knotme

Yep, the idea is that a "planet" is formed largely from material accreted from its current neighborhood. Makes sense to me. To the scornful members of this discussion, I would like to point out the progress the world has made since Galileo's time. No heads are set to role over this, not literally. About the USA, I'm not sure. I heard on PBS recently that the fraction of US citizens that profess to believe in the theory of evolution has decreased from 42% to 35% in the last 40 years. My own hope is that this is not really increasing ignorance, but rather it's increasing peer pressure caused by the periodic rise of the evangelicals within our protestant communities. In any case, however, it's well that the astronomers met in Prague rather than Tulsa.

Thanks for sharing! It gives us (ok, me) a new insight into some of your stories. Which are great, by the way ( )

I was about to walk to the PO, but then I noticed I needed to wait so as not to arrive while the postmaster was on lunch break, so here I am, browsing your blog for the first time. Great reading (OK, I skipped over the football prognos)! I stopped here to add my congratulations and thanks, thanks for taking a big step toward being with us for a good while longer. I also wanted to assure you that your bouts of silliness are way down in frequency, though you may not think so. Also, as a blond, you're covered for life, excuse-wise. Today, it's a blond moment. When you're too gray to say that, it's a senior moment. km

Not enough to get me to move to the Big Apple, but definitely fascinating! I wonder what fraction of straight men with male sex partners are homophobic in public, and how many of them fall into jamessavic's 2b category?

(Sigh.) Pre-teens apparently need a catch-all mindless insult. I hope to live to see the day when "fag", "gay", "lesbo", etc. are no longer favorites. I too am surprised, not only for your reason but also because most college students have better aimed insults at their disposal. Not all, obviously.

I really like the clip for the reasons given above, plus it encourages longer-term thinking. When your adult life is only a year or two old, it can be hard to image life ten years down the road. A bad situation that seems like it will go on forever probably won't. As the video urges, stick around and see for yourself.

A belated, big thank you, Vic!!! . It took me a while to notice this topic and then way too long to look at it. (Maybe I should have asked a question? ) Better late than never, huh? I sorta dodged a bullet when you instead of Green welcomed me. This way, I get to thank you directly. A little about me: I hate joining things on line. GA is a worthy exception: For one sign-on, I can support a fantastic field of authors. I've been partly-out so long, it seems to fit me now. I've outlived all important relatives who had a problem with that. I'm white-skinned, hazel-eyed, gay, and neither proud nor ashamed of any of that, and in fact I don't think about it as much anymore. I am proud of some things I've done, and, for instance, if I could help get our local Buddhist GLBT committee off TDC, I could add to that to my list.

I read early chapters a long time ago, before I joined GA, and just now caught up. The theme of being gay, outstandingly poor, and way horney is appealing. The story moves slowly and lacks shape in places. Derrick seems a bit short-sighted. Like when he lets his friend Joel eat up the meager household food, and then he feels guilty about it, but he won't tell his mother why it's happening. Just when I begin to get exasperated, he tells his mom now much he appreciates her. (How many times did I do that at that age? Not enough.) Derrick shares some of the trouble he's now in (Chap 12) when he lets Chris get too close. On the other hand, Chris's reaction is off the wall. I can't blame Derrick too much. He'd need perfect judgement to avoid all the minefields in his path. It will be interesting to see how Derrick gets out his current predicament. I just hope he can do it without adding much more to his mother's already heavy burden. Maybe she can't take it.

I'm back after reading Foresaken E, F, & G. I'm (still) really enjoying this story. It is by far the most satisfying vampire- or were-wolf-like story since Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire (both book and movie). I like the human narrator, Wesley, who struggles to make sense of this. I like the group dynamics of the pack (as CJ pointed about above). I love the ambivalence that the author builds in the mind of the reader, who learns bit by bit that these kids are close to evil personified, yet Wesley's best course of action is not obvious. For that matter, what does the reader think of evil in the eyes of Wesley's father? I even like the sex scene (relatively rare for me). OK, I just noticed that there're two more parts in a separate place, but they're not on Comicality's GAC site nor on GA's Archive, so no comment on them. CJames said on June 17: "Hmmm, I entered a post, and the system ate it, telling me I needed to enter a post! Perhaps because I used quotes, and they aren't allowed here? (I couldn't get the automatic quote feature to work, either)" Yeah, I have the same problem. If I preview, I lose my text. I've learned to save a copy of my input text in Comicality's forum.

Thank god it's Friday and payday?

At first, this list looked like a guide for the hide-bound, thick-headed, would-be evil overlord, and a manual for writers of related fiction. But then, as I read on an on, I've begun to reconsider my planned change of occupation. Goodness, can't an evil overlord have any fun? An earlier poster hinted that the job might just get boring. Evil overlords need an exit strategy. Just getting into Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, I cannot resist adding this slightly off-topic item, better suited for an average guy than an overlord: If while hunting in the outback, you stumble across a big wad of cash in old, unmarked bills, along with one witness who might identify you (everyone else is shot up and dead as doornails), and you've still got plenty of ammo, and you decide to take the money, then plug the witness now, not hours later.

I've had to look up ROTFLOL. In general though, I think our forum guidelines discourage such abbreviations. Right? At least, that is how I read this excerpt from the FAQ: Of course, I've never abbreviated or shouted. (Yeah, right )

My stock portfolio isn't doing great this year. Any hot picks?

After years of reading sex scenes, I tend skip over them now unless they are well done, not too long, and in first person (or mind-reading third person). BTW, this web page acts weird, with messed-up layout and disappearing text. Is it just my browser?

My parents have both passed. Otherwise, I probably would not post. My family rarely discussed awkward things. To bring up an awkward subject could itself be a provocation. I never mustered the courage to combine the betrayal (that's how I thought they would see it) of my homosexuality with the provocation of raising the subject directly. One day I sat down with my mother and admitted that I was uncertain and, at the moment, unwilling to swing either way (not that I put it flippantly; I cannot remember my exact words). For the rest, I let the facts speak for themselves. Repeated attempts to fix me up got nowhere. My father's bribe of a Visa card for "entertainment" went unused, on principle. (That pissed him off more than I could have imagined.) Mother and father talked, so they figured it out. They never mentioned it directly; that was our way. Our implicit bargain: I keep it out of their faces, and they leave it alone. Friends would pass round pictures of grandchildren, and my parents would gamely change the subject. Once, as executor of his younger sister's estate, my father directed that a beautiful pin be given to me so that I could "put it to good use". I looked into his eyes as he said that, and I could see repressed disappointment that I had not so far sucked it up, gotten married, and given them grandchildren. Otherwise, no discussion. I remained mostly asexual. Our implicit bargain held. Now they're gone. Honestly, to this day, I doubt that confronting the issue would have helped. It wasn't our way.

Kudos for the courage to write a short story first time out! A multi-part story would have been an easier first step, but no way would you have gotten the response this story drew. Commenting on chapter 1 of a multi can be a bit like critiquing a chess match after the opening move. You can tell if it's awful; otherwise, there isn't much to say. A conundrum for budding writers My favorite scene in this story is Trevor's realization that he's sitting there at Rincon, having struggled and schemed for weeks to get there, and boredom threatens. I've been there . But then he does something about it! We find out later that Jason did most of the heavy lifting, but Trevor exercised more courage and initiative than many of us would do. Yay Trevor! Your "strange, sweet smell" faked me out. I was thinking, "Aww, the innocence of youth in Arizona". Mary Jane of course Jason's fall, and his reluctance to call attention to it, rang true. California's soft sandstone cliffs and poor judgement combine to yield annually a few deaths, lots of serious injury and dozens of embarrasing rescues. . BTW, We don't all surf in Hawaii (or Thailand) .

55% General American English 15% Upper Midwestern 10% Dixie 10% Yankee 0% Midwestern but, the 4-wheeled thing you push in a grocery store is a wagon.

I think notTed is onto something. With sex no longer being the drama, you can go one or more of a few different directions. First, you could replace the drama with smut. There's a lot of that in the adult-friends section of Nifty. I don't care for it, but that's just me. Second, you can mix in some of drama from business and politics. John Tucker on crvboy comes to mind. He has a decent following over there, I think. Tim Mead, also at crvboy, has great stuff about military ages and up. Right here at GA (and crvboy?), check out, for instance, Jack Scribe. (Apologies to the other adult-oriented authors at GA--I just happened to think of Jack.) dkstories at GA deals with a wide range of ages in his very popular stories, mostly mixing some science fiction. To sum up my reader's view: Welcome! Please contribute!

Gotcha. The site hosting the image you posted is "www.drinking-fountain.net". Hint, hint. Interesting that Kimberly-Clark's Kleenex caught on as a generic term nationwide, while Kohler's bubbler didn't, apparently. But now I know: in and around Kohler WI, it's a bubbler. Thanks.

A fountain, by my definition, pushes water into the air. So if we're talking about a thing mounted on the wall, you push a button or bar, and the water shoots up a little or a lot (heh), then it's a fountain. But if it's an upside-down bottle on top of a contraption that dispenses water down into a cup, then it cannot be a fountain, and the only acceptable option given is "bubbler". Hey, they do bubble, why not? I call this thing a water cooler (even if it doesn't cool ). After concluding that we're talking here about a water cooler, I voted "bubbler".

I quit AOL may years ago, before they got so aggressive. Have you actually been able to quit yet? I've read (in enough places that might be true) that AOL specialists can earn juicy commissions by talking you out of quitting. The main tactic seems to be, keep you talking, getting increasingly personal and intrusive, until you give up. So if you actually managed to quit, congrats! BTW, I use OmniWeb on Mac, with FF as backup. No IE7 option there. Don't miss it, and my antivirus software is as lonely as that old Maytag repairman , but that's due mainly to the Mac, not the browser.

Putting myself in the author's place, I might ask myself, "What great contributions to GayAuthors gives these folks justification to whine?" Whine, cajole, encourage, support--it's in the eye of the beholder. I know we all intend to encourage and support, but... As someone who contributes little, I'll say, congratulations in advance, Dom, on being done! It's not fun being behind the 8-ball all the time. On the other hand, as Atari founder Nolan Bushnell said, "The way to have an interesting life is to stay on the steep part of the learning curve." I know you learn a lot from every story you write. When you get bored, we'll be here

William Faulkner dealt with this issue in all his stories. Because his style is well respected, I reviewed a couple of his books before replying. He appears to agree with everyone else here: avoid misspelling to indicate pronunciation: go easy with "New Yawk", "cah", "tailfethas" and such. If you must indicate pronunciation, do it only once (like explaining a common abbreviation.) On the other hand, much of his dialog is faithful to diction: "He kilt her." (Not a misspelling to indicate accent: "kilt" was accepted spelling in that dialect.) "She ought to taken them." "It's them durn women". (Again, "durn" was accepted spelling in that dialect.) "It's a outrage." He doesn't take this to excess, and it doesn't give me a headache. It think that's because, like you and most of us, I read in whole words, and if the words are not whole, I have to work a lot harder. Malformed sentences are much less trouble.

I read this story a few weeks ago, but neglected to comment at that time. Savage Moon is an excellent short story. I'm sure now it worked as a serial, but in one go, it packs a punch!

Thanks for this TZ. First a question. You say you had not planned to dwell on Bobby's failure. What then would have been the "tragedy", given that Justin succeeds? Maybe I answer my own question below. Next, you are, of course, harder on yourself than most or all us readers are. Case in point: My own ratings of some the shortcomings you allege, from 0 = "didn't care" to 3 = "bothered me a lot". - Justin's Yankeeness given short shrift: 0 [One can easily guess.] - Justin's hassles given short shrift: 0 [We eventually find out; good enough.] - Justin's parents not there: 2 - Melanie and Rick fall away at the end: 2 - No religion: 1 [Neither Justin nor his parents are religious, I assume. Fine.] - Bobby's breakdown poorly motivated: 3* - Final chapter (Mrs. Greene) mostly dialog: 1 [better dialog could have sufficed.] - Characters physical appearance not described fully: 0 [Adequate to advance to plot.] * This rating may be unfair. This story is not primarily about Bobby. If I take the central tragedy to be Justin's role in Bobby's breakdown, or as Trevor points out, the pernicious deviation of perception from reality, then that's rather well explained.