Just curious
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Are we all alone here? Because the last activity exercise we had was almost a year ago. September 2009 in fact.Have we been left to fend for ouselves on this site? I really hope not. I've realy enjoyed my stay here,but I can't shake this feeling of being stuck at sea without a Captain. Or even a crew.

I was wondering the same thing, thinking it was sad to discover such a great site but only to find that maybe the excitment has fizzled out for the admin.

The Ghost Ship Review Fuse? oh, Sylon...?

I don't know, but I emailed the admin with questions and to find out when the next monthly contest would be (the last one was in February, I think!) over a week ago and have received no response. I guess we're on our own, kiddies. :o)

I was actually wondering this myself, though for a different reason. I submitted my work privately and promptly got 2 reviews back. I've been waiting several days for the third one, and I'm not sure I'll ever get it. I read through the FAQ's and it isn't very clear what happens if the person it's assigned to doesn't review it. Does anyone know if the Admin takes the review back and re-assigns it? (Plus, a contest would be fun!)

I am one of the admins, and I am indeed still around. Things have been admittedly busy and I have not posted as much as I would have liked but have been following all the blog posts.

@startingfaintail .. When it is assigned to someone they have 16 hours to complete the review before it is passed to someone else. Sometimes numerous people will pass on a work and it can seem to take forever to get the review. In general review turn around time is really fast.

Contests has been a big request that we sadly have not had enough time to continue currently. Thinking of the contests is relatively easy, however, arranging and paying for the professional reviewers is where the time issues come into play. A professional reviewer is actually quite expensive and when we do contests we get 100s of entries.

The excitement for us has not fizzled out, but we have admittedly had less time to work on it that we used to. Rest assured we do follow all the forum comments.

@StarlingFantail I would be glad to take a look at your work. However, since I am not one of your assigned reviewers (unless I already gave you a review) you would still be missing that last "assigned" review. Generally speaking I have enough time to do one, maybe two reviews per day, so it generally takes me two to four days for me to complete all four of my assigned reviews when a chapter gets posted.

Sometimes a work is brief and well written so the only thing to do is issue the appropriate kudos, and point out a couple of places where you may have made a different authorial choice or two.

Other times a work is problematic in one or more areas. A lot of times I would almost prefer to skip such a work because I know the skill level of the author needs a lot of work. However, that is when as time allows I try to buckle down and really give a hard yet helpful critique to inform the author where they need to improve.

Finally there are those works which are structurally fine, but the subject matter is not something to which I could speak authoratatively, because of a difference in taste or reading preferences. I find "romance" novels challenging for example. They are a particular type of reading for which I was never the intended audience. Once more I just buckle down and look at the use of language rather than the content.

I was also trained formally in college gaining a Rhetoric degree with emphasis on narrative short fiction. Unfortunately for some that means I look at the "literary" as well as the "fun" aspects of writing. I will point out where known writing conventions are violated without adequately serving the story. I also critique things such as improper use of punctuation in narrative text, lack of attention to narrative tone and perspective, and a lack of focus on the story. Most conventional stories published have a common structure even if the author may deny they were writing with such. Too many times new author's think that by skipping structure, or inventing new grammatical construction formula that they can make their work more "interesting" for the reader.

Unfortunately this bag of unusual tricks really requires a maestro of an author to do well. The rest just end up turning out something which is less comprehendible to the reading audience. If someone is writing just for their own enjoyment, then I would challenge why do they need an editor or proofer. They only need to satisfy one person. If they are writing for the rest of us, then they shouldn't violate the basic grammatical rules without reasonable cause. In my estimation the only reasonable cause is if doing so will demonstably improve the telling of the story.

I hope this helps.

@StarlingFantail I checked and saw that I was one of your two reviews already, hehe. Your work fell into the "well written" category so there was very little editorial direction I could provide without seeing a larger scope of the work beyond a well executed single chapter. I did note one historically anachronistic element (I had a lot of supporting coursework in History and Classical Civilization) which a little research let me point out the differences. One of the reasons I don't read much "Historical" fiction is a compulsive need to "fact check" what the author presents. If the societal attitudes or behavior seems anachronistic for the setting and time; then as a reader I generally call foul unless it is very clearly listed as Science Fiction/Alternate History. This was not a problem with your work as I really only spotted a minor anachronistic reference (on a slight detail most would readily overlook at that).

Once of the best living "Historical Fiction" authors around these days is Dan Simmons. His works "The Crook Factory", "The Terror", and "Drood" are compelling works of fiction with an astounding amount of historical accuracy to the events, places, and people in the stories. Reading his work, I have no problem believing that he does a painstaking amount of historical study before undertaking his work, right down to the writing styles of the era's he is depicting. Dan Simmons is also one of the best Sciene Fiction, Pulp Detective Fiction, Horror, and Thriller authors I have ever read as well (he has published works in each of these genres).

This being said since I use his works as the benchmark for enjoyable Historical Fiction, it is a hard task to satisfy me on this score (as some other authors here and elsewhere have discovered when I take them to task for anachronistic behavior/attitudes). I found that your chapter compared favorably to what I remember of his work (in the Horror genre mind you) "The Fires of Eden" which is set in the Hawaii islands and involves the awakening of angry ancient gods at Mauna Pele. I think you might find his works both inspirational, and instructional as good writing. Most amazing is Dan Simmons tallent to give each work or series a distinctive narrative voice which remains consistent within the work. As a hobby writer I can truthfully say that is no mean feat, and many other published authors can not do this nearly as well as Dan Simmons.

Good to see that there is some activity. I was excited to find this site (quite by accident), quickly submitted two pieces in different categories, did the prerequisite reviews (trying to give constructive comments like I would like to receive) and then saw the forums. Seeing the lack of activity by the admins was discouraging to say the least. But this thread gives me hope that the site is not dead. By the way, I would welcome any criticisms anyone would care to give. I've never really put my work out there where people have responded to it. I have a handful of chapters on one website and a number of poems on another, but haven't really promoted them.