[anneliese] Hi Dave!

[DaveK] Hi Anneliese

[anneliese] How was your weekend?

[Elizabeth] hi there! How did last Monday night go?

[DaveK] Hi Elizabeth

[anneliese] Hi Elizabeth!

[anneliese] We had a good chat last Monday. I posted the log even!

[Elizabeth] yay! A postable chat! I guess that when I'm gone they stay more...mature. ;)

[anneliese] Naw, it would have been even better with you there. Terri told us a lot about her plans for the novel.

[Elizabeth] Had a very pleasant week in northern Wisconsin.

[Elizabeth] Oooh. What were her plans?

[anneliese] And we shamed her into sending another chapter in.

[anneliese] Her characters are based upon mythological archetypes. From mythologies all over the world.

[Elizabeth] I did get that next chapter.

[Elizabeth] I saw some Gaelic mythology there, with the pointed-toothed woman.

[anneliese] It sounds like it is going to be a fascenating story. Yep, that was some of it.

[DaveK] AM I working again?

[anneliese] You're here Dave!

[DaveK] Good my browser just locked up.

[Elizabeth] he's back!

[anneliese] I've been getting a lot of that lately. I think there must be some strange javascript tweaking going on.

[DaveK] How are the challenge stories going?

[Elizabeth] Mine keeps refreshing itself. I just hope Firefox doesn't choke...

[anneliese] I'm still working on mine.

[Elizabeth] I got your challenge story, Dave, and one from Bob Friedman, and I actually finished one myself before leaving town.

[anneliese] It does that for me also, Elizabeth. It hasn't been a problem though.

[DaveK] I asked for a critique date but haven't heard back. ???

[Elizabeth] do you need an extra day or two to finish yours, Anneliese?

[anneliese] I have learned that if Firefox seems to be slowing down, empty the cache. I don't think it knows how to manage cache properly.

[Elizabeth] Dave, I thought this week would be Sinkhole stories.

[anneliese] I will force myself to get it finished tomorrow night, if that's ok with you.

[DaveK] Is next week taken?

[Elizabeth] Then we have another novel chapter from Terri and your story. Preferences? Or does Anneliese have something to say here?

[Elizabeth] Tomorrow will be fine, Anneliese. :)

[anneliese] Yes, Dave, I've been very remiss with my email. I was in a different place last week.

[anneliese] My head was in a different place, that is. The body stayed around the usual haunts.

[anneliese] I have nothing to say :)

[Elizabeth] Hmmm. Sounds like the basis for a good story. :)

[Elizabeth] Did your head run into my Muse, by any chance?

[DaveK] August 15th is fine by me. I'll send it is later this week. OK?

[anneliese] If I seem a little punchy tonight, it's because I spent the day proofing quarterly financial statements.

[anneliese] At least that's my excuse :D

[Elizabeth] Ouch. My sympathies.

[anneliese] And the client was doing me a favor...giving me the proofing job so I'd have more billable hours...how sad is that?

[anneliese] Hi Terri!

[bogwitch64] Hey Anneliese!

[bogwitch64] Hey Anneliese!

[Elizabeth] hi Terri!

[bogwitch64] Oy, my firefox is being a bum

[DaveK] Hi Terri

[Elizabeth] All of us are having fun with browsers, Terri.

[bogwitch64] agrh

[bogwitch64] I noted my name and mention of my chapter above. When am I on?

[anneliese] Oh, and I've learned that firefox likes to be restarted once every few days, at least.

[DaveK] Next week if you want.

[bogwitch64] Hey Elizabeth! LOL, sorry! I missed your greeting with all this blinking!

[bogwitch64] I'll be in Prince Edward Island next week. :(

[bogwitch64] Well, that's a :) but you know what I mean

[anneliese] <== Likes PEI

[bogwitch64] My first visit, A

[anneliese] If your story goes out next week, your critique date is 2 weeks after.

[Elizabeth] Oooh. That sounds lovely.

[DaveK] Is that west coast or east coast?

[bogwitch64] Oh, good!

[anneliese] Hubby and I went to PEI for our honeymoon

[bogwitch64] East coast, Dave, just above Nova Scotia and Maine

[Elizabeth] So if Dave goes this week and Terri goes next week, when do the Sinkholes (dis)appear?

[bogwitch64] Chilly, Anneliese?

[DaveK] I thought I had the week after next.

[anneliese] Three weeks from now...or do you have another sub from Juanita by then.

[DaveK] I think of the dates as the date the story is sent out, not when the critiques are due.

[DaveK] think that is my confusion

[anneliese] Cool in the evening, but should be nice during the day...on the water can get cool.

[bogwitch64] Yes, we've heard

[bogwitch64] I've been to Maine a few times and the water was 52 degrees in August so I'm thinking we're not going to be swimming

[anneliese] We went out on a fishing boat...got kind of chilly.

[bogwitch64] LOL, we went whale watching out of boothbay harbor in maine one year (july) and I thought it was going to snow!

[anneliese] It doesn't matter to me which ms. goes out when.

[anneliese] It can surely feel that way, Terri. :)

[bogwitch64] Gadzooks this blinking is going to give me a seizure!

[anneliese] Dave, do you want us to tear up your story tonight?

[anneliese] Our server changed the way the database is handled...I sure hope we don't have to switch to a java-based chat because of it.

[DaveK] We can do that.

[DaveK] It was the one about seeing an alternative universe to predict stocks.

[DaveK] I got the idea because I'm always writing the next word in the sentance instead of completing to one I'm writing.

[bogwitch64] Insider trading taken one step further. ;)

[anneliese] I liked that it was in your time travel universe from the last story.

[bogwitch64] Have you thought about either focusing or extending this story, Dave?

[Elizabeth] I did like the basic concept. Takes day trading to an entirely new level. :)

[bogwitch64] I wish I'd seen the other stories. :(

[DaveK] I'm trying to develop Reg and Steve as sort of narators

[bogwitch64] I think I missed something important by missing them

[Elizabeth] But it feels more like an outline...especially since nearly all of it is told in dialogue. Dialogue about the past.

[DaveK] I can send them to you if you like Terri.

[bogwitch64] :) Send away, Dave

[bogwitch64] BogWitch64@aol.com

[DaveK] You'll get them tonight. Tear them up for me please.

[bogwitch64] :-D

[bogwitch64] Don't encourage me!

[DaveK] Too short huh?

[bogwitch64] I think so

[Elizabeth] Yeah, IMO, too short.

[DaveK] I sort of did them for Analog's short-short story

[Elizabeth] The first scene was nicely done; the rest of the story felt like an outline. I wanted more scenes like the first one.

[Elizabeth] What happens when your protagonist first figures out how to game the stock market?

[bogwitch64] Here's the good thing with a story like this and me not reading the others--it gives you a good idea of how it will do in the real world where darlling friends can't email those past stories to make more sense of what's going on or whatever.

[Elizabeth] I'd think he'd be somewhere between elated and scared ****less.

[Elizabeth] Or is there a chance that his talent might be exploited by his elders?

[anneliese] (if the blinking is too bad here, I set up a different chat: sfwritersworkshop.org/test_chat.htm )

[bogwitch64] Each story needs to be able to stand on its own with some brief recap or whatever so that your reader is oriented in the story instead of wondering.

[DaveK] I'm thinking about what you all are saying.

[DaveK] I'm torn between keeping it a flash piece or expanding it into a full short.

[anneliese] I agree with Elizabeth...your first scene is the strongest. I wanted more of that feeling in the subsequent scenes.

[bogwitch64] I agree too

[Elizabeth] If you wanted to make it a flash piece...what about using the scene where Mr. Stock Wizard meets the SEC investigator...and finds that he can no longer get into that alternate dimension, because he's too busy thinking about her?

[Elizabeth] You've got the conflict there...she's trying to bust him, he's afraid of both being caught and losing his one gift...

[Elizabeth] until he realizes that, when she's around, he can't do anything illegal. Perfect?

[anneliese] Might make the punch line more *punchy*

[DaveK] I could have him start his writing of stock quotes and them have him write her name - like a school boy with his first crush.

[bogwitch64] brb

[DaveK] He's not doing anything illegal if only because no one wrote a law against it yet.

[Elizabeth] Oooh. I like the first idea...writing the stock quotes and then her name. :)

[anneliese] I don't know, Dave. Wouldn't he think it was just the tiniest bit unethical?

[Elizabeth] All the while realizing that she could send him to jail if he isn't careful.

[DaveK] Then they turn into Mrs. ROger whatever.

[Elizabeth] Maybe he writes out her name, the stock prices...and scratches them all out in a panic.

[bogwitch64] back, sorry.

[bogwitch64] This house never settles down--oy, teenagers

[DaveK] He doesn't know what is going on, only that he can read the future.

[bogwitch64] This reminds me of that show on SciFi--used to be on CBS (I think) on Saturday nights--First Edition

[Elizabeth] He could make a killing in oil futures. ;)

[DaveK] Is that the one where he gets the paper early?

[bogwitch64] Yup

[bogwitch64] changes headlines or some such thing

[bogwitch64] I only watched it once or twice

[DaveK] I never watched a whole show.

[bogwitch64] I just thought Kyle Chandler was hot. ;)

[DaveK] So how do I end it? Have him sit in a bar and tell the story as a flash back...

[bogwitch64] YOu could begin and end it there

[DaveK] Maybe some young reporter asking him how he got so rich.

[Elizabeth] What if he gives up trying to predict the stock quotes...figures that he needs to take a break...and asks Ms. SEC out?

[Elizabeth] Even if she can't date him until the investigation's over. :)

[Elizabeth] Since, now that she's in his head all of the time, he can no longer do slightly shady stock transactions...

[Elizabeth] Or he and his wife are now sitting in the restaurant where they had their first date, and they're reminiscing...

[Elizabeth] only she doesn't know half of what really happened.

[DaveK] Lots of options, now I just have to pick one.

[anneliese] Or maybe she does :D

[bogwitch64] :-D

[bogwitch64] :D

[Elizabeth] She just thinks that the SEC sent her on a wild goose chase, and she lucked out into meeting this wonderful guy.

[bogwitch64] Oh, that's how it works!

[DaveK] That's cute Elizabeth

[Elizabeth] Or maybe she knows better. :D

[bogwitch64] I like that Elizabeth

[Elizabeth] That could be even more interesting.

[bogwitch64] Even better--he thinks he's hiding (or shielding) her when she's known all along--and even better would be if she was somehow cashing in on it too!

[DaveK] Or she came from the alternate universe.

[Elizabeth] lol!

[Elizabeth] Oooh. I really like that possibility, Dave.

[bogwitch64] Ha!

[Elizabeth] We just *thought* she was from the SEC.

[DaveK] Make her the cop.

[DaveK] SEC can stand for ...

[Elizabeth] Simultaneous Environment Control?

[bogwitch64] ...what?

[DaveK] Superverse Emision Control

[Elizabeth] That's pretty poor...Section for the Enforcement of Continuity?

[Elizabeth] My first try was poor, Dave, not yours.

[anneliese] simultaneous entropy correspondence

[Elizabeth] nice, Anneliese!

[DaveK] I like entropy

[anneliese] Yea, entropy has a certain silly ring...in a time story :D

[DaveK] Time to dig out the thesarus and dictionary

[bogwitch64] lol

[anneliese] Sort of gives a technobabble definition to what he was doing.

[DaveK] Superverse Entropy Crossover Control

[Elizabeth] Excellent. :)

[anneliese] Even better!

[DaveK] Maybe too cute

[bogwitch64] I don't think my posts are coming across...are they?

[bogwitch64] Ah, there's one

[bogwitch64] ol

[anneliese] Everything in your stories is too cute...I think it fits. Unless, you want to look into something more satirical.

[Elizabeth] Section for Entropy Containment?

[anneliese] I'm seeing your posts, Terri

[bogwitch64] I have to type them a couple of times before they go through

[bogwitch64] See, like that one! LOL

[bogwitch64] I'm going to head out, folks

[DaveK] COntainment is good, I get down to one C

[DaveK] By Terri. I'll send you my old stories.

[bogwitch64] I won't be around next week, remember, but if I get a story before I head out to PEI I'll crit it before I go

[anneliese] Glad you could make it, Terri, have a good evening.

[bogwitch64] Thanks, Dave!

[Elizabeth] good night, Terri, glad you could make it!

[bogwitch64] Sleep sweet all!

[anneliese] I think I hear thunder moving in.

[DaveK] Speaking of sending in stories. WHen do you need my next one?

[Elizabeth] I should probably sign off soon. Dave, get me your story and I'll send it out this week, if you still want the 8/15 critique date.

[DaveK] I found a new print SF mag - Apex Science Fiction and Horror

[Elizabeth] If you want a later date, I can send out Terri's chapter this week.

[DaveK] If you have Terri's send it out. When I said the 15th I was thinking of the date it gets sent out, not when the critiques are due.

[Elizabeth] Okay...so Terri's chapter goes out this week (and gets the 8/15 critique date),

[Elizabeth] the Sinkhole stories go out after that (and get critiques 8/22),

[DaveK] Sinkholes go out next and then me :-)

[Elizabeth] and we can send your story out on 8/15.

[Elizabeth] Sounds like a plan...unless Juanita already has a date for August and I don't remember it. :)