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  • Graeme

    GA's Newest Signature Author: kbois

    By Graeme

    Please join myself and the Author Promotion Team in congratulating kbois as GA's newest Signature Author! @kbois has been a member for 7 years and in that time she's developed from a relatively new author through to one that's reached the level of Signature Author. Her recent short stories Hide and Seek and Depth Perception are of particular note and we hope you enjoy them as much as we did. Congratulation, kbois!
    • 33 comments
    • 345 views
  • Aditus

    Talk Talk

    By Aditus

    Conversations. Sometimes it’s too much, sometimes too little, formal, informal, clumsy, artificial, with another word: difficult. Let’s practice, Shall we? #253 Someone is on the bus. The guy beside them fidgets the whole time with an irritating tinkling bangle while telling them, it seems, their entire life story, including very personal things. It’s time to pop in the earbuds. When it’s time to get off the bus, the talker has disappeared and the strange bangle is now on th
    • 0 comments
    • 29 views
Movies

United 93 - Go see it

I just got back from seeing United 93. It's about the 4th hijacked plane that crashed into the field in PA when the passengers tried to take back over the flight from the muslim terrorists on September 11th.   I strongly recommend that everyone see this movie.   Americans, and the world, seem to have forgotten that there is a large group of people that want to kill us all.
Myr

Myr in Movies

14

Cats and pets

Cubby, one of Luc's kittens has died. Now I'm not going to start a diatribe on the cruelty of nature, and I'm sorry about Cubby, but are we, and by we I mean 'pet owners', out to lunch?   I live with four cats I love much too much. They are wonderful distinct personalities, they bring me joy beyond any rational explanation, and I spend a fortune on feeding them ... when there are sentient human beings starving to death, being tortured by inhumane dictators, being bombed by arrogant western lea
Camy

Camy

6

Sad

The news of Green and David's accident followed by Green's death and Chaz's suffering has me devastated, and I'm trying to work out why. I don't know them in real life, I hardly know them here. It's not as if we talked in live chat. I've only been here a short while and only know of them through blog and stories.   I think it's because this is a site for fiction, and this is not the way the story was supposed to go. I'm very angry at how unfair life is, and very, very sad.   ------ Lo! some
Camy

Camy

2

Things keep churning slowly

Real Life's been kind of kicking my ass lately, and I've not been getting nearly the sort of writing done that I'd like. The rewrite of the last two chapters of Yankee, any of Carpe Diem (though at least I've got the background research I need done for that one), Wild Life, What Lies Beneath, any of the little interstitials with Justin and Rob... all just sitting there.   Not that I've been un-busy -- it's been an eventful month, what with having my dog euthanized, the separation, landing a po
TheZot

TheZot

1

Sunday, bloody Sunday

10am I was dragged from what I vaguely recollect being quite a nice dream by the damn telephone. I'd got to bed around 4am after being suckered into clicking on a pop up ad that took me to a site for laser eye surgery - facinating, but sleep would have been healthier. So I shamble to the phone and it's M my 'soul mate', you know, the one I want to shag senseless but am too frightened to ask.   We were supposed to be at a car boot sale (English 'boot' = US 'trunk') at midday. This basically inv
Camy

Camy

2

How long should a story be

I am frankly amazed at how some authors produce huge quantities of quality writing week after week, so I googled and thought I'd post some facts from Lee Masterton's article: 'How long should should your story be' Short Story 1,000 - 7,500 words The 'regular' short story, usually found in periodicals or anthology collections. Most 'genre' zines will features works at this length.   Novellette 7,500 - 20,000 words Often a novellette-length work is difficult to sell to a publisher. It is co
Camy

Camy

1

Buxom Babes

I've spent a good portion of the last couple of days thinking about the form of the human body and why it is that I'm attracted to guys rather than women? I love women, and to use a cliche a lot of my best friends are women, but...   I work with a bunch of people I really have nothing in common with, which is annoying. In the UK we have a paper called 'The Sun' and on page three everyday is the naked breasted babe with coyly arranged knickers hiding nothing. The paper is left (I get in late so
Camy

Camy

0

This week David Gilmour is my God

Since it seems to be de rigueur to have a track of the day, which btw I think is wonderful, I thought I'd waffle on about my album of the week. And definitely in my list of all time favourites.   I'm obsessed with Pink Floyd. Always have been I guess, though this week I'm hugely into 'The Division Bell' Two songs in particular both fit the me of now, and the lifestate I'm in.   'What do you want from me?' is the first, especially the lines: Do you want my blood, do you want my tears What
Camy

Camy

1

A sad pre-Easter tale

Yesterday.   Half way through a boring day at work my other half phoned. She was in floods of tears. We live in the country and one of the four cats, Percy (Sir Perseus Plumb-Puss, a big black bruiser of a softy) had brought in a baby Bunny. Alive.   I arrived home in trepidation. I'm the man (chortle) and as such, and if required, I'm the bastard who has to put poor defenceless beasties out of their misery. Spiders I don't have a problem with: Glass on top, magazine beneath and then a swift
Camy

Camy

3

Why Blog?

I've been sitting here looking at a blank screen for nearly twenty minutes, and it suddenly struck me why? why do I feel the need to blog - as neat a euphemism for cathartic soul cleansing as one could hope for. Now the Church is in decline, perhaps blogging is the only true confessional left to us. Not that I've ever been to confession...   I blog because I think I have something to add to the day to day 'diary' of my life. But why here? Well... I feel safe here, in that I can say things abou
Camy

Camy

2

Hey, look, over there! It's Elvis!

Bah. Characters are a pain. I should be working on the rewrite of the last two chapters of Yankee, or on its sequel, or on Wild Life, or even (gasp!) actual Real Work. Instead... instead I'm cleaning out someone's basement. Metaphorically, at least.   At least this thing should be shortish, probably about as long as Firegrass was.   To tease, here's a bit of the beginning of this untitled thing:   Untitled Story   "William," Ben said, his voice thick with accusation. "What did you do?"
TheZot

TheZot

0

Sunday drear and damp

It's raining. It's miserable, and yet I'm ok, when to all intents and purposes I should be as miserable as the day.   I've got so much to do, and I can't get my head around any of it. So here I sit loitering, reading blogs, and trying desperately to find something to take my mind off reality.   I work, amongst other things, building websites. I have updates to three of them, yet it's Sunday, and I'm playing the 'Lords day of rest' card. Come tomorrow I know I'll probably regret the wasted ho
Camy

Camy

2

Colliding!

I got tapped to write a chapter of Collision, the round-robin murder mystery thing that a bunch of authors are working on. Chapter 14, "Running to Stand Still", is up on AwesomeDude, DeweyWriter, and CRVBOY. Enjoy.   (Amusingly, there's been exactly one piece of mail about it so far, asking when chapter 15's coming out, and that showed up about an hour after chapter 14 went live...)
TheZot

TheZot

3

It's a bad sign, but of what?

I'm not entirely sure which is the worse thing, the fact that iTunes has an unnatural fondness for the KMFDM in my music library, or that I find it fits my mood. One or the other's probably worrisome.   At least it's interspersing Evanescence occasionally, just for a change of pace.
TheZot

TheZot

0

Coolness and Delight

Birthdays are very peculiar things. When you're a small they're wonderful. You get STUFF, often a party, and mostly people are nice to you... You can get away with an awful lot of mischief too!   Then you get to a point where the Birthday becomes... a weency bit of a drag. You celebrate because you feel you should rather than wanting too, and you often find you're celebrating to make other people happy; and honestly, that's just perverse.   That's where I was: 'Jaded' would encapsulate the f
Camy

Camy

2

Inspiration comes from the strangest places

Yesterday was, on the whole, a crap day. Which was kind of strange, because it was also weirdly productive.   The crap part was entirely personal, as we took my dog to the vets and had her euthanized last night. This wasn't something that was unexpected -- she was 16 and had a slowly progressing neurodegenerative problem that was destroying the myelin sheathing around her nerves, and over the weekend we hit the point where she had no control in her hind end and only spotty bladder and bowel co
TheZot

TheZot

0

The B Season

The local Birthday season starts in just under five minutes. All my friends appear to be either Pisces or Aries... Is this odd? I must start reading horoscopes. Possibly. Anyway Tomorrow/Today it's me. According to my stats here I shall be 100. That's old! Gosh.   Camy (the old)
Camy

Camy

2

Sunday

OCD. Hmm. Both Kevin and Patricky think they have it, and I just wrote a reply on Patricky's blog saying it was all twaddle. Then it crossed my mind that I have it too!   Whenever I go to the beach I have to find a stone with a hole in it. I mean it's not a total compulsion, but I do get annoyed if I have to leave without finding one. Luckily there are lots of stones with holes in them, otherwise I'd probably need a straight jacket.   This 'stone with hole' thing started a year or so ago. N
Camy

Camy

2

Rocky Mountain Oysters

I was trying to think of another name for this blog: I ponder a lot, and really 'A bunch of Balls' wasn't doing it for me. So I googled, as you do, and damn me if the truth is worse than any of my putrid mental fictions.   Those who live in the good old US probably know already that Rocky Mountain Oysters are Bulls Bollocks cooked and apparently eaten with a side helping of Chips. I was, and still am frankly amazed, and feeling rather squeamish.   Yelch. Real Oysters are bad enough.   Cam
Camy

Camy

5

Art, science, and craft

Or "On the nature of writing". Or something like that.   I figured it was time to stop just bitching about the things in my writing I'm not happy about and actually start doing something about it. It's too late in the semester to sign up for a writing class at the local community college, but it's never too late to read about writing, so I've started.   A while back I picked up a copy of "Characters and Viewpoint" by Orson Scott Card (on the recommendation of The Pecman, who wrote the storie
TheZot

TheZot

2

Points to ponder.

I need an editor. I thought I probably might need an Editor at some point but after reading some of the excellent prose on this site, and having read a lot of utter twaddle elsewhere it finally struck me that one of the main differences was Editor. With Editor good, without bad.   So now I want one, how to go about it? I know there is a thread about the subject, and having read it I'm no further forward. It seems to me that the relationship between Author and Editor is a bit like a marriage...
Camy

Camy

3

After A comes C, right?

So I finished the draft for the story that I've been currently blocking on (if you were in chat the other night you got to see me ambush Dio and Myr -- sorry guys. And no, the Jell-o pictures will never see the light of day ever! ) and sent it away to be poked at by folks who're good at poking things. I've already gone and fiddled with my index page to give it a spot, along with teasing about a few other stories in the same series that are in a sufficient state to figure they will be done, even
TheZot

TheZot

2

I have this picture in my head, see...

And I just can't get the !@#$ thing expressed right on paper. Or screen. Whatever. You know, actually written in writing. I hate that.   This may be the biggest problem I have as a writer, actually getting into words the things I see in my head. I can't draw them, so all I can do is describe them, and, well, words just fail me. Or I fail them. Something like that.   Feelings I can do, I can manage mildly poetic cadence that'll carry you along, and I'm pretty sure I can amuse, but damn me if
TheZot

TheZot

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