Friday, September 30, 2011

HASA news - Reviews, Birthdays, Challenges, Stories

A call for reviewers, October birthdays, Challenges and links to the stories written or updated in September.

Reviews

There are currently 7 stories waiting to be reviewed (remember to log in before you follow the link).

Member participation is crucial for reviews. The more people are involved in reviewing, the more different opinions are represented. Just as importantly, having more people involved means that stories pass through review more quickly – which is good for everyone. If you are an active reviewer, why not go and check out a story?

If you're not an active reviewer, but think you can spare a bit of time... – even if you just review one or two stories in a month, every review is welcome. If you are logged in, you can sign up here if you've been a member of HASA for thirty days or more.

Daunted by the idea of reviewing? Don't be; reviewing at its simplest comes down to asking yourself: “Would I recommend this story to someone?” Then, whether the answer is 'yes' or 'no', you can make a choice from the capsule reasons to clarify your decision. If you want to, you can add a few words to convey what you (dis)liked about the story, but just the capsule reason is perfectly fine as well.

And remember: even if you think you're too critical (or not critical enough): your review is only one of nine, and all points of view are welcome. Not every reviewer has to review every story and it all levels out to a balanced judgement.

October Birthday Challenge

Is your birthday in October, and would you like a drabble about your favourite character or topic? You can request it here.

Not sure what the birthday cards are about? Have a look at stories written for previous requests.

Current and closing Challenges

There are no closing challenges this month.

Prospective Challenges

Challenges are born from Prospective Challenges, and the Prospective Challenges Forum is where you'll find out what other people would like to spring on unsuspecting authors... If you have any ideas you want to share, why not head over to the Challenges Forum (including the Oliphaunt Forum); or be inspired by what is already there and pick up an older idea instead?

Nuzgûl of the Month

Just as Challenges come from Prospective Challenges, Prospective Challenges come from Nuzgûl, and Nuzgûl need attention to grow from tiny ideas into big stories. Step into the Nuzgûl hutch. The bunnies don't bite (much). And who knows what ideas you may come out with?

The Nuzgûl of the Month!

The October Nuzgûl, Namesakes, can be found here, and will run until the end of the month.

Come on over to the Nuzgûl of the Month Workshop and join in the fun. If you've written a story for any of the previous months, don't forget to add it to the Playlist!

September Stories

All of us writers love feedback. It is the lembas and miruvor that sustains us as we write our story, and leaving a few words about a story you read is always a nice thing to do, whether the story is new or old.

Every fifteen minutes HASA highlights a story chosen at random from the Reviewed and General stories in the archive. Read the currently featured story on our front page.

Many talented writers are publishing every day. In September:

--- No Reviewed Stories were published or updated.

--- 30 General Stories were published or updated.

--- 1 Beta Story was updated.

(Please note, you need to be logged in to view beta stories.)

Thank you for reading at HASA. Enjoy!

Thursday, September 22, 2011

HASA How-tos September 2011

How do I...

... use favorites, recommendations and comments?

In last month's How-to we looked at the various kinds of stories and how to find a specific story. This month looks at how to work with favorites, how to recommend a story and how to comment.

Favorites and bookmarks

Once you have found a story (see last month's How-to), there are several ways to bookmark it. As a HASA member you can save a story to Favorites. If you do this, you can always find it again when you're logged in.

Members - Save to Favorites

This stores the story in your own Library on HASA. The story is then always available anywhere in the site from the story favorites drop-down menu at the right hand end of the site header. To save to favorites:

  1. Go to the Stories section of HASA
  2. Click on either the overview or any chapter of the story you want to add
  3. In the Reader Toolbox that appears at the top and the foot of these pages, click the button that says "Add Story"
  4. The page refreshes and the story is added to your list.
  5. If you are on the Overview, the first chapter is bookmarked. If you are on a specific chapter, that chapter is bookmarked.
  6. When reading a long story, you can update your bookmark and set it to a new chapter by clicking on the "Set Bookmark" button in the Toolbox.

Members and Public - AddThis Button

On every story list and in every Reader Toolbox, there is a bright orange button with a plus sign on it. This is the AddThis service's button. To use the button:

  1. Hover your mouse over the button
  2. A pop-up window appears, with different commands and social networking sites
  3. You can send the page to the printer, bookmark the page, send the URL to an email address or link it to one of the services, such as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc.
  4. Click on the desired button
  5. If you use IE or Firefox, there are browser plug-ins that work directly with the AddThis button.

You can also just bookmark a story in your regular browser Favorites list.

If you have a lot of favorites, they display in the reverse order of when you added them. If you have a lot of stories, you may want to set them in a specific order to help keep track which one you are currently reading.

  1. Mouse over the "Stories" button in the top navigation bar.
  2. In the drop-down menu, select "My Library". (Note, if the menu does not drop down for you, click on the main Stories button. On the Stories home page, click on "Manage My Library" from the My Library menu.)
  3. On the home page of My Library, you will see the list of all your bookmarked favorites.
  4. Use the ordinal number form in the left hand column of the stories table to set a new order.
  5. Click "Reorder List" to update.

How to recommend a story

If you enjoyed a story, you can let others know why you liked it.

  1. Go to the story overview page or a chapter page and click on "Recommend" in the Reader Toolbox.
  2. When you see the recommendation form, choose one or more reasons from the list in the box (hold down the CTRL key to select more than one), then click "Add" below the box.
  3. The reasons you chose will be displayed below the story summary. You name as a recommender will appear and people can click your name to see what other stories you have recommended.

Other ways to recommend a story are:

  • Write a comment. Authors love comments!
  • Create a playlist and explain in detailed introduction just what is so awesome about this story.
  • Post in the author's forum. If the author has a forum, sign up and add a new thread to say what you like about the story. Get a discussion going!

How to post a comment

Authors love comments and they are so easy to do! You must be logged in to post comments. HASA does not permit anonymous commenting.

  • From the story overview page, look in the sidebar navigation for a box that says "Talk to [author's name]". You'll see the comment form in that box. Comments made from the over view page are always tagged as "General Overview" comments.
  • From each story chapter, look in the sidebar navigation for a box that says "Talk to [author's name]". You'll see the comment form in that box. Comments made from a chapter page are always tagged as belonging to that chapter.
  • From the Comments page, the comments box appears at the top of the comments for that story. On the comments page, the comment will be tagged with whatever chapter's comments you are viewing.
  • If a story does not yet have comments, the first comment must be made from the story, not the Comments page.

  • If a chapter does not yet have comments, the first comment must be made from the chapter, not the Comments page.

Have fun reading and exploring!

If there is any topic you'd like to see in the how-to, please let us know!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

HASA news - reviewed stories

Since the previous Bulletin, 3 stories have been reviewed and there are currently also 6 stories in review. Make an author's day and review a story!

As I type this, there are 6 stories waiting for your review (remember to log in before you follow the link).

Member participation is crucial for reviews. The more people are involved in reviewing, the more different opinions are represented. Just as importantly, having more people involved means that stories pass through review more quickly - which is good for everyone. If you are an active reviewer, why not go and check out a story?

Or, if you are a writer, take the plunge and submit a story for review; and when you do, remember: Put one in, take one out.

By submitting a story for review, you are asking nine other members to read and evaluate it. So why not do for the other authors who have a story in review what you'd like other reviewers to do for you: check out one of the stories already in review and give it a read.

Becoming a reviewer

If you're not an active reviewer, but think you can spare a bit of time... – even if you just review one or two stories in a month, every review is welcome. If you are logged in, you can sign up here if you've been a member of HASA for thirty days or more.

Daunted by the idea of reviewing? Don't worry, reviewing at its simplest comes down to asking yourself: "Would I recommend this story to someone?" Then, whether the answer is 'yes' or 'no', you can make a choice from the capsule reasons to clarify your decision. If you want to, you can add a few more words to convey what you (dis)liked about the story, but just the capsule reason is perfectly fine as well.

And remember: even if you think you're too critical or not critical enough: your review is only one of nine, and all points of view are welcome. Not every reviewer has to review every story and in the end it does all level out to a balanced judgement.

Reviewed story spotlight

These stories have passed through review since the previous bulletin. Congratulations to all authors; well done!

Empty Handed by Larner

Rating: General
Genre:  Humor
Era: 3rd Age - The Stewards
Summary: Although she claimed to have come for reasons of charity, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins had hopes of something for herself when she went into Bilbo's study--until that faunt spoiled it all!

Needle-Point by Wheelrider

Rating: General
Genre:  Romance
Era: 3rd Age - Post-Ring War
Summary: It's a long ride back to Edoras.

Battle upon the Quays by Imhiriel

Rating: General
Genre:  Action
Era: 3rd Age - The Stewards
Summary: The last thoughts of the Captain of the Havens of Umbar. Drabble. MEFAwards 2008: Nominee – Races: Men: General Drabbles

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Donations needed for August & September

HASA depends on donations to meet hosting costs. While this means that we come 'begging' about once a month, the good news is that a little can make a great difference! At the time this writing, our account is at -$173, which means we have 15% of July and all of August to fund, and the September bill will come due soon.

We currently have six Monthly subscribers who together donate $40 every month to HASA. We also have two Annual subscribers who together donate $30 per year. Together, these regular cover 28%, just over 1/4, of HASA's annual bill. We've also had donations and member donations this year ranging from $3 to $100. Thank you to everyone who has donated.

HASA is in its tenth year of providing ad-free, fee-free JRRT fanfiction that is owned and operated by the fandom, not corporate interests. There are no tests to take to join, all genres, characters, ratings and story lengths are welcome, and we get hundreds of readers a day. Your contact information is not for sale to marketers.

If you are one of our regular visitors, please consider setting up a subscription. $5 = one day of hosting. Economic times are tough. If you can't spare money, then please give something just as valuable - your time. There are stories that need reviews, a story comment can really make an author's day, we have forums for discussing any topic and, of course, you can post your own works for the enjoyment of everyone.

Thanks for enjoying HASA!

Julie

Saturday, September 3, 2011

HASA news - Birthdays, Challenges, Stories

September birthdays, Challenges and links to the stories written or updated in August.

September Birthday Challenge

Is your birthday in September, and would you like a drabble about your favourite character or topic? You can request it here.

Not sure what the birthday cards are about? Have a look at stories written for previous requests.

Current and closing Challenges

There are no closing challenges this month.

Prospective Challenges

Challenges are born from Prospective Challenges, and the Prospective Challenges Forum is where you'll find out what other people would like to spring on unsuspecting authors... If you have any ideas you want to share, why not head over to the Challenges Forum (including the Oliphaunt Forum); or be inspired by what is already there and pick up an older idea instead?

Nuzgûl of the Month

Just as Challenges come from Prospective Challenges, Prospective Challenges come from Nuzgûl, and Nuzgûl need attention to grow from tiny ideas into big stories. Step into the Nuzgûl hutch. The bunnies don't bite (much). And who knows what ideas you may come out with?

The Nuzgûl of the Month!

The September Nuzgûl, Pub Crawl, can be found here, and will run until the end of the month.

Come on over to the Nuzgûl of the Month Workshop and join in the fun. If you've written a story for any of the previous months, don't forget to add it to the Playlist!

August Stories

All of us writers love feedback. It is the lembas and miruvor that sustains us as we write our story, and leaving a few words about a story you read is always a nice thing to do, whether the story is new or old.

Every fifteen minutes HASA highlights a story chosen at random from the Reviewed and General stories in the archive. Read the currently featured story on our front page.

Many talented writers are publishing every day. In August:

--- 7 Reviewed Stories were published or updated.

--- 26 General Stories were published or updated.

--- 4 Beta Stories were updated.

(Please note, you need to be logged in to view beta stories.)

Thank you for reading at HASA. Enjoy!

~Nath ~