Ok, so alot of you ladies say that you like to write. I was just wondering if any of you ladies would like to post some or a bit of your work. It can be anything, I would love to read some of your work, as long as it's not pages and pages lol.

Just the introduction to a story I've been working on for a while.

*****

I always knew I was different from the rest of my family. I watched my mother for years set my older sisters up with men and push my older brother into a relationship with a spoiled brat who was absolutely no good for him. All 10 of them seemed to be oblivious to my mother’s manipulation of their lives. On the plus side my 9 older sisters at least liked and got along with the guys my mother chose for them and my brother, despite my warnings, was completely taken by the lovely Chantal. I was not to be so lucky.
The minute I turned 17 my mother started her craziness of pushing strange men my way. It started innocently enough with my coming of age masquerade ball. Since the age of 14 I had become accustomed to the attentions of the male sex. Although I don’t understand their interest in my thin figure and pale complexion, I was flattered. It soon grew old and I began dreading going out in public because of the attention. My seventeenth birthday was no exception. Men lined up to have their turn to dance with me. About half way through the ball I noticed my mother hovering not far from the dance floor with a few older men talking and motioning my way. I realized she must’ve been talking about me.
It was then that one young man caught my eye. We made eye contact for a fraction of a second before he turned away and disappeared. I watched his lovely back as he vanished from sight. The dance ended and I excused myself from my partner to see if I could find where he had gone. I didn’t get far before my mother pounced on me to introduce the men she had been talking to while I was dancing.
“Sweetheart, this is Earl Demby, Duke Erickson, Lord Cramer, and Count Breech.” As my mother introduced them I noticed that they were each at least partially graying. Lord Cramer had even started to bald.
“How do you do, sirs?” I asked politely looking past them to scan the room for a man with a handsome face, dark, curly hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.
My mother kept trying to engage me in the conversation, asking me questions, trying to get my opinion, until I gave up looking for the young man who caught my attention earlier. I tried to politely excuse myself from my mother and her plotting by saying I needed to freshen up a bit. Thankfully, it worked and I was free. I had given up on finding the handsome stranger, so I ran off to find the one person I could talk to, my older brother Prince Capriccio. Oh, by the way, my name is Lyric Galatea Noelle and I’m the tenth princess of the beautiful kingdom of Daringia.
*******

I dreaded having to go to another ball. I was 21, I shouldn’t have to listen to my father anymore, but since his health started failing and we weren’t given much hope we’d have a whole lot of time left with him I conceded to go. I was his eldest son and heir so I felt it was my duty to honor his request.
I expected tedium and disinterest and wasn’t disappointed. That is until I saw the most beautiful creature on the planet. She had the tiniest waist I had ever seen accentuated by her moderately wide hips and beautifully full chest. Her deep red hair was worn in the fashionable way of being kept up away from the face and cascading down her back in silky waves and gave a faint rosy glow to her ivory skin. Her lips were also a deep red, soft and plump. They almost looked as if they were begging to be kissed. She had an easy smile that brightened her entire face and sent a sparkle to her amazing emerald green eyes while showing her straight, white teeth. She was mesmerizing.
I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off her the entire evening, hiding out-of-sight to observe her less conspicuously. She seemed polite and kind, but not thrilled with the ball and its attendees. I found that odd as it was her party. For hours I watched her dance with various partners and listened to her make polite conversation. During one dance I was admiring the way her hair flowed about her as she twirled around the floor and suddenly she looked at me and we locked eyes. I had been found out.
A second later I turned and left, embarrassed to have been caught staring at her beauty. I ran out to the garden and hid there for the rest of the evening.
As we were riding in the carriage back to our home my father asked me if I had enjoyed myself. I replied that I had been pleasantly surprised to find enjoyment that night. He then asked if there had been any maidens there that caught my eye. I was thankful it was dark in the carriage so he couldn’t see me blush and told him all the maids were lovely. If only he knew what I had been really thinking.

I really enjoyed that Meghan. If that's how your book starts I like it. I love how you chose to just start in and introduce the character throughout. I think it's neat to see, rather read, the same nights events from the two different point of views. Have you written any more to this story? Is it written in a diary kind of way?

It was good, I liked it generally. You could spread out the descriptions of the main characters a bit more, through dialogue or description of what the character's been doing coupled with their appearance. "Her deep red hair flew behind her as she danced," "He ran a hand through his curly dark hair" or things along those lines. It makes it more interesting, because the story continues and you still get the information in.

A more graceful way to fit her name in there would be to have her mother formally introduce her to the men instead of using 'sweetheart.' The 'by the way' feels forced. It was already made clear that she was the tenth princess, and the country name can be put in with her narrative of her siblings or through some announcement or just later on.

Your sentence structure gets repetitive in places. Try combining a couple of the shorter ones together; fiction should have more of a flow or rhythm than a steady beat. Use commas and semicolons more liberally. If you do it right it won't feel run on.

Sorry, I help my friends with their writing a lot so I hope you don't mind my comments.

I'm one of those writers that won't show their work until they're happy to say they're done (or almost done) with it. So I can't really post any work but I'd be happy to give an honest opinion for anyone brave enough to hear/read it.

I don't post much of anything online...sorry. I'm a little paranoid that something I write will get stolen. It's why I shut down my webook account, and I'm trying to get accepted again for buzzle because that's smaller and most of the writers are 13/14/15 and aren't looking to publish. I used to be on there under "Skylar Peace" but then they changed their system so there were no spaces in the username and I couldn't log back in again.

Meghan, by the way, your passage was really good (especially your word choice, it flows nicely), but I also agree with everything Celianne said. Especially the part about slipping information in. I never used to do that, and once I started my stories started sounding a lot better. I had more story and less description. Good luck!