 | New Years Eve is a time for celebration, partying, and of course, New Year's Resolutions |
This challenge is to write a story about a New Year's Resolution. What is it? How do you feel about them? Do you keep them? Are they a complete waste of time and a lie to oursevlves? You can respond to the challenge here. Any type of story you wish, no restrictions other than a New Year Resolution is involved in some way. Happy New Year everyone!!!!! | |
 | Merry Christmas to all at The Chamber. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a very safe and prosperous New Year. Hopefully you all made the 'nice" list and kept off the "naughty"!! May all your hopes and dreams come true in the New Year. |
 | Christmas is a time of year that is wonderful for many of us, and sometimes sad too. A time of family and friends, feasting and overindulging, and of course, a time for GIFTS!!! |
This challenge is to write a story about a Christmas gift, Giving or receiving, or perhaps one wished for and never given or never received. You can respond to the challenge here. Any type of story you wish, no restrictions other than a Christmas Gift is involved in some way. Merry Christmas to those that celebrate it, and Happy Holidays to those that don't. | |
There is no need for authors to add disclaimers any longer. An automatic standard disclaimer is now included with every chapter. If you wish to include your own personalised disclaimer, then please feel free to do so.
We have just added a new feature to the Chamber to help people looking for beta readers. If you go the Members/Authors Link in the menu and change the dropdown to Beta Reader, you will be able to see a list of people who have offered their services as beta. You can then use the contact author form to contact them and ask if they would like to help.
This is NOT a promise of help, we are all volunteers here and nobody is obligated to help if they do not wish to, for whatever reason. We all have busy lives and may be able to help sometimes but not other times. Please be considerate when asking for help.
If you would like to get yourself added to this list, go into your Account Info/Edit Bio and select Yes for the beta reader option. if you find yourself already on this list and do not wish to be, please edit your info and set it to NO.
If anybody has any issues or problems with this, unsure how to use it, or wishing to report abuse of the system, please contact administrators immediatly at chamber@valentchamber.com
This month as we move into the holiday season, the time of year when we come together with those we love, the Chamber wants to challenge our writers and some readers too, to pen a tale about our brave military heroes who will be returning home from the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq.
All of us here have either seen our real life GI Joes moving quickly through the airport; or perhaps he is the man in your life, who is on his way back to you. Who doesn't love a man in uniform?
The story can be a fanfic or an original piece, just get writing as we honor our brave, loyal, sexy, military men. Are you up for the challenge?
Hello Ladies (and Gentlemen),
For the most part, we all want the Chamber to be a positive site and experience for everyone, readers and writers. Unfortunately every now and then there is someone who doesn’t want to play by the same rules as every one else. Disrespect of any kind, in the shoutbox, in reviews, in PMs, is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. Period.
However, in many cases, the only way the moderators will know if reviews/reviewers are abusive is if writers and readers inform the moderating staff. All members, if at anytime you see a review or behavior that is derogatory, offensive, or mean report it immediately.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with constructive criticism. Many writers find it just as motivating and invigorating as reviews that are solely positive. However, when the criticism is no longer constructive and is just critical and mean-spirited, there is a problem.
We have many talented authors here who depend on reviewers to keep them going, but criticism from a reviewer that is not constructive will not be tolerated. Authors please, if you are getting abusive reviews say something. This is a form of bullying and abusive reviews and reviewers need to be reported to the moderators so that action can be taken.
Just like this type of behavior is not tolerated in our personal lives it shouldn’t be acceptable in our internet lives and will not be tolerated. The Chamber is a site that was started with the goal of providing empowering stories about women of color to the public and we should not allow a few bullies to ruin it for the rest of us.
So if you see an abusive review, report it. If you receive an abusive review, report it, if someone gets mean in the ShoutBox report it. We all have to do our part, both writers and readers, to keep the Chamber a positive experience for everyone.
Due to some persisting problems that we haven't been able to fix with the beta support request script, we are shutting down that system and moving to one that is very similar within the forum.
It is very easy to use, although it will require that you be logged into the forum to utilise it. Once you log in, you can access it through the HELPDESK link in the menu. Hopefully we will have a little more luck with this one.
Authors, members, readers, lurkers, new and old, please take the time to review the new rules that have been uploaded here. All who visit the Chamber are expected to read and abide by them. Thank you for doing your part in keeping the Chamber one of the best sites for stories about women of color. If there are any questions about these rules, feel free to contact a site Admin.
Authors, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to take these romantic clichés and turn them on their proverbial heads.
Sand can get pretty itchy if it gets into the wrong places, plus you have to watch out for that seaweed. Oh, did we mention the sand crabs?
Don’t get to enthusiastic with your lovemaking in that candle lit room – you might kick over a candle and…..whoops!
Oh, wow, you didn’t see the ring in the glass of champagne? You….swallowed it??
No trope is off limits, go where your imagination takes you.
Respond to this awesome challenge Now!
We are now adding the option for authors to add video trailers to their summaries or chapters. At the moment the only way to do this is for an author to submit a request to an admin (we are working on fixing this but for now this is the best we can offer)
The vid has to be hosted on youtube, and requests can be submitted through the Helpdesk within the forum. Instructions for submissions can be found here.
Please note though, once the vid is coded in, if the author edits the summary or the chapter, the vid will be stripped and another submission will need to be made to get it back.
I know this is a hassle and not the ideal solution, for now this is the best we can offer, and we are working on improving this system.
Everyone wants to be someone, right? Well at The Chamber we all are. With the classic yet poignant color scheme, you’ll find yourself feeling as fabulous as a Hollywood starlet. Enjoy the lush, bold and elegant look of The Fame skin.
If you are having trouble with formatting, especially pasting from Word or any word processor, using the tinyMCE (the thing with the format buttons on), you will likely find a lot of mess and wrong sizing turning up.
The best way to avoid this is to press the little clipboard with the W on it (just under the font size dropdown) and paste your text in there. Then press insert. Once you do it that way, all the 'junk code' from the word processor is stripped and you can format your fonts normally to whatever sizes and style you like.
The other option is to uncheck the use tinyMCE box and paste your text directly into the box and format manually with code.
In Colour is a new skin avaliable to those who want a very colorful experience at Valent Chamber. Think of an atomic bomb filled with the colors of the rainbow that happened to explode on your computer screen and that perfectly describes In Colour. With an abstract cloud of different textures and elements dipping in the hues of the rainbow, In Colour won't disappoint if you are a colorful character.
Warning: You may be overwhelmed with the psychadelic-ness of this skin!
If you're interested in becoming a beta reader please reply to the post in the forum or comment on this post along with the types of stories you enjoy reading. We'll do our best to match you and an author who writes your story preferences through our shiny new support system.
We're waiting for you! Thanks!!!
Here is another writing challenge for everyone! This time we decided to try something different by creating a trailer instead.
Spring is the perfect season to start an adventure that could last a lifetime. Via road, air, rail or sea what better (worse) way than a planned perhaps even impromptu vacation. Find love, make new friends or ditch old ones. Whether it be beachside, countryside, mountainside or an exotic location, allow your characters (new or old) to get the spring on a new life.
You can respond to the challenge here.
If you notice anything missing, please let me know and we can track it down. We have lost 1 reveiws i think, so apologies for that. The reveiw tables just would not behave and this was the best i could manage. It will take some time, but nothing will be lost. It might just take a little while.
It is possible to set up a 'fake chamber' at an alternate address if people need their fixes but please note, if we choose to go this way there can be no submissions/reveiws etc to that one, only reading and browsing. I will let you know when this is going to happen as soon as I can get the last little things organised. I certainly hope to have this over within a week.
Any images found to exceed this new size limit, will be warned by the banner police. If the banner has not been taken down within 24 hours of receiving a warning message, the BP (Banner Police) will remove it.
Like gold, the beauty and poise of a strong woman is timeless. Check out a brand new skin called PureGold featuring an iconic and beautiful woman of colour; Queen Nefertiti. It has all the new features we've come to love, but, it also retains some original chamber features you may have missed!
Enjoy it, ladies!
So take a look!
1. Print story/chapter to word. On each story you should see a little word icon, which will enable you to print directly to word. (pdf is not possible at this time). Now, it seems the icon was always there, but likely didnt work as the module was never installed. It has now been activated and a quick test has it working for me.
2. Added a story tracker. As close as I can manage for bookmarking your place in stories at the moment. You can access your tracked stories via the browse menu (and the Tracked Stories in the Tis season menu). So far it is in only one skin, Tis The Season (which is serving as my tester skin for experimental stuff). On the right you should see a little option for track/stop track this story, and last read on date. Not really sure if this is working properly, so if people could try it and let me know, if it is working, I can then add it to all the skins, so you should have access to it everywhere.
3. Added a recommendation module which can be accessed via the browse option in the menu. If this proves popular, we can get it in the main menu as well. It will allow recommending off-site fics.
4. Would like to have a member suggested featured section of stories, maybe 5 or so, rotated each month/fortnight/whenever displayed on the front page. Good or bad idea?
5. Contact author is still broken and it looks like it will require a script upgrade and I can't do that just yet until the changeover is complete and have full access to everything. It is on my to-do list though and hopefully will get it fixed soon.
It's Spring Time at The Chamber and that means we've come over all maternal thanks to new flowers, lambs and Easter bunnies! We're Challenging all current and future writers to post a pregnancy or baby-fic story. It can be as long or as short as you like and you can use any characters in your arsenal or introduce us to some new ones. All you have to do is include a little bundle of joy!