3 minutes ago, Stellar said:

through the imperfect medium of Google's translator.

Maybe, you'd like to try out DeepL, a translator that uses a different, more modern technological approach to translating that is more inspired by human thought processes.

4 minutes ago, Stellar said:

I admire that Iroc has the fortitude to attempt this, as I'm sure it can't be easy.

Oh, his English skills are considerably good and because of his similar writing style, he already showcased in another of his stories, he accomplishes it to stay quite true to the original text.

10 minutes ago, Stellar said:

some of the comments have both surprised and amused me -- yours included -- because I haven't read anything similar on GA. 

Thank you ^^ It's always interesting to get a new perspective on a story—especially culture-wise as you said.

@Zuri and @Stellar I consider myself a sympathetic reader, by that I mean that I try to look beyond minor spelling errors and occasional poor grammatical errors as few of are perfect in our use of the english language. When I succeed in doing this it enhances my appreciation of the story being told. Often this needs to be done when english is not the first language of the author, for those authors it must be difficult as English is a complicated language, particularly when you also consider local colloquialisms and the use of slang, a good imagination is always useful in these instances and gives the authors story a chance.

@Mancunian You express exactly what I'm thinking: Translating a non-fictional text differs for example by having repetitions of phrasings to be consistent and has a formal tone in general. But when writing my first English story, I realized, I had difficulties finding interesting, alterations of repetitive tasks like messaging on the phone. By reading English stories here on GA or English novels in general, I try to absorb more and more ways to express things and improve my word hoard.

34 minutes ago, Mancunian said:

I consider myself a sympathetic reader, by that I mean that I try to look beyond minor spelling errors and occasional poor grammatical errors as few of are perfect in our use of the english language.

I generally try to do this too, and whilst tolerant of a certain level of functional misfiring -- moreso in the case of ESL than native speakers -- there might come a point where the problems are too much of a distraction to take the content seriously.

14 minutes ago, Zuri said:

But when writing my first English story, I realized, I had difficulties finding interesting, alterations of repetitive tasks like messaging on the phone.

Believe it or not, this is one of the more annoying parts of creative writing, for me: finding new ways to say the same basic things, or at least to space out repetitions far enough apart that it isn't any kind of sin. Using wonderful poetic language to set a descriptive set-piece is one thing, finding the ten thousandth way to tell the audience that your main character walked down the street is another.

Mind you, I've seen authors go a bit far in the other direction and have every alternating term be another synonym for the word 'said' or 'smiled' or whatever -- it ends up sounding a little ridiculous, like somebody threw a thesaurus into a blender.

8 minutes ago, Stellar said:

Mind you, I've seen authors go a bit far in the other direction and have every alternating term be another synonym for the word 'said' or 'smiled' or whatever -- it ends up sounding a little ridiculous, like somebody threw a thesaurus into a blender.

Well, it's a rule, they teach in German, too. In theory, it's a good rule, to avoid, only making characters "say" something but nothing else. In practice, it's like with many other rules: Find a middle-ground. When it's not important, how somebody said something and you didn't use "said" in the previous line of dialogue, don't bother to use it again as long as it doesn't feel misplaced.

11 minutes ago, Stellar said:

Believe it or not, this is one of the more annoying parts of creative writing, for me: finding new ways to say the same basic things, or at least to space out repetitions far enough apart that it isn't any kind of sin. Using wonderful poetic language to set a descriptive set-piece is one thing, finding the ten thousandth way to tell the audience that your main character walked down the street is another.

Glad to hear, I'm in good company ^^

On 4/28/2022 at 5:58 PM, TetRefine said:

I found this site in August of 2009 off of related links on an old porn blog I used to follow as a teenager. I lurked for a few weeks, read some of the stories, and decided to join. I was mostly looking for an outlet to explore being gay in when I had absolutely none of that in the small town I grew up in. I ended up meeting a boy on here through the old chat feature who lived relatively close to where I did. One thing led to another, and we were together for six years before we went our separate ways. 

That was Camilo, as I recall? Sorry it didn't work out. I remember jealous at how cute you two were.

On 4/28/2022 at 5:58 PM, TetRefine said:

I haven't been overly active for the last 3-4 years as life moves on, but I do enjoy browsing around from time to time and seeing what some of the other old heads who've been around since the early days are still up to. I'll probably stick around here till the end of time, even if it's just popping my head in from time to time to look around. 

I've been gone probably three years too, just because life is busy and I've had less time for pleasure reading.

I think I found my way to GA because of Dom Luka, but it could have been because of Mark Arbour. I stumbled on an old work of his, maybe his first and I was led here. I liked the old chatroom. I liked reading stories with characters I could relate to and I liked reading stories with people who had more drama than me in their lives. 

4 hours ago, PrivateTim said:

On 4/29/2022 at 1:58 AM, TetRefine said:

I haven't been overly active for the last 3-4 years as life moves on, but I do enjoy browsing around from time to time and seeing what some of the other old heads who've been around since the early days are still up to. I'll probably stick around here till the end of time, even if it's just popping my head in from time to time to look around. 

I've been gone probably three years too, just because life is busy and I've had less time for pleasure reading.

I think I found my way to GA because of Dom Luka, but it could have been because of Mark Arbour. I stumbled on an old work of his, maybe his first and I was led here. I liked the old chatroom. I liked reading stories with characters I could relate to and I liked reading stories with people who had more drama than me in their lives. 

There is nothing wrong with taking a break from time to time. As you said sometimes life is busy. I had a short break in the four-plus years that I've been a member, although for different reasons. The good thing about returning is knowing that there will be many new stories to catch up on, friends to reconnect with and new friends to be made.

I don't know anything about the old chatroom as it didn't exist when I joined, it sounds like it was fun. Maybe there is a case to bring it back, but on the flip side, there may have been good reason for it to be taken down. It would be interesting to hear, and know, more about it.

On 5/30/2023 at 12:20 AM, PrivateTim said:

That was Camilo, as I recall? Sorry it didn't work out. I remember jealous at how cute you two were.

 

It was. Ended in 2015, and last time I saw or spoke to him was randomly running into him at a bar here in New York in 2018. 

I started writing stories 25 years ago and posted my stories on a couple of different sites.  One of those sites is no longer around, but the other was Nifty.  My first story, A Tragic Love, was a reaction to the Matthew Shepard murder near Laramie, Wyoming. 

I received many positive responses from gay teens and gay tweens about the story, and quite a few of them told me personal stories about themselves, and after hearing their stories, I got to know them at a deeper level.  Some were dealing with problems arising from being gay, mostly from their families or the school environment, so I decided to write a story that might help them escape and even cope in some way. 

As I explored the idea with them, as a place they could go to mentally escape and possibly even supply them with ideas they might use to cope with their problems, the encourage me to write the story.  A number of them even asked if they could be a character in the story, and I agreed to loosely based a character on their situation, and that's how The Castaway Hotel came about. 

Since I was posting mainly on Nifty at the time, I felt pressured to included a lot of sex, but I mainly wanted to tell a story.  Eventually, @Myr saw some of my stories and must have enjoyed them, because 20 years ago he asked if I'd be interested in posting my stories on a new site he was creating.  I agreed and I've been here ever since, both writing and reading stories. 

Thank you @Bill W for the valuable comments in reply to this blog. I've read some of your work and enjoyed and appreciated what I have read. Your comments also blow me away, you haven't just read and written stories, you have given some an outlet to deal with life-changing events which I am sure has meant a lot to them and helped them immensely. Thank you for that and for being there for them. You are a special and unique person.