This is where I dump all the crappy stories I wrote way back in grade school. (For perspective, I'm graduating from college in 2007.) I was going to start posting some newer work, but decided that I hate fictionpress so gave up. (Not on writing, mind you. Just on this site.)

The Purple Shells: A random, cheesy fantasy/sci-fi story I wrote for a yearly assignment in seventh grade. pokepoke

The Footstep of an Ant: A looooong, pointless, boring, predictable drama/mystery I wrote for the same assignment in eighth grade. Again, absolutely cheesy. (I lost the files for this, otherwise I'd post the rest...)
I do think some of the ideas I used in Ant were rather interesting, though, so I suppose there is a possibility that I will go back and rewrite this someday. (In the very distant future, haha.)

Please don't feel compelled to review back. The work that I have up here is all stuff that I don't want reviews for, and I don't intend to post anything else here anymore.

I review very rarely -- when I do bother to, you can be assured that at least something in your story has captured my attention in a good way. If I fave your story, it means the same thing. I am otherwise a very lazy, and very picky reader with a super short attention span. I won't like your stuff just because you have hundreds or thousands of gushing reviews and a gazillion fans, and everyone on the site knows of your fic. This means, basically, that I'll only review if I like your stuff at some level and actually have something coherent to say about it and/or can actually be bothered to type up something. (Reviews from 2005 and prior should probably be taken with a grain of salt; I've changed a lot since then...)

What I generally do when reading here, by the way, is to first of all look at titles and summaries. If either or both seem interesting, I'll click. Then I'll skim quickly through first chapter. If it's one of those info-dumping prologues, I'll skip it. If the opening sentence says something about the weather or the scenery, I'll skip several paragraphs. If there STILL isn't anything going on, and the writing really sucks, I'll click the back button. If the writing is decent or above average, I'll either read the next chapter, or skip to the last chapter posted (or somewhere in the middle). If I'm intrigued, I'll go back and read from the beginning.

If you manage to get me to read more than three chapters, I'd say that's a pretty big achievement in itself. (And I will likely read the rest of the story if that is the case. Unless I lose interest halfway through because the story starts dragging and completely sucking. But this has only happened once... with a rather popular fic I shall not name here.) Because otherwise, my default reaction is, "Right, uh huh. And why should I care?"

Having skimmed through dozens and scores of pages of stories on this site, I can tell you several things: Openings are Very Important. And I could care less about the weather. Opening action scenes mostly make me snore. Opening dramatic angsty scenes make me gag. Especially when they're droning monologues. Mysterious, shadowy figures make me roll my eyes. And childbirth/prophecy scenes and infodump prologues really just ought to be banned. (Remember: "Why should I care?")

Well, that's the number one tip I think most writers here need, coming from this jaded veteran of FP.com. Have fun! Or not.

(Note: It is entirely possible for a story to be written most excellently and yet still fail to engage me. In those cases, I chalk it down to a matter of taste.)