*paces through the stately steps of the archaic Elven rite known as the First Comment Dance*

Hi Leigh, and welcome to Elfwood.

This is the place to get the ctits you desire. First though, others need to know you exist. Visit other writers and leave helpful comments on their work. Most of them will return the visit. It's an unoffical comment trade and it works very well (and it's a good way to make friends). It has been a great help in my own writing.

Good cess and good writing.

Leigh M Marcy replies: "Thank you so much for your kind words, and delightful dance. I have happened upon so many great works on my visits to the Elfwood community. And look forward to sharing my thoughts and hopefully assisting other writers. I hope you'll visit again when I get the first few chapters of my short sci fi novel up. "

Well, first of all, only most SciFi/Fantasy stuff is for geeks. The fact of the matter is: it's hard to wrest the good stuff away from them - their bony fingers are deceptively strong - and they are often prone to bite...


Along with the "others need to know you exist" part of the equation is "you need to post a few short things so folks in a hurry will take notice of you"... The fact that you've displayed the tenacity to stay with a storyline through (at least) five chapters is commendable, but I won't be able to read through it any time soon (any questions about that, just ask Deb Smith and she'll clue you in to what my schedule looks like)...


Thank goodness for bookmarks, because I did take the time to read through the first few paragraphs of Chapter 1 of "When the Shadow Speaks" to get a feel for your writing style... I'll be back to read again as soon as I can manage to catch up with myself (or when you let me know that you've posted some short stories and/or poems to occupy the shelf alongside your lengthier work).


Anyway, please accept my much-belated "Welcome to Elfwood!"

Leigh M Marcy replies: "  Thank you for your visit.
As I said a lack of brevity is a down fall sadly of which I am aware. I do have some shorter works in the que but they are of a different writing style and genre. And my short stories are on the way,however,Most of my horror shorts are of a bizarre nature rather than a supernatural one which may be required.

Poetry, ah, poetry. I have some stuff up at poetry.com but it's not any good. I got first place in a national poetry competition once. But when I read the judges' comments, they said things like "what does this mean?" and "this is weird." They gave me first place because they assumed if they couldn't understand it then it must be good. Fact was I'd just strung some "Thesaurus" words together the night before submission and tried to make it sound really profound and mystical. I felt bad for the other contestants. I didn't really expect to win. I may put some up around beginning of next year.

I have considered dividing this novel into shorter chapters to allow for more easy digestion. As it stands I have 24 equally lengthy chapters which makes for quite a massive work. I struggle with the length of it, but feel hopelessly entangled when I attempt to separate wheat from chaff. Thanks for commenting. "