Out of three betas, I have not heard a peep since I changed the last two scenes of my fic.

All except the last 6K (two scenes) has gone through a fair bit of editing with my betas, but we'd planned to post on Halloween and I'm kind of freaking out here that none of them have replied to even let me know they got the links. This last 6K was a rewrite of my original ending and hasn't even been looked over by a second set of eyes and I wrote it mostly in one long stretch late at night while my brain tried to ooze out of my ear. I don't even know if it makes sense, never mind if it's filled with typos. And I'm reasonably sure that I probably left holes that I need to fill out.

Is there anyone that can help me out? I use google.docs for sharing purposes

Hey guys, I'm totally in your computers, spamming your comms, frightening your avatars... It's a scary place.

I'm back because I have another question and you guys were so amazing with my question on phasers (thank you again!), so I thought I'd try here first.

This time, I have a question in regards to healing trances. I know Spock was injured in A Private Little War which brought on the trance to begin with, but I can't remember if he was so hurt he slipped into it or consciously chose to. Also, I was wondering, did they ever gave any specifics on how the healing trance works?

I know I can just rewatch, but I'm terrified the bunnies will get me and the next thing I know I'm writing about ... idek, Sesame Street vs Teletubby gang war crack fic while crying my eyes out.

It won't be pretty and the typos will be atrocious.

Hey guys, so I have a question. It's nothing that's pivotal to the plot of my fic, but it's still a nagging detail. So I'm m hoping someone knows this and it's not one of those "uh, duh" kinds of things. XD

So phasers, when someone is shot by one - to the best of my knowledge that person just falls over, right? There's nothing atomically vaporizing that would just make that person ~disappear~? I could just get out the episodes and rewatch to see if it's ever brought up but my brain is set to deep fry and I don't want to move. xD

Also! This is another question

Was there ever any attempt to try to organize where all the colonies and planets were in the different solar systems? Or was it just so haphazard and vague in canon that even the creators were just like "LOL, they're out there. Somewhere"?

I don't know if it's okay for plebs to post, THERE ARE NO RULES. WHY ARE THERE NO RULES. THAT'S LIKE A PARKING LOT WITH NO LINES, WE'RE SO DOOMED.

D: Okay, so. I have a bunny, a very good, tenacious bunny that has been with me for months and months - so I'm set with that. My problem is I have two ideas for how to write this thing and both ideas work splendidly with the bunny, but both approach it in two different ways. The first is a slow reveal, where it introduces the situation and later reveals how the characters got there, and the second is the usual chronological order where the character goes through the events day by day (nothing much to reveal, just living through the days).

So here's where I flail at all of you at 2 am completely wired on caffeine and insanity guess which one wears off :D.

How do you guys plot out your story to decide what's going to happen? Do you write by the seat of your pants or do you go through the painstaking process of deciding what happens in each and every chapter? What tips do you guys have for helping with the plotting process?

So, I'm formatting my posts in preparation for the big day, and my fic is about 40,000 words. I tinkered and saved until I managed to get about 10,000 words into the first post before getting the "post is too big" message.

Now, I could make three more big posts. Or I could split the entire oeuvre into several smaller posts (with copious links between each section, the master post, etc.). I'm wondering, though, what most people prefer for reading. Shorter chunks? Big-ass segments that you can read right through?

What's your preference?

Despite the several helpful posts preceding this one, I'm having some difficulty deciding how to format my mix. This is due mostly to the fact that this is my first time creating a mix around a fic someone has written. I was just going to ask my f-list their opinion, but I thought that maybe some other first-timers might find the answers helpful as well.

( long poll is looongCollapse )

[edit] makowe_pola suggests here that mixers also include a playlist formatted as a .m3u or .pls in the mix, which is a suggestion I had not thought of.

Mods, I hope this is okay :) If not feel free to delete and I can link to the post in my LJ in the comments of the post below?

So you want to make a mix and you're wondering if there's any helpful tips to the process or a way that will make the package all nice and pretty, right? You're in the right place. I've seen my fair share of mixes (quite a few from last year's Trek Big Bang as well as other places in the Trek fandom and across LJ) and I've seen good ones, and ones that want to make you tear your hair out - Apparently I need to explain myself here: by tear my hair out I mean that there isn't any semblance of particular order that the songs are supposed to be in and at least more than one of the files is in a format that won't play (either it's locked with DRM or it's a WMA file and macs don't like that file format). For all intents and purposes of this post, I was under the impression that a "mix" was meant to go with a story like a soundtrack goes with a movie - there's an order the songs go in that help to tell the story.

I won't point fingers at the latter kind, but for an example of a good one, go here. This mix was made by witblogi and if you follow the instructions I've created inside the cut, your mix will come out as awesomesauce as hers.

Also, apparently I should have put a disclaimer since I'm not one of the mods - I'm not "in charge" here so this isn't a "make your mixes this way or else" post. This is simply how I make them as *I* like to download/receive them, however, IDIC APPLIES TO MIXES JUST LIKE IT DOES TO SHIPS AND STORIES.

( Creating *one type of* a neatly packaged mixCollapse )

how's everyone doing!

betas! make sure to tell your authors that prone means face-down, supine is face-up. this can be remembered by 'supine' having the word 'spine' in it, and the spine is the back. 'penultimate' is never the word you want to use unless you mean second-to-last! 'lieutenant' should be spelled out in dialogue (it's a rank, not a title, you don't abbreviate 'ensign'). Lt. may or may not have a full-stop depending on your country, it actually doesn't matter, but pick one and stick with it. english is a weird language, yes.

authors! does everyone have a beta? try to go for at least two.

microsoft office users! tired of spelling out 'lieutenant'? on word, click the office button (the round thing on the top left), 'word options' (on the bottom right of the list), go to 'proofing' and click 'autocorrect options'. in the 'replace text as you type' area, put 'lii' in the 'replace' box, and 'lieutenant' in the 'with' box. now if you type l-i-i-space in your word doc, a lowercase 'lieutenant' will appear, and L-i-i-space will bring an uppercase 'Lieutenant'. (or you can switch to 'Mr.') i use 'lii' because 'lieu' is an actual word. you can do this with anything!

can someone hook up shingo_the_pest with some russian translations? is there anyone else who needs anything? eta: and nikki4noo below!