www.condfw.org
and it was in March. Have to wait for next year.

-paul

There's the obvious one: Pike's Peak writers convention (Colorado Springs)  Jim is going to be there.
Other than that, not a clue. 

-paul

I finished it late last week.  It was wonderful.
Major spoiler (end of the book kind of thing)

Great job.

-paul

Richelle,
quick question:
Is that how you read Jim's books (five pages a day?) 

Great read. Thanks
-paul

FYI
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/exhibits/permnature_exhib.htm#animals
Lions of Tsavo is a permanent exhibit at the Fields Museum.

And how about Norman, OK. Jim started out here and do we see him dropping by?  nope.


-paul

I also do a centered * * * * between scenes rather then a centered # -

Does everyone use a seperator (**** or ####) between scenes?
I usually just skip an extra line and go to the next scene.

-paul

Thanks for the feedback.
I will take a look at the tuitorial.
I have read "On Writing" several times, but still struggle with using passive verbs. It had good advice, but other than saying "don't do that", I didn't feel like it offer much on techniques to help.
When you are going back and editing how do you go about choosing your active verb.
I don't have problem with things like "She was sleeping on the couch." I have problems with things like "I needed to hurry, time was running out." (I come up with things like: "I was running out of time.")
I don't think there is a silver bullet, but maybe some tricks or techniques that help most of the time.

-paul

1) Most likely I will use conventional organization, but with changed names. My story is a quasi-medieval fantasy.
2) The enemy is big on ambushes. So most likely infantry. But my character is a hotshot with the bow, so probably archers somewhere...it's the first stages of a war, so only small groups are at the front now, perhaps no calvary...yet.

you could explain that for every platoon of infantry there is an archer or two. They would have to be multifunction (ie, more than just archers as they would be too vulnerable otherwise)

3) My MC is a scout, and he comes across a group much larger than his unit can handle. For a reason that I haven't figured out yet, though, they *have* to take on the enemy. I've got a spiffy way for them to do so, but that can't be the *only* fight. The MC has to be in some actions before this, so the commanding officer can trust him to do the spiffy thing...

So you could have your MC doing some scouting and discover a patrol that had been wiped out by an ambush and had to fight a pitched battle to report back (there by earning the trust of his commander) You might have him acting as a scout for patrol that is ambushed, the Lt (patrol leader) is killed and the MC takes over getting the patrol out, reports back, etc.  Either of these would be a smaller unit battle (squad or platoon size ie, 16-40 people)

I hope this helps some. Remember when you are doing small unit or platoon battles, if you are in 1st person, then your MC may be too busy to see much of what is going on, but he will occassionally take stock of the over all situation he is in (especially if he is leading people). I tend to write the tight single combat, mix in occasional info about the immediate area, and even more rare info on the battle at large. (if the MC is in the thick of things. if not, then having him observe larger action and updates to commanding officers is a good way of passing on info.) 

I also should note that I tend to write in the 1st person.

-paul