underthehoodster

Hey guys, let's take a chill pill, huh? It will be some time yet before the next part of P&J is in postable form, and nothing is locked as far as content is concerned. I'm really flattered that you guys have taken such an enthusiastic interest in my little teenage soap opera, and I only ask that you bear with me. Life is full and complicated, and sadly, P&J is often forced to take a backseat to other priorities, including work and family. But I am committed to continuing the story. There is certainly no lack of ideas. It is really an issue of time and there never being enough. Thanks for being here and for continuing to show your support, underthehoodster

I just wanted to apologize to Myr, the members of gayauthors, and the P&J fans who have been waiting patiently for the debut of my hosted site. At the moment, it is out of my hands, but I still hope to have it up soon. I just want you to know that it isn't that I have forgotten about it. Thanks for understanding, underthehoodster

Soon!

I'm back, Mikie, and working hard on the new website and the P&J re-edit. Should be something to see soon!

It's so exciting to see old and new friends here at the gayauthors forum. I am so looking forward to becoming an active part of this wonderful community. The way it looks right now, I will be launching the new P&J site sometime in early September. It will include the debut of the newly re-edited P&J saga. No big changes, certainly nothing affecting plot or character development, but hopefully less rough around the edges. I'll explain in more detail at the site. I'm going out of town for a couple of weeks, but plan to come back rested and refreshed, and ready to dive into Part VI. I hope you'll all come along for the ride. See you soon!

My intention is to work on Part VI while following thru on the editing project. Part of the reason for going through the story again from the beginning is to refresh my own mind of everything that has taken place so far. So you're a Jake Thompson fan! Haven't had too many readers who want to hear more about Perry's dad. I don't want to give anything away, but I think, like most people, Perry's dad has some good and some bad qualities. I'm not sure that leaving Perry and his mom was a defensible decision, but I guess it depends upon what your perspective is.

If anyone is contemplating reading P&J for the first time, you should know that I am in the process of re-editing all the early chapters. There won't be any changes in the story, but many plot discrepencies will be corrected, and the overall style will be smoothed out. These newly re-edited chapters will appear exclusively at my new site here at gayauthors

Thanks for the hearty welcome, Snow Dog. I'm looking forward to building a site here at gayauthors, that will be the new home of Perry and Jesse. As I peruse the member list, I recognize many of the screen names I see there, so I feel like I'm building a new home in a new neighborhood, but surrounded by friends and aquaintances. Give me a little time to get my act together, and hopefully we can have a big block party to celebrate the opening of the site sometime soon!

http://www.awesomedude.com/index.htm A showcase of quality gay fiction primarily dealing with teens, featuring established and brand new authors.

Very sad to hear you are closing the Shack. Stumbling on your stories really changed my life. I'm not gay in the traditional sense of the word, but whatever it is I truly am, I came to understand it better through your writing. As I've said many times before, you were my first and strongest inspiration and anyone who has enjoyed Perry and Jesse over the past year and a half has you to thank for it. I will be sad to see you go, but it seems you feel that moving on is important. I wish you luck in all your future endeavors, and thanks again for touching my heart.

I have been doing my own editing for over a year, and I consider it part of the writing and tweaking process. Despite my best effort, I have gotten occasional grammatical critiques and it bothered me that my lack of technical expertise was distracting from the pure enjoyment of reading for some folks. One of these critques was posted on my forum, and I facetiously challenged the poster to 'put his money where his mouth is.' He told me that he was serious about editing P&J, and we have just started the process. He is extremely professional and not only understands all the complex and convoluted grammatical rules of the english language, but also has a brilliant grasp of html, which baffles me completely. While I am not looking directly for creative input, I do find it useful to hear his thoughts on style and character consistency and things of that nature. When a story gets as long and involved as P&J, it is easy to forget a character's appearance, or age, or forget a small plot point from a chapter written ages ago. While we have only committed to working on three chapters together, I hope the relationship will continue. I think that ultimately it will allow me to focus more on getting the story out, and less about sweating the technical details.

I think the topics you have chosen are excellent, and are extremely relevent to the topic of writing gay fiction on the internet. Sometimes it is difficult to respond because of lack of perspective. I only have the experience of writing one story. When I started posting, I had no idea if anyone would respond to it favorably or otherwise. As it turns out, the response has been very gratifying, and I can't imagine what my life would be like now if I hadn't taken that first leap of faith. But I am writing it the only way I know how and it is sometimes difficult to codify the experience in a way that might be informative or productive. I also agree that it is good to hear the perspectives of both readers and writers.

I don't remember if I first discovered it at Nifty or not, but reading New Kid In School inspired me to write and ultimately start posting Perry and Jesse. It has opened a whole world to me, and I am very grateful to Comicality for that. underthehoodster

I've been writing Perry and Jesse for well over a year now, and because it is told in the first person, it is largely propelled by dialogue. The main characters have well defined personalities. That doesn't mean they're always predictable, just that when they feel, say, or do something, it comes from a consistent place. In some ways, the characters have become so real that they seem to motivate their own actions more than I do. They compell me to follow certain plot lines and certain character interactions. This follows through with their dialogue. It comes naturally from their feelings and internal thoughts. I tend to use a lot of stammering and 'inert' sounds to convey confusion and hesitation...well...uh...like...er... I do read the dialogue aloud to myself to see if it has a natural flow. Some of the characters have obvious little turns of phrase. Some use more vulgarity than others. There is a difference between males and females, older and younger people. Most of my characters are young and I do listen to the way kids talk (including my own). That doesn't always work for the story, but I at least try to suggest it. If I really transcribed the way kids talk these days, every other word would be 'like'!

This particular topic is particularly timely for me, since I am about to enter uncharted (for me) territory in my story, Perry and Jesse. I will be touching on the theme of teen suicide for the first time. It was always my intention that P&J be a long, episodic, serialized piece of writing, conveying a number of different moods, through a number of different types of stories and a large cast of supporting characters. I knew since the get go that one of my main characters has dealt directly with this painful subject in his past, and the time is coming to finally give a full explanation to my patient, but very curious readers who have been following the story for over a year now. I have chosen, thus far to avoid any grisly details or blow by blow descriptions, and I do spend a good deal of time having the characters discuss how they feel about these events. I know that this is a crucial part of the story, but I do want to be sensitive to those that might find this a very touchy, or even personal subject. One thing I have thought of doing is putting a warning at the beginning of any chapter that has more than a passing reference to the subject. I was also thinking of including a link at the end of those chapters that would give people who need help a place to go. For example, I could put in a link to the teenage resources page here at gayauthors.org. While I have been blessed with an extremely devoted and gregarious readership, I do know that many people turn to these gay romance stories as a place to find hope when perhaps their own lives are not working out so well, or to imagine how things could have been different, or to make any number of other very personal connections. Still, I have always told myself--and those that ask--that I am writing the story for myself, and if that is the case, then this is one place that I must go. It simply makes dramatic sense. If anyone has any thoughts, particularly pertaining to the posting of warnings and weblinks, please let me know, either by responding here, or by email: underthehoodster@netscape.net

This is my first contribution to your forum. I only have a single story on the net. It's called Perry and Jesse and is posted at Nifty in the high school section. I have been posting for about a year now. I don't know about other authors, but I write my story completely in secret from anyone in my 'real' life. The feedback I get through emails and my livejournal forum have not only been a great source of encouragement in the continuing of the story, but have also opened a whole world to me I never knew existed. I have heard from readers from ages thirteen to seventy six--yes, one guy has been sharing with me his youthful sexual experiences from WWII! Most are gay, some bi-, some are like myself: bi-curious. it seems that I have heard from every corner of the globe from Canada to Australia, to India, South Korea, Portugal, Iceland, Denmark and even Singapore. I very much enjoy getting into long continuing correspondences, and learning about peoples' lives in these different parts of the world, especially in regards to how homosexuality is perceived and tolerated (or not tolerated). Being a Christian myself, it has been especially disappointing to come to the realization that religion is one of the chief culprits in keeping gays from being able to walk freely and proudly in society. I have heard from many Nifty writers who are fans of my story, and feel bad that I rarely have time to reciprocate. Whatever time I have available for this secret part of my life, is mostly taken up in working on my story and corresponding with its readers. I have also received many pieces of writing from individuals through email. I have even managed to encourage a few guys to post their own stories at Nifty or elsewhere, in turn opening whole new worlds up to them. As far as how feedback affects my actual writing, it has very little influence on the plot. I write well in advance of what I post, so anything that the readers see has been in at least rough draft form for anywhere from three to four months. On the other hand, it is great fun to read all the various specualtions about what's going to happen next--even if they're almost always wrong! To sum up, the feedback I have received from posting my story on the internet has enriched my life in ways I never would have imagined. I have never received a flame, but do occasionally get criticised for various plot twists or character motivations. I don't mind it as long as the criticism is constructive. I want to add that the reason I even began writing Perry and Jesse, and finally got the nerve to post it was because I was so taken with the stories of Comicality. I had never read stories like his before, with so much romance and passion (and sex!), and if he reads this post, I want him to know that he inspired me to take a huge chance by posting a homoerotic story on the internet. It has turned out to be one of the most gratifying experiences of my entire life.