Cia

Closed-minded people often lash out with verbal attacks. It's a true shame. My kids are too young to teach about this sort of issue but I am always trying to instill acceptance for other's choices in them. We saw a woman heavily covered in tattoos last week and of course they stared. Now a lot of people in my family have tattoos, including my hubby and me, but this was pretty extreme. When we got to the car my kids asked why she looked like that and my reply was that she liked it and it was her body. I'd at least taught them not to be judgmental about other's appearance but to ask me in private. Of course they both said it was 'weird', but hey, weird can be good, right? I laud that 14 year old's parents. She's being taught not only to stand up for what she believes is right, whether it affects her or not, but the harsh reality that can often come from doing that. I'm glad she has people standing up with her, including her parents. Too many people say, 'This is bad, but it's not happening to me so who cares?' That apathy is ruining our communities. We should all be reaching out to help our fellow man--or woman in this case. Don't judge, don't try to impose your own version of morality on others, and certainly don't be a hypocrite.

Thank you Celethiel! This story, while I tried to incorporate a few surprises, really wasn't one where I tried to throw in a lot of twists. Each tale for this trilogy stands alone, yet intertwine. I hope you'll enjoy the other two stories as well. There is a lot more to this first story going on than meets the eye ... though you don't find that out til later. Thanks so much for the review, hun!

Lugh repeatedly said this story was pure smut as he wrote and edited it, and when he waffled on posting it as he tried to decide if it was good enough beyond those elements. I challenged that and always replied, "besides, I like smut!" Bernat and Eron's relationship might have started out with anonymous (and holy smokes HOT sex), but the heat and attraction between them was perfect for a planet where dreams are supposed to come true.

Very poetic. You use some lovely descriptions; they were quite varied, but the visuals were hard to 'see' because things were disjointed. I had no idea if this was taking place at a house or a coffee shop or what and couldn't really picture the characters as a whole. Oh, and to learn how to punctuate dialogue you can check out a pinned topic in the writer's corner on the forum page. That is a writing basic I took forever to learn until I found the cheat sheet that is posted in the first post. Nice job for your first post!

Twitter is something I held off on for a LONG time as well. However, you'll find most of the publishing houses and authors are using twitter for marketing purposes. It's a way to reach folks when you update a chapter, have a contest, publish something, sign a contract, etc... So if you approach it like you did your author page on facebook, it can be valuable. I'm still learning the system myself, but it seems worthwhile. The best part is the way you can re-tweet messages, and have yours re-tweeted by people easily so your information reaches even an even wider network. I don't go on it all the time or have it linked to my regular accounts though, so it isn't too distracting for me. oh, I'm @AliciaNordwell if you want to follow back.

Hi GA authors and readers!! We have a great blog topic running right now, Wacky Wednesday: Using Tags in GA Stories, to explain to authors how to ensure stories are accessible to those who want to read them. What keywords do you want to search by and can't find as a reader? As an author, is there a tag you always want to use for your stories but we don't have? Well suggest them here! We'll go over all the member input and add as much as feasibly possible. As always, thank you for taking the time to share your input; it helps immensely to get community feedback.

Classic BBP's in the US. (Blood born pathogens) Specifically they test for: Hep B and C, HTLV (causes cancer), T Cruzi (a nasty little parasitic infection that can lead to heart failure) West Nile, and HIV 1 and 1/2. They also donor screen for: Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Syphilis, CMV (herpes). This is all regulated by the FDA.

I do want to write this story, I just have a few things to write first!

I hope you have a great birthday, Sara!

Hi again SurgoSupra! Thank you so much for this lovely review. I enjoyed writing this story, though teen fiction isn't my favorite genre to write, these guys called to me. Dane and Tap are still two of my favs. I have a few other contemporary pieces as well, but I do a lot of paranormal/contemporary too. I hope you enjoy the rest of my stories and others here at GA!

Another summer birthday! I hope you had a lovely day, hun!

I'm so sorry, WL. I went through this last fall and it tore me up too; our pets are a part of our family and it hurts to lose them.

It would, but unfortunately life does not work that way. Not all authors are lifetime writers, or something came up-sometimes even the worst thing-and we lose members. It is just the world of internet fiction; no way around it, with this level of anonymity there are downsides. One of those is the way authors can just ... not come back.

I think it's a stupid policy. The Red Cross already tests every single unit of blood donated. Yes, there might be more positive results from men who have sex with men who donated than other groups, but is the cost of that testing truly increased that much by the tainted portion they would not be able to use compared to the clean supply they could have? I think their policies are exclusionary based on past data that should be reevaluated. It will be interesting to see if that happens in the near future to prevent the blood shortages the country periodically seems to face. And I've had to have two blood transfusions. I have to say, if they test it, I trust it no matter WHO it came from. As a recipient, I appreciated that someone's donation was saving me from having additional complications from the traumatic blood loss I'd suffered.

This is called a round robin. It has been done before, actually. You'd need to have someone in charge as the initial author. You can add more contributing authors to stories, but one person must be the lead author. I can't recall if only that author can add chapters, or if that author can add authors and the new authors can then add chapters as well. I know that Renee attempted one of these with some authors previously, but it fizzled due to time constraints. I'll ask her to chime in with what she remembers the system allows.

LOL, you're not the only one! I've had several people ask for more of this story. I'm thinking of using this as a prequel and writing a full story. I'm so glad you enjoyed the story. Aliens just have my attention lately, lol. Thank you very much for reading and reviewing, CW Prince.

Wow, this is an absolutely amazing review and I completely missed it! I hope you don't think I was just ignoring it, Louis! I must have gotten an alert and lost it in a bunch of them. You have some great points; I did strive to use some creative imagery in this story and really stretch my verb use. I will definitely keep an eye out and add was to my 'search and destroy' editing words to check for. Thank you so much!!

Happy Birthday Joe!!

Well it was meant to be funny.

Hmm... interesting beginning. You certainly added in quite a bit of intrigue about who Dice is and where they are going. Good hook. If I can make a suggestion, check out the last few comments in the dialogue punctuation topic pinned in the Writing forum. It has some info on using the em-dash and having correctly directioned quotation marks. Keep writing!

Oh, I'm more of a reader than watcher myself. I remember sex coming up in harlequins and such when I was 10, VC Andrews with her incest and When Heaven Fell by Barton really twigged me out on erotica when I was a kid. The first mm sex I read was, surprise surprise, a rape scene in Outlander by Gabaldon. I read that at 11. She balanced that out in later in the series with a positive gay figure in the stories, but it still colored my perceptions for years. Any not so straight women remember Annie on My Mind? I got a hold of a copy of that in the early 90s and that cemented my 'bi-ness' as a teen. For the most part, I wasn't too into reading sex, to be honest, so for a long time I didn't read much erotica at all. I will admit to watching porn, though mostly it makes me laugh. I'm more likely to critique style and sarcastically comment on fake dialogue than I am to actually 'enjoy' it. I don't know, I guess what I can imagine in my head is always more interesting than what I see. No one has butt pimples or wears white socks in my mind!

The twinkie ... what everyone needs, a little sofa foam!

Oh, but in the best way! Lol

Yep! I'm just going to get some personal info on the mysterious Rob for everyone first ... muahahahahahaha! I like to vary the information we share for the blog posts to keep everyone entertained, from author interview, to reader reviews, to favorite lines from the stories. Readers can then share their own thoughts and comments about the story, questions for the author, discuss with each other, etc... via comments on the blog on the Discussion day.