Iorek

Well for some reason I seem to be in a posting mood after signing up here around a year ago, making one post and then going away again (summer holidays, what else to do). And I thought I'd share two things: 1) There is the most fantastic thunderstorm going on over here right now, the rain is absolutely pouring it down and the noise on the trees is beautiful. My computer is next to the window, which is wide open hehehe 2) I want to add a thanks to Comsie to go with the many he's already had. This just feels like something I *should* say, cause... well, I think you'll understand. Basically, a few years ago (The shack was coming up to it's third birthday I tyhink) and my rather addled brain decide to connect the fact that I found men attractive - and always had done - to the fact that I mgiht be gay. I got all upset and depressed for a week, kinda half accepted it, but was still kinda miserable. I came online and read first IOMFATS' Chris and Nigel and then I read NKIS, followed by everything else that Comsie had written. The point is, however, that those first two stories... they showed me - in a really cliched way - that having a relationship with another guy could not only be utterly normal, but that it could be beautiful too. Boy did that sound smaltzy, lol. Anyway, Comsie, you get two thanks because you wrote NKIS, and apparently you inspired IOMFATS to write C&N so... I guess my quick settlement into emotional security is down to you. I guess you can see why I flt like I had to say this, it's a debt of gratitude which I felt deserved to be paid. Cheers, enjoy ya net freedom

heyhey, Compulsively readable as always, although I don't think it was your best. At a guess, I would say that a lot of it was born of you trying to finish it quickly... (Which can I beg you never to do again? Pleeeeeeasssee? hehe). GFD is possibly my favourite story that you have written (When I started reading it, it was about half the length it is now... and I read it all in one evening and a night, hehe) and I think that some of the writing, characterisation and ideas are just superb. It's fairly clear that you rushed this last chapter and the writing suffered as a result (eg. the scene at the hospital) so that was a shame. But, hopefully - as you're no longer trying to rush to finish everything in a short amount of time - that shouldn't repeat. It's odd, while I see the rest of your online stories as... well, online stories. GFD seems to be something of it's own, in a category utterly separate to anything else that you've written. It has it's own universe, it's own scope and... well to me it feels like the "your novel" in the "everyone has one good novel inside of them" sense. If you follow? Which you probably don't, as I'm rambling. At the risk of being mobbed, might I suggest that after you finish a chapter of something such as GFD and think that it's ready to post, youlet it sit for a week, then read it through again and rewrite bits before you post it? Stepping back from writing really does help in my experience, because if you read something over a lot of times in a short space of time you convince yourself that it works, but if you step back and reread you often fight that bits don't. This criticism is really just a technique one, the only thing that I didn't like storywise about this chapter, were the references to the other online authors. Now, I can completely understand why you did it; it's a nod of respect to them, it lets the story acknowledge it's heritage/wider context, it's rather symbolic, etc. But in terms of the story itself... it feels utterly out of place. It jerks the reader completely out of the GFD universe (sorry, english Lit student coming into it's own here) and shatters the entire illusion of the world which you have created for the story to take place in. It's like... when a futuristic film tells you to suspend disbelief, such as "Here is alien technology and it works thus", and then they don't accord to that, eg. they break their own rules. It shatters the integrity of the story as it has no "realistic" basis. By putting the eggman and so on into the story, you're ripping the author out of GFD and saying to them "Yeah, this is an online gay erotic story". WHich I don't think works. Plus, I'm not sure that their names sound very plausible as vampire scriptures to be honest. Some of the points when the librarian was going "No, they're the complete works of x and y! They took years to collect!" I actually started sniggering to myself. I think the writer in me saw the awesome possibilities of the scene (The idea of the never completed vampire scriptures, this massive library... the scale is fantastic) and I felt like it was quite living up to the potential which the idea has and which your writing skill coulf embue it with. At the risk of being mobbed, might I suggest that after you finish a chapter of something such as GFD and think that it's ready to post, youlet it sit for a week, then read it through again before you post it? Stepping back from writing does help it I think.... well, in my experience it does. Sorry, this feels like it's turned into a real criticism, but it's not really... I just think that some of your writing is awesome, and this last chapter slipped a bit... so I'm, uh... arrogantly taking it upon myself to poke you so that GFD attains the level of fantasticness in completion which it deserves? As I think I said somewhere else, I wanna see it published so that I can buy a copy. Personally I think it'd work good as just a mainstream gay novel... but I guess you might have to edit out some of the more graphic bits... I can't remember how graphic it gets... but still! Book! lol, It'd so work.

Personally, I want a version of GFD as a book when it's completed. I guess I could print it off and have it bound...

Several days? I found it one saturday and read it all up to the End of renegade by the end of Sunday, LOL I don't know whether to label myself "sad and bored" or a "dedicated fan"