we're all playing with refrigerator magnets, when it comes right down to it.
Many of us don't bother to think that some of the most creative flowerings of English literature -- including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Milton, and many more -- took place before the concept of copyright existed, yet people managed to make a living from writing, even then.
As Doctorow points out, modern copyright is busily destroying art, because it's becoming difficult, and in some cases impossible, to do anything in public without hearing a snippet of a copyrighted tune, or seeing a copyrighted or trademarked logo on a shirt or top. In most countries of the world, it's impossible to write an honest story about childhood without mentioning Mickey Mouse, or Winnie the Pooh, or some other common portion of our cultural heritage that someone has their grubby little mitts on and won't let loose of during any of our lifetimes.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
I still say
It's better to have them published for a time here and then unpublished, than to not have them here at all. It's like loaning a book from someone to read actually, and I don't see any harm coming from that.
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Hi Heather ;3
And yeah, go for it girl! If you got published that'd be like awesome. I'd buy your book if I could find it ;3 I still remember you from Gaia and story site, I'm glad your doing so well ;3
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Bisexual, transsexual, gamer girl, princess, furry that writes horror stories and proud ^^
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
Difficult Question.
The hard truth is that the writing business is tough. Most writers end up writing several novels before one is sold. It is about experience and the more you write the better you'll become. Getting that feedback on what you're doing right or wrong is invaluable.
I say go ahead and post for that reason. It's hard to treat something you've put so much work into so cavalierly, but I think it's part of the process of improving. Of course that means you still can try and get them published. Until you've got one that you're dead certain can stand on its own I say again, post it.
Of course I won't object to getting sneak peeks of these marvelous stories! I won't say nothing about how others feel about stories being remove. My only concern is when they disappear forever lost to us. Every word that gets out into the world can help us gain acceptance. We do need better representatives than we see on Jerry Springer and other sensational talk shows. Those folks don't by and large represent us.
I believe that works like Nancy's and other writers here do a much better job of that. I support getting those words to the eyes and ears that so badly needs to read and hear them.
Hugs!
Grover
More than a few of us authors have pulled or deleted a...
...story and even more than one. The reasons are varied, but the results are the same. The stories are gone until they are either posted once again or sold as a book.
Many stories are just deleted or pulled without much warning at all. I pulled a few and almost deleted every single one! Mom (Erin) stopped me by contacting me before I could do something I would regret deeply later on. My reason for deleting them was because a flame war erupted about my writing and stories. Some of us know what flaming can do to an author!
Anyway, my only advise would be to definitely add a special label that said exactly what your intentions are.
Example:
Post away and with this label no one should object because the intent is now obvious and the story will not just disappear without warning.
The reason most of us that object to authors using the readers here are just that. We feel like we are being used and abused. We feel that way because the few authors that know they are going to publish their story in print do not warn us before hand that they are going to delete the story and give no warning or tell us after the fact.
Now that sucks! There is no reason for it other than to get us hooked into reading it and then leave us hanging. Just warn us that is all we ask!
I purchase books that authors have offered for sale, but I have a few rules before I will.
Maddy Bell is a good example. She offers her books for sale even though you can read them free on her website and even here at the BCTS. I buy her books!
I do not purchase books from any author that pulls the marketing game and uses the readers by hooking them into reading and commenting on their story! They do this only to delete it when they are ready to publish. To me that is as wrong as wrong can get. The author used the readers without warning or asking them to help them better their manuscript. Once the author did this they pulled the story without warning or with very little warning. This leaves a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of the readership.
The other marketing game is to post a part of a story by chapter stringing along the readership and then posting that if the readers want to read the rest of the story they have to buy it! Once again this is done without any pre-warning! Not good at all!
This is a story site and there are rules when you post here. The readership here has expectations from the authors and one big expectation is that they are not going to be used and abused by writers!
Add the warnings or make your intentions clear and we can all appreciate your efforts. Don't warn us and pull these marketing tricks and you'll soon find out no one will trust you again.
JUST TELL US CLEARLY UP FRONT WHAT YOUR INTENTIONS ARE! That is all we ask.
Huggles and good luck
Angel
"Be Your-Self, So Easy to Say, So Hard to Live!"
"Be Your-Self, So Easy to Say, So Hard to Live!"
Loa brings up a question that I'm not ready for... but...
There is probably a forum for this but my writing is not at the point that I am ready for this... still...
I would love to see something in the line of a biography as to the trials and what to do to get published. One of my reasons for starting to write was that I thought that I would be better than some of what I read on story site and fictionmania, note I said some. There are many great stories on both that caught my attention in the first place. Now I am trying to write a few longer stories, if I could just get beyond the openings.
Well...
Just my two cents. But it's not like most of us don't know that stories get pulled for various reasons in RL. If you read these stories then you're part of or tied to the community. People have it hard enough here just going through the everyday sometimes. If they have a chance to be published for something then I'm happy for them, more than seeing as an amateur writer I have an idea of how much work it is just to finish a story.
Nancy, Persephone. Congratulations on getting to the brass ring.
Two lovely girls like you it should be gold and diamonds.
Bailey
Bailey Summers