Today's blog is some thoughts and insights into one of our long time members through a conversation with one of our older members. Check out this conversation about writing, GA, FSO and more with Colinian and Yettie One.

Our series, The Pulse Behind the GA Crowd, continues this month with another great interview with one of our esteemed GA members. Approached out of the blue for a chat over a brew, this young man proved to be a pleasure to find out about, as I am sure you will see.

 

I had the joy of chatting with an Adonis adorned with auburn locks this month while discovering another one of our many members here at GA, and in doing so discovered a wonderful young guy that has a thing for red haired guys himself. I have to admit, I kind of know what he mean’s, having a bit of a wild card attraction to certain red heads myself, and when Colin told me that his first celebrity crush had been Rupert Grint, I had to quietly acknowledge his taste in men.

 

ColinIan was first brought to GA by one of the Moderators of the site, and encouraged to post some of his stories here on GA. “I had written a couple stories and posted them on Nifty, and I eventually got an email from this girl who was a moderator on GA. She encouraged me to post my stories here. At that time GA was not a wonderful place to post stories unless you were hosted, and becoming hosted was complicated. So I submitted a story to one of the anthologies and it was accepted. Now, this girl ended up being banned or something, I don’t know the reason why and lost touch with her, and for this reason I can’t actually remember the name of this person to identify who it really was that introduced me to GA, but with the wonderful array of stories here on GA I’m glad I stuck around.

 

There are a lot of great stories here on the site, but of them all I love Circumnavigation by CJames the most. The story has the most intense sea piracy and survival scenes of any story I’ve read anywhere, and the memorable characters, intricate details, and the fact that sex is not the focus of the story makes for a wonderful reading experience. I love Mondays, when the next chapter is usually posted. Some other stories that I’ve really enjoyed reading include Growing Pains by dkstories, And He Was Gone by dkstories, Against the Machine by Riley Jericho and Under the Big ‘Ol Sky by Viv.

 

In terms of writers, my top five authors here on GA include Fishwings, Viv, C James and NightOwl88 but my all my favourite author on GA is dkstories. His stories are intense and hold my interest effortlessly. There is never too much story, Dan knows exactly when to wrap things up and leave a reader feeling content. I am sorry he is no longer at GA except for his premium stories. It is unfortunate to see a lot of stories moving from GA for one reason or another.

 

Colin who goes by the ID Colinian on GA is a 23 year old working in the Computing Science field and committed to a life long partner, Doug, whom he met at the age of twelve, and has been together with him since. I loved talking with Colin who has a passion for Tigers, loves prime ribs and mash and is proud of his name Colin. I asked Colin if he thought that love or happiness was more important, and like a seasoned veteran he told me that both are important in equal measure. “If you have love you will have happiness. That’s how it worked out for me. I’m in love and I’m always happy.” It made me smile to listen to a guy so obviously in love with his partner.

 

I learnt something new when I asked Colin what he’d do to enhance his experience of GA. He introduced me to Fiction Stories Online, a sister site to GA. It was interesting to learn of the site, and see his thoughts about FSO and GA. “Merge FSO and GA into one site. It’s always bugged me that GA expects stories to have gay characters, a gay theme, and some sort of sex scenes. I’m a gay author. More than half of the stories I write don’t have gay characters or a gay theme. The stories that I write that have gay characters and a gay theme don’t have sex scenes. That’s why I don’t post much on GA, and I post on Codey’s World and Awesome Dude instead. When I got started I posted several stories on anthologies. Some did not have any gay content. I got a nasty email from one of the senior moderators telling me that GA was for gay stories and my stories didn’t fit and I should go somewhere else. I was pleased when FSO got started. I know Cia has been working hard to keep it running, but the problem is there isn’t enough exposure because there aren’t enough readers on FSO (161). Merging FSO into GA will allow stories by gay authors that don’t have a gay theme or sexual content on the combined site and give those stories a much broader exposure. GA should support gay authors regardless of the content that they write (excepting porn; that’s more a Nifty thing).” I must admit I found it interesting to learn about FSO, as well as see Colin’s point about bringing the two together. Certainly food for thought.

 

But it is the overwhelming support that encouraged Colin to write and to continue writing that stands out in Colin’s mind as the overall most positive impact that GA has had for him, and it is great to learn a little more about one of the fellow writers here on GA. I’d like to thanks Colin for his time in chatting to me, and wish him all the best. If you have any time at all, I’d recommend popping along and checking out some of his short stories or send him a message and say hello. I’m sure you’ll find much as I have that he’s a really genuine and nice guy who knows a lot about GA and brings an interesting and different view point to life here at GA. Till next time, when we will once more meet and discover a little bit about another GA member, have a great month and enjoy your Christmas.

 

The Yettie.