Honoring the validators!

Well observed... In this case, each activity is definitely dependent on the other!
Thanks for your appreciation.

Nah! I come here for the therapeutic aspects. Grin!

Thank you njrick for starting this thread. I just noticed someone's post to it in "activity" as I was signing off to re-enter real-life. This site has the most magnificent engineering I have ever seen. Still new to it and feel like a blind person who's moved into a new apartment, finding the furniture by bumping into it. And there is so much here that I am still finding different ways to use the site every visit. Really enjoyed learning about the validators.

Can anyone tell me how to make the indented paragraphs I typed into my longer comments actually appear in the published post? Trust me, I owe that to DJ Black. I have never encountered a more incredibly patient man. I am separating paragraphs by double spacing, which makes my comment block bigger than it would need to be.

I have two stories I would like to write. Is there an experienced validator out there (preferably English (like the ones eating all the "crisps"?), since I don't even write good "American" when it comes to fiction) who is far-sighted enough to be kind to novices?

As unbelievable as you will find it to be, I have had professional training and actually worked as a professional ghostwriter, copy editor, and proofreader for a well known New York City publishing house for three years, among other writing experience. My responsibility was an entire, well-integrated Grade 1-6 Science & Technology textbook series (since I was an oceanographer cross-trained in all the sciences). And all the grant proposals and research papers I've submitted to professional peer-reviewed journals in the biomedical field have been funded and/or published without modification, including a long encyclopedia article the surgeon I was ghosting for was invited to write. I include this information only to indicate that there is some expectation that your efforts will eventually bear edible fruit some time before I die. Most likely pomegranates.

I also included the above information because I would enjoy assisting the validators in any useful way once I've learned enough to actually be of any use. I could probably proofread, fact check, or something like that without much training specific to this site. The profit margin in publishing is so low many publishers don't even employ proofreaders anymore in the USA. It was a joy to find true "spanking literature" on this site and so much of it of such high quality given as a free gift. I would be very happy to do whatever I could to contribute to what seems to be more a community than a website.

What a great story idea! An English English tutor to guide me as I write my first story. Think of ALL the validating that will save!!! And all the CP that would be required!

I can't figure out how to send you a draft. Attachment to email from a hand-me-down used computer with no anti-virus software? I don't think so. Do you folks have a snail mail mailing address where I can send actual paper you can scan into your system?(Any pages too wrinkled in the mail to scan could be freshly photocopied--send me the bill) 100% zero computer virus transmission guaranteed that way, I think. Nurses are all about infection control.

Are all the validators on this site actually sitting in someone's London flat, eating crisps and drinking sherry? I can't afford the airfare, but I will front the overseas postage for a case of American crisps. I find Spanish sherry inexpensive and good, when I can't afford Harvey's Bristol Cream. Although my preference is for Armenian brandy. But I doubt I will allowed to mail alcoholic beverages.

I have a lot to write about if I could learn to write. After devouring "A Voice in the Corner" within a week of discovering it, I set myself the long term goal of writing a few fictionalized spanking memoirs in my retirement--the quality of DJ's stories an impossible goal I set as the standard to strive for. After some correspondence with DJ, I've lowered my expectations to eventually being able to write a story comprehensible enough to be read.

No thanks are necessary. It's something I wanted to do upon the realization that not only have we (as a group) not shown our appreciation for their efforts, many of didn't even know that they existed. Everyone knows "Tech Support' (Februs - ain't he amazing?), the Librarians (flopsy, Pink, and at one time Linda), and the authors (whose names appear everywhere). The narrators in the new audio section will soon be recognized and recognizable. Even the members that post here on the forum get some notoriety - Pink, blimp, twisted, and that insufferable Marlowe character It's only the validators, toiling in the bowels of the (figurative) basement of the (virtual) Library who have remained both un-thanked and anonymous.

I'm not an expert on on the validation process - but that won't stop me from explaining it! Everything is done on-line. Each validator is given stories a queue of stories to work on as the are submitted for publication. First off, they get to/have to read the story. They'll edit the stories to correct spelling, punctuation and what not (I use the technical term 'what not' because I don't really know the full scale of their charge). Then they click little boxes to classify them so that the proper icons appear, and finally, they write a little synopsis so that potential readers know what the story is about. That's it! It's sounds like with your background, along with your taste in crisp and booze, you would make you an excellent candidate for the validation team! Then you too could be recognized on a post such as this.

It sounds like what you may be looking for is not really your own personal validator, but someone to coach you in the writing of your fiction. Only the final version of the story will be submitted to the library itself. There ARE authors here who have been willing to coach new writers, so that your post here may draw someone out. Any arrangements you'd make for exchanging drafts and comments would be made with that person. I think that email would be the commonly expected method.

If that doesn't fully answer your question, then feel free to send me a pop-up - or even ask someone who actually knows something.

I wish to add my appreciation for the valiant validators who work tirelessly to provide so much to this board. I know I give them plenty of work, I'm sure.
And, as I've said before---re Ayla's question, I am willing to assist new writers. Just email or send a popup.

It's always a pleasure, Rollin! But many thanks for the comments.
Yes, Ayla's first post certainly deserves a response!

Ayla
It sounds to me as though you have more than enough knowledge and ability to write a story. You should just write it and see how it goes. Of course there are plenty of experienced writers, Rollin has already offered I note and DJ too no doubt, who would run an eye over it if it would make you feel better but it doesn't sound like you would need an awful lot else to get you going. The important thing about writing is to enjoy it and the more you do it the better/easier it gets. No one else can give you that experience. Of course most importantly of all, just have some fun I look forward to seeing your first story loaded!

Ayla

I just wanted to introduce myself after reading your excellent post on this thread. Like you I stumbled into the site a year or so ago and was amazed by the camaraderie that I found here and even more impressed by the quality of writing that I now know to be simply the norm here. Not to mention that the subject topic allows all of us to show our pervy side to best advantage.

I would recommend that you take full advantage of the other writers offers of help and advice. I don't know of any of them that won't help if asked. As you have observed yourself the talent pool here at the LSF is deep and broad. Take advantage, like so many of the rest of us have. You will find that you are welcomed with open arms in places you never imagined you'd go by folks you never thought to meet.

I think it a good possibility, based just on your first post to the forum, that you will become part of the floating couple of hundred of us that fully participate on the site and like us it will become a major part of your day. So pull up a chair and open your favorite bag of potato chips, as they are properly called, and that bottle of sherry you favor (Merlot for me please) and have fun.

If you want to take a short cut in getting to know some of the denisons on the site take a look at Rollins 'LSF: The Movie' and/or Jools 'KLSF Party at the Spankers Inn'. Both will give you a humorous look at all of us that hang out here.

And for pity sake Ayla. Let some enterprising and starving salesperson at Best Buy or Costco set you up with a modern desktop PC for a few dollars a month. Bet you can get in at $400 and pay it off in six months.

And just so ya know. You will see me all over the site doing this: Grin!

I find the best way to send in stories is as txt file with block paragraphs. I too would love to have indents, but indents are a dying feature on the web as fewer and fewer message boards offer them.

One of the reasons I send in stories in txt format is to use white space. When you read a novel you often get paragraph after paragraph but sometimes there is a paragraph followed by a space and then the next paragraph is something going in a different direction. The shift isn't big enough to require a new chapter or section break but there is a shift.

When formatting for the screen, paragraph followed by paragraph just doesn't work. Especially with block paragraphs - you need a white space between them. Since my paragraphs are normally separated by a white space I used three white spaces (that is, three blank lines) where a 'here's a blank line to warn about a shift' would normally go in a novel. I think it works well, and to control the white space I submit in txt files.

Sending attachments (especially TXT ones) is a safe activity. It's when you receive them that you need a virus scanner.

Goodgulf

It's late here on the left coast and I got back to the LSF to find that there had been much activity on the forum. Kool. But I think that this topic needs to remain front and center for a little longer and this post should put it back on the top list for at least a day or so. Grin!