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Archive of Gay Authors News, Articles, and Blogs

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News Archive

GA's Newest Classic Author: Mike Arram

Please join us in congratulating Mike Arram on becoming GA's newest Classic Author! @Mike Arram has been writing and posting stories on the Internet for many years, and we're pleased to announce that he's now started to also post them here at Gay Authors. Mike Arram is the author of The Peacher stories, The Crown of Tassilo, as well as the first story he's posting here, Terre Nouvelle.   Checking out Mike's bio, we learn that even as a child and then into adulthood, he has an amazing i
Graeme

Graeme in News Archive

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Critique

Improve & Encourage #15: Solcar

Hope everyone has had a good month so far. We're getting closer to wrapping up the Improve & Encourage feature. This month we have a critique on Carlos Hazday's story Solcar. Let's take a look at Parker Owen's critique!   Solcar Carlos Hazday   Critiqued by: Parker Owens   Please give us a short summary of the story you chose.   Solcar, once a High Lord of Star Clusters and a member of the Council engaged in a proscribed act. He made love to a hum
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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Technology Archive

Server Update, Authors, Delayed Notifications

We had to do a server update earlier today and I had a small configuration issue.  The background task was not processing the last few hours and I've corrected that issue. There was a glut of notifications that were off by several hours.   We also had an odd incident where an Author group expired.  If this happens to you, you can just go back to the store and select author again. (In theory)  If there is an issue, just send us a support request from the help menu.  
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

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Critique

Improve & Encourage #14: Bliss

Well, we're getting closer to wrapping up the Improve & Encourage feature. Working toward that goal, today we've got a critique on CassieQ's story, Bliss.  If you missed out on the opportunity to sign up for the Improve & Encourage feature, don't worry, there are other features available for you!  Let's take a look at what Mann Ramblings had to say about Bliss.   Bliss CassieQ   Critiqued by: Mann Ramblings   Please give us a short summary of the story
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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Technology Archive

Server Software Updates

I have done some updates on the underlying server software today.  If you were around while I was doing this, the site was going up and down like a yo-yo.   A reboot and a couple of services restart later and I think we are up and running. Everything I tested seems to be working and all the big red warning flags I was getting have cleared.   (for the technically inclined, we went from PHP 7.0 end of life version to PHP7.1.  I had to get the extensions right and update the caching system. bl
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

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Technology Archive

Streamlining Help Menu

As mentioned in previous announcements, we are undergoing clean up and consolidation.  As part of this, some of the temporary links that were on the forums have been removed and placed in the newly streamlined "Help" menu.   Help -FAQ = a list of common questions with links to the answers. Help Topics = a database of common questions and answers Step-by-Step Guide to Authors = How to become an Author on the site. Support = Open a support ticket if you
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

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Technology Archive

Writing Resources Page

We have consolidated and removed two different forums that were dedicated to Writing Resources.  We have instead replaced them with a single Writing Resources page. This page will be a constant work in progress as we update and make better ways to organize it.  There are already a ton of resources linked on the page.  If you're writing and stuck on something, there is probably a resource there for you. https://gayauthors.org/writingresources/  
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

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News Archive

All Stories Updated in 2018

Recently Updated 'Premium' Stories Strawberry Chapstick by Comicality Recently Updated 'Signature Author' Stories GA Writing Prompts by Dolores Esteban Summer's End by Parker Owens The Hollow Hills by Valkyrie Castle Dark by Cole Matthews Superhero Surprise by Cia Igneous by Valkyrie Culled by Parker Owens The Death, Life and Suicide of Tommy Crouch by Tarek Donohue by Mikiesboy Lifting the Veil by Headstall Je
Myr

Myr in News Archive

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News Archive

Happy New Year and Announcements

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR! Over the next few weeks, we will be doing a number of things around the site to simplify and streamline things.  We have a very large sprawl of forums at this point that are semi-active or less.  We are working on consolidating those so that only what we need is around.  The Announcement forum is the first thing that is highly visible that is getting removed.  We will post Announcements in the most appropriate blog going forward.  When we do so, we'll use
Myr

Myr in News Archive

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Critique

Improve & Encourage #13: The Tollbooth Operator

Hello all, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!  It's hard to believe that the year is nearly over, and it's been such an exciting year. For today's blog, we're going to start wrapping up one of our previous blog features. The Improve & Encourage feature was a fun one to do, but it's time to move on to a new feature. With that in mind, I'm working on getting the final few Improve & Encourage posts and it will be complete in the near future. Today, to help get us started, we have a cri
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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News Archive

Happy Halloween!!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!  Hello, Hello!!!!  Long time no talk to!  My little guy is doing well (and sleeping through the night, YAY!) and I thought perhaps it was time I returned to my site duties. A huge thank you to all the admins and other team members for taking care of the blogs and blog content while I tended to Baby J and took care of some health issues. @wildone has agreed to continue helping with the Weekly Wrap Up blogs while I get back into the swing of things. I hope everyone is doing w
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in News Archive

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Fun Stuff

Caption This Challenge! Halloween Two... too? Edition

This challenge was so popular two weeks ago and we have another open blog today, so I thought we'd have some more Halloween fun. It's almost here! It's a super simple challenge that helps get your creative juices flowing... write a caption for this image below that tells a story and share it in the blog comments. You have just 30 words or less to share what you think is happening in the picture. Narrate the scene, give a spooky reason why those jack-o-lantern's are clustered there, or give us a
Cia

Cia in Fun Stuff

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Fun Stuff

Caption This Challenge! Halloween Edition

In the past, I've done Caption This Challenges in the newsletter, and since we have an open blog today, I thought we'd have some Halloween fun with one on the site blog. It's a super simple challenge that helps get your creative juices flowing... write a caption for this image below that tells the story in a minimum of words and share it in the blog comments. You have just 30 words or less to share what you think is happening in the picture. Narrate the scene, share what's going through the view
Cia

Cia in Fun Stuff

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News Archive

Has it been 16 Years? Yup.

My, how time flies.  16 years!  The site started on September 13, 2002.  The story on that can be found on our 15th Anniversary page here: https://www.gayauthors.org/anniversary/   This year, I just want to say:   THANK YOU! We are here today because all of you are still here posting stories, reading stories and sharing in our community.  So, in the spirit of our great community, how about you share with us what Gay Authors means to you?
Myr

Myr in News Archive

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - New Series and Worlds Feature

This week I'd like to talk about two of the new features coming to the site soon.  I've shared this a bit with the authors, but I wanted to share them a little wider.  This is a more focused view for readers. We currently have one way for authors to group their stories: Series links.  They work, but I've wanted them to be more obvious.  So, with the new version, we're giving a bit more depth to our Series. Series now has a description.  We can also add a series banner and special
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Premium Subscription System

For those of you that don't know, Gay Authors stays open and improving through the combination of Premium Membership subscribers and advertising.  This pays the bills and allows to maintain and improve the site.  In the last version of the forum software, they introduced a simplified Subscription Management tool.  The most important thing it does is fixes that stupid error "You have already purchased... etc".  The catch, of course, is that any time the software changes like this, there are hiccu
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

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Technology Archive

Stories 2.3.2 Is now Live

We have just posted a new version of Stories.  In theory, this finally corrects the notification bugs.  If you Follow a Story, you should now get your notifications every time.  If you Follow an Author (on the author page) you should be alerted when they post a new story.   A "Part of Series" toggle has been added to filters:   The quick search links now properly activate existing filters and you should be able to change them or remove them with the minus sign. Exa
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

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News Archive

GA's Newest Promising Author: Dodger

Please join myself and the Author Promotion Team in congratulating @Dodger in becoming GA's newest Promising Author. Dodger has been a member at GA for over six years, and in that time he's posted over 700,000 words across eight stories including his highly enjoyable epic The Cockney Canuck. You can find all of his stories at his author page, so settle back and have fun reading the creations of our newest Promising Author!   Congratulations, Dodger!  
Graeme

Graeme in News Archive

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News Archive

Author Promotions

I'd like to talk about Author Promotion, what it is and how it works.   As hopefully everyone is aware, here at GA we have a number of authors with either the Promising, Signature or Classic status. These are authors that we have "promoted" after a review by the Author Promotion Team (APT). The APT is a group of members whose job is to evaluation authors that have been nominated to see if they're reached the "next level" of writing.   What do Promising, Signature and Classic
Graeme

Graeme in News Archive

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - New Search Filters

For those of you that have not yet watched the video on how the new search filters work, please watch it now:     Back?  Good...  Now to add a few things.  Since the new search system uses the URL to add filters, you can now bookmark your search. Or copy it for others.  For example, this is all the Sci-Fi stories by dkstories: https://www.gayauthors.org/stories/?filter_genres=9&filter_authors=212     Or maybe your thing is complete Long
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

0
Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Following Blogs

Today we are going to talk about how Follow works.  In the forum software, Follow works by notifying you to new content in the item you wish to follow. So, if you follow a blog, you get notified of new blog posts.  If you follow a blog post, you get notified of comments to that blog post.  If you follow a Forum, you are notified of new topics to the forum.  If you follow a topic, you're notified of new replies to the topic.     When you click the follow button, you get these
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Story Archive Next Version

So I shared a sneak peek of this post in our Writer's Circle.  I encourage authors to join the club if you haven't yet because there are a ton of great posts in there, and sometimes early information about upcoming features for authors.   So, we've got the new Stories user interface worked out, and we're fixing the bugs.  Here's a sneak peek at it:      The quick Title search will now be on every page.  The previously empty search field now has "Search stories..." to g
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

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News Archive

Happy 20th Anniversary Comicality!

Instead of the usual Tuesday Tech Blog this week, I'm taking the day to wish my first online author friend a very very happy 20th Anniversary of him posting his stories for us all to enjoy!      On June 19, 1998, 20 years ago today, Comicality posted his first chapter of New Kid In School on Nifty.  https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/highschool/new-kid-in-school/ (If you look at chapter 1-2, you'll see the date stamp)   Comicality hooked me right away on his stori
Myr

Myr in News Archive

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday: Clubs

I thought I would swing around to Clubs again for this Tech Tuesday.  Clubs are semi-private groups here on Gay Authors.  We have a few different clubs available currently, and you can find them under the Club Link on the main red menu.   I strongly encourage our authors to join the Writer's Circle.  There are a lot of ongoing discussions in there, and our friend @BHopper2 has been nice enough to start his own ongoing topic discussions each Tuesday which have brought forth some g
Myr

Myr in Technology Archive

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Critique

Improve & Encourage #12: Stars for the Star

I hope you all enjoyed the last Improve & Encourage feature, because it's time for another one. These features are meant to both provide feedback to authors and, similar to story reviews, point out stories that readers might not otherwise have found. It's similar to a review, in that the person doing the critique tells you what they liked about the story, but it differs in that they also provide constructive criticism. Each author signed up to participate, and sign up's are still open!  Thes
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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