I hope it has been a beautiful day for all of you!!

Wow, just 3 weeks after opening we are now up to 35 members, 25 authors, 213 stories and 23 reviews!!! The mods are very pleased with the progress being made by our new 'baby' and we invite everyone to come on over and see what the archive has to offer! We are especially interested in finding authors who would like to post their Tolkien non-fiction. We have a few essays listed already and are actively seeking more. Have you written an essay you'd like to share with the group? If so, we'd love to have you on board, as well as writers of other Tolkien-related pieces.

The group's Guidelines can be found on the homepage of the yahoo group, which anyone can access regardless of membership. Also, you are free to join either the challenge group or the main group in order to archive at MPTT, or you may join us on both.

Please feel free to contact one of the mods if you have questions about the Archive, Challenge Site, and/or the Group! We'd be more than happy to help.

http://community.livejournal.com/lotr_community/

Mods:
virginia_lee_redcat@yahoo.com
aelfwina@gmail.com
radicalmomssr@yahoo.com
DanwFelagund@gmail.com

I am a wee bit late in posting this here, due to recent interruptions caused by that pesky hospitalization! I'd like to invite everyone to come see our brand new archive and perhaps see what the GFIC Group and the Community Challenges are all about. We'd love to have some new writers *and* readers join us, and we are quite proud of the new archive, not only because it took months of thought and lots of hard work, but because it was a true labour of love for all who were involved. A very special "Thank you" to Dawn Felagund, the site's designer and our wonderful webmaster, as well as Dreamflower and Pearl Took, who each worked so hard to help make this archive a reality - you ladies ROCK!
Cathleen





Many Paths to Tread-- A Tolkien Fanfiction Archive of the Lord of the Rings GenFic Community



At long last we are opening our new archive! We mods (Cathleen, Dreamflower, Pearl Took and Dawn Felagund) are very excited about this. We have been working hard on it for months, and feel that it is now ready for you members to read, post and explore.

The site, we think, is very visually appealing, thanks to Dawn's hard work. We currently have two skins available. The first one has all the "bells and whistles" and is image-intensive: for example, we have randomly rotating images on the header! The second one is simpler, and meant to be user-friendly for those who have slow internet or dial-up connections. We are using the e-fiction program, which is very familiar to many of you, although we have added a few things to it.

One thing some of you may notice: many of you may already have stories on the site. We are putting all of the challenges there, and so far have uploaded the first three challenges of the LOTR Challenge Community, the 2008 May Challenge: Coronation; the 2008 June Challenge: Father's Day; and the 2008 July Challenge: Summertime. If you see something incorrect or missing in your story entry, please feel free to edit and fix the problem. You may find these three Challenges by clicking on "Challenges" on the Home Page, or by looking for "Series" in the search program. For those of you who were added by the mods, you may certainly go in and edit your profile, change your user name if you like, etc.

We will in time add each challenge to the site, but if you wish to go ahead and upload your challenge stories before then, you may certainly do so!

Because the archive is new, it is likely to have a few problems. We believe that we have most of them fixed, but are aware that there are some which will be inevitable. For that reason, for the time being posting privileges will be limited to those who are members of either the Yahoo! group, LOTR_Community_GFIC or the LiveJournal community, LOTR Community Challenges ( lotr_community). We hope by doing this, we will be able to manage the numbers of stories being uploaded at one time in the beginning, and minimize inconveniencing people when glitches do happen. If you are a member of either community, simply let us know and we will give you posting privileges. However, even non-members are free to join, read and comment, and it is our plan to open the archive to open posting for all at the beginning of 2010. Please email us at manypaths@lotrgfic.com for general questions or suggestions, or at websmith@lotrgfic.com for technical questions.

Please go to check out Many Paths to Tread and let us know what you think! We hope you all will be as excited about it as we are!

The mods,

Cathleen (ceshaughnessy)
Dreamflower (dreamflower02)
Pearl Took (pearltook1)
Dawn Felagund (dawn_felagund)

Happy to say I am home from the hospital and on the mend! Thank you all so much for the well-wishes and another big thank you to Dreamflower for the lovely Pippin and Diamond Fic!!!

Hopefully I will feel like doing some writing now that sugery is a week behind me and I am feeling more awake!

*Hugs to all*

Cathleen

Pippin and Tulip finally get their story!

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More of Tulip's continuing adventure!

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I've been meaning to post this here for some time now. This story takes place on the same visit as “Partners in Crime” and was inspired by yet another of Golden’s wonderful bunnies!

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Thanks so very much to everyone who offered their thoughts and well-wishes for my Meggie! The vet has tweaked her meds again and I'm happy to say she is responding pretty well to the medications. While she's still not well, she is improved and has shed a lot of the fluid and has some of her energy back. Meanwhile, mom and dad are spoiling her rotten, along with our other girls!!!

And a *HUGE* thank you for all the lovely birthday wishes and pictures from everyone! Oh my, what a wonderful surprise and I simply can't thank all of you enough for remembering me. Things have been a little tough in RL the past few weeks, and so this is extra dear to me right now.

*Hugs everyone*

Cathleen

Your results:
You are Deanna Troi

Deanna Troi 100% Beverly Crusher 90% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 75% Uhura 75% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 75% Chekov 70% Geordi LaForge 55% Spock 45% Mr. Sulu 45% Mr. Scott 40% Jean-Luc Picard 40% Will Riker 40% Worf 40% James T. Kirk (Captain) 30% Data 30%

You are a caring and loving individual. You understand people's emotions and you are able to comfort and counsel them.

Click here to take the "Which Star Trek character are you?" quiz...

Yikes - I'm 3/4 Redshirt! Guess I better watch out *Looks over shoulder* But right on the money since I *am* a professional counselor. LOL! This is too funny!!!

My beloved Pomeranian, "Meggie" was DX with congestive heart failure this past Friday. My 4 "girls" are an immensely bright spot in mine, and my husband's life, and the thought that we may soon lose one of them is breaking our hearts. Meggie is only 9 years old, and the most loving, happy-go-lucky of our four-legged friends. I've been crying my eyes out for 2 days. But at least we *do* have an awesome vet, and she spent lots of time with us Friday going over all the diagnostic tests Meggie had to go through, and she put her on 3 cardiac meds. Poor baby has such a swollen tummy she looks pregnant, but it's caused by all the fluid she's retaining. Having a doggie on diuretics is not much fun for us *or* her, lol... We'll have to wait and see how she responds to the meds.

I know there are a lot of animal lovers here, so I'd like to ask you to keep my Meggie in your thoughts, and keep your fingers crossed that the meds keep her with us longer.

Thanks, guys.

PLEASE HELP!!!
We have one week (voting started on April 13th) to vote for the Jefferson County SPCA to win the million dollar makeover for our local animal shelter. The SPCA is a no-kill facility and desperately in need of funds. Our army post, Ft Drum, recently closed its shelter and the SPCA is now taking in all of those pets, too.

Please go to the link below, sign up if you aren't already a member, upload a pic of your favourite pet - and use your 10 votes per day this week to vote for the Jefferson County SPCA!

Thank you for your help!
Cathleen

http://www.zootoo.com/americavotes/intro

Some of you may be familiar with ZOOTOO. It's an online gathering of animal lovers with a wealth of info for everyone. Right now, the annual "Million Dollar Shelter Makeover" contest is running and will end in just NINE DAYS! I work with our local shelter, the Jefferson County SPCA, helping with fundraising, and would like to ask everyone for their support!

Last year we made it to the top 3, but didn't win the makeover. The shelter is saving the $10,000. prize awarded toward expansion as soon as enough money is gathered. One reason our local SPCA is overflowing is because our area has an ever increasing population, both at our military base, Ft Drum, and within the community. This, of course, creates much more need for help with our shelter which is in dire need of expansion. Added to the population increase here are the tragic cases of abuse and neglect when animals are abandoned. There is only so much room for these poor animals and we're doing everything we can to help ease the burden. Also, our SPCA is a "no-kill" facility. Meaning animals accepted there are not euthanized. Instead, homes are found for many. We exist solely on donations and fundraising.

What this involves is joining ZOOTOO and helping us rack up points by doing any of the various activities offered there. You get our shelter 50 points just by joining, and there is no obligation to do anything further unless you want to.

Anyone interested in helping, just logon at the link below, and be sure to list the Jefferson County SPCA as the shelter you wish the points to go to. The Zip Code is 13601.

http://www.zootoo.com/makeover/howitworks

Thanks so much!

Cathleen

This story was written for the Gen-Fic Group's January "Potluck" Challenge!

Was Pippin destined to look into the palantir?

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This is the one Elena created for my WIP, "Turning Points"- isn't it great? Thank you Elena!!

I want to share the lovely banner created for my story by Elena Tiriel, for the MEFA's! Thanks you Elena, you did a magnificent job with the picture and I love it!! *Hugs*

From a gift bunny given me by Dreamflower, who commented that I often portrayed "my" Pippin as disliking baths, but noted how much canon Pippin likes them. So, what happened? How did Pippin come to love taking a bath so much? Eglantine has her hands full trying to keep up with her muddy lad.

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Meggie, my Pomeranian!

This is my Silky Terrier, Molly. She's a little camera shy!

Jessie, my Pekingese!