belated congratulations:--)

Thank you very much joel, that's actually very reassuring because you've hit the nail right on the head. (bad pun intended but too apt to not use)

I do feel completely phoney writing about being good at what I do, it seems like boasting or something.

Incidentally, most people require secret rooms to hide paperwork, computers and valuables in, nothing more interesting than that.

Hopefully it will be okay to post what I come up with in the forum next week and get some feedback.

Shanna :-)

Nice thought BJ & thanks for the input - I've got about 40 photos of various projects up in a gallery format & additional images on every page, it's the words I'm having problems with :-)

Hopefully we can corrupt more people next year.

Shanna :-)

Welcome to the writers forum guys...

Now I'm begging you.....help me out with my writing problem... I'm desperate here :-)

Please.

Shanna

Then of course there's the other nightmare I have....

I wake up feeling wonderful, I haven't got a single spot, I feel like I've lost a bit of weight lately and I'm looking pretty good for an old bird.
It's a full on technicolour Disney Day.

I feel inspired so I decide to try out a new hairstyle to go with that gorgeous new outfit I bought last week.
I feel hot.
I am a Staceys Mom.

You know the kind of thing - you go for a complete new hairstyle (for me that usually involves chopping a couple of feet of my hair) with a fresh colour livened up even more with daring highlights in highly contrasting tones.
It's bound to take years off me, I'll look even more fabulous than I feel.

For no good reason I take this risk at a hairdressers I've never used before and I'm introduced to their stylist "Tracee"

An hour and a half later I slink out of the 'salon' wondering where I'm going to find the nearest hat shop.
I'm choking down a bar of chocolate grimly hoping all that guff about it being full of feel good drugs is true and trying not to itch the chemical burns on my scalp.
 
Right now I feel like one of those awful dolls heads that get given to little girls to practice make up on and I look much worse than the ones who've been made over with poster paint and a Stanley Titan by demented four year olds.

Why do most bad highlights end up looking such a nasty shade of greenish orange?

The stupid trainee has got shampoo in my eyes (would that it was the worst of her crimes against me looking like a human being) so they are red and streaming as if I've been bawling for hours which complements my now blotchy face perfectly.

It starts to rain and my once gorgeous outfit that was going to complete the ill fated 'new look' gets soaked and I now look like a cross between a drowned rat and a bag lady.

It is at this EXACT MOMENT with that gigantic bar of chocolate sticking out of my mouth that I run into the most wonderful ex I ever had ( you know the one who got away that I really want to meet on my best looking day because I stupidly dumped him and regretted it afterwards)  and he introduces me to his underwear model new girlfriend. 
They are sharing an umbrella, arms linked together and happily filming their romantic day out with a camcorder so I am doomed to be captured for all time in full colour at high resolution looking like a greedy wreck.

And I realise that I am not going to wake up from this nightmare, because I'm not even asleep.

:-)

I'm not sure whether you are looking for a british or american speech pattern.
If it's american...

You may find the article at the link below interesting & the rest of the website is interesting if you are interested in the american civil war period. There is a section in the links area of the website about authentic speech.

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1092

If you have access to JSTOR (perhaps through your library) there are a lot of articles about authentic speech patterns in the database.

If  you are trying to find information on an upper class british accent, you need to search for what is known as RP (Received Pronunciation) which is what it's called by linguists.

If you google it you will come up with thousands of articles.

Hope that is of some help :-)

Just saying hello right back at you gishzida, it's a quiet forum here at the moment but the people are really nice so come back and post soon :-)

Here's one of my nightmares...

I'm on a train, I don't know why because it's not the kind of train I've ever seen except on films.

It's poorly constructed and made of weathered old wooden boards and there are massive open doors on either side of the carriage and a trap door in the roof.
Not the kind with seats for passengers, the kind people stow away on that never seem to contain anything as they run through empty country for days on end.

I know, because I know I've been here before and I know what's coming which is making me shake, even though it seems so ordinary to know that there is a creature on the train, bipedal and fierce with fangs and claws and hateful hungry eyes and I know it's coming and all it wants is to tear into me.

I run to one door and I try to close it, but the door is too big and I only just manage to force it closed before I hear this thing land on the roof, but the other door is open, a massive gaping hole in the side of the box that I know can't protect me even as I run over and tug at the rusty old handle to try and close it, wondering why I'm bothering when there is a door in the roof and none of them have locks anyway but I can't help myself, I run from one door to another trying to keep them closed while it plays with me because I am prey, tugging at one door, then bounding across the roof to tug at the other, scenting me working up a frightened sweat until I can hardly get a grip on the handles because I'm just running with sweat.

After forever and a half it starts to tear through the walls and I've got nowhere left to run.
I turn away, I never see it clearly even though there's daylight pouring through gaping holes it's torn through the woodworm ridden boards and I catch my foot on something and I fall.

It bites off my foot, but I try to crawl away anyway and it takes the other leg up to the knee.
I keep crawling away while I can hear it ripping through what used to be a part of me, then it comes back for what's left of both legs and all of me up to my ribcage but I'm still crawling along and away feeling those bits tear away as I try to escape with mess trailing out from beneath my ribcage which is the only part of my body touching the floor apart from my elbows and I'm screaming because it hurts so very much and I know you can't survive this, that I shouldn't even be alive and then I turn around and I tear out it's throat with my own teeth.

That's when I start to scream because I'm enjoying hurting it.

That's when I wake up and find I'm still screaming. 

My story begins..

"So you sprawl in the muddy street not knowing which of a million shadows is the one you need..."

Well, I work on my own stuff at night so my first nights work is spread over 2 NaNo days.
According to them, it's 1,764 for day 1 & my new total currently for day 2  is 5,426  :-)

I'm not sure why, but a massive story just sort of fell out of my head and splattered all over the desktop, so all I've been having to do is try and catch the words and stuff them into the computer all night.
Hopefully it will keep on coming.

The draft I finish up with by the end of the month won't be the whole story and will definitely not be fit for sane humans to read, but I've actually got a cracking good story in there so I'm feeling really inspired.

Here's me at NaNo by the way.

www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/214410

If you add your user link I can add you to my buddy list and spy on you :-)

I've got to say, I wish I had one of those word counter banners on my own computer now.
They really are a powerful motivator.

ps sorry I took a while to reply, I've been busy practicing for the day I finally get to become an official tyrant and bossing someone around that much takes a lot of time. (My first employee)

Hi Jon,
nice to see a familiar name in here as the forum seems a bit quiet :-)

I think this NaNoWriMo stuff must be infectious as I went into my local library today & had one of the librarians signing up as I left the building.

From reading the NaNo forums I get the impression you'll be able to get a free copy of your book printed off by Lulu.com if you verify you've done 50,000 words but that may be from other years.

Not sure I want to have written proof I can't keep the same thought in my head for more than an hour at a time but there we go.

Best of luck to you & your fingers.

Thanks Stacey - how are you doing yourself?

I' ve been spending the summer pigging out on rasperries & strawberries I've grown in the back yard so I'm very happy indeed apart from not having enough to do :-)

Looks like you lot have been keeping busy:-)

I've got to go scare my camera & get myself a picture now the sites gone all posh.

Really like being able to see post views & counts btw - nice improvement.

Shanna

Hi guys,

Got a couple of questions about the homepage on the new site.

Will things like the guest book, page views & stats be moved over?

Can't seem to find them on the new page although they are still there on the camelot version.

Thanks,

Shanna

ps. Not homepage related but there seems to be no way to see if any staff are online any more.

Is that correct?

Tell me about it, I've watched the first half an hour so far & now I'm taking a break. Fascinating discussion on the history behind the stuff we take for granted. Weird to think I was alive when they were doing all this stuff I'm calling history.

Thanks for the link stonemason. Glad I'm not on dial up ;-)