Carlos Hazday

Although I'm constantly reading bits and pieces of the story, I've yet to sit down and revisit the entire story. I think I need to set a weekend aside and binge on CJ. I'm so glad you notice the change in our hero. I've tried to show him learning from personal experiences aided by guidance from his fathers and their friends. Had the character remained static, it would have been a much poorer tale, this is, after all, a coming-of-age story.

Guess that was a bug that's been squashed LOL

@AC BenusThe title and or any images associated with a story can be incorporated into a banner. Each story's allowed to have it's own and I've used the feature instead of creating covers since the upgrade. Maybe that can help with part of what you want to do. @Myr May not like this, but you could pre-load the entire story. Last time I did it, unpublished chapters showed up on the table of contents but with a clockface next to them to show they were scheduled to go live at a later date.

I get the feeling old bugs from the conversion and new ones are across most platforms.

@AC Benus You're welcome. It's fun except for the begging-for-questions part. LOL

@Myr This morning I posted a new story and the first chapter and set it to publish at a later date. The story shows up at the bottom of the Forums page as the latest one on GA. Is this how it's meant to be? Shouldn't it show up there after it goes live? Am I or the staff going to be bombarded with questions about readers being unable to open it?

Nope. As many as you like. If I can't fit all questions and answers in next month's feature I'll save them for future use. I'm trying to build an inventory and feature as many different authors as possible.

Thanks, Y'all! For those of you who like this feature, I'd like you to think about your favorite love story on GA. Let's find out something about its author. Send me a question and I'll pass it along and feature the responses on the next blog entry.

Happy New Year! We are back and this month our blog entry focuses on poets. Figures my first themed entry would be about a subject I rarely understand and often avoid. However, I’m here to pass your questions along, not to editorialize on what I like. So let’s get to it. • • • • • This month’s first question is for asamvav111. Hailing from India, he’s an example of GA’s worldwide reach and membership. Don’t you all think GA should underwrite my travels so I can ask future questions in person? A member since 2012, this young man posted his first collection of poems in 2017 and has quickly garnered a solid fan base. • There is a certainty and deep conciousness that comes from your poems. What does poetry do for you? Is there a poet that you recommend we all read? • Poetry as an art has so many facets, it is difficult to choose one. In my poetry, I always try to capture a mental state or an emotional response & give it flesh. Poetry begins with poesy, the act of creation itself. Everyone of us are creating our own reality, commissioning our own funhouse of mirrors, every day, every moment. I just use words to give others a glimpse into the one inside me. I think, we should read every material we can get our hands on, because it helps develop our own art & our own critique. Beside all the old masters like Wordsworth, Whitman, Baudelaire, Frost etc, I would suggest to read our very own AC Benus, Parker Owens, Mikiesboy. And also join us in Live-Poets-Society where we have wonderful discussions on every possible aspect of poetry & showcase our work. • • • • • Asamvav111 recommends three GA poets so let’s hear from them. Mikiesboy’s one of those members everyone seems to like. His friendly and thoughtful disposition when dealing with others has endeared him to many. Adept at poetry and prose, I’m not sure how he finds the time to write, edit, and beta read for others, and participate in his Drop in Center forum thread. • Why does free verse appeal more than anything else? • Free verse may sound free but it isn't, there are still poetic rules that apply. There must be flow, meter is important even in free verse, and it must be written poetically. You can't just write down sentences and call it a free verse poem. Why do i choose it? Well, it suits my mood normally. I don't always want or even like rhymes. One exception is the Rubaiyat, it's a form i really enjoy writing and i like the rhyming pattern of : a-a-b-a; b-b-c-b; c-c-d-c; d-d-e-d; e-e-f-e. This is a real challenge. But free verse lets my thoughts flow more than other forms that are more restrictive. • • • • • Parker Owens asked me to beta read one of his stories earlier this year and I can’t thank him enough for it. It was a pleasure to do so and I discovered Parker was open to criticism and suggestions unlike some authors. However, his writing is not limited to prose; his poetry collections have earned him the respect of other poets as we saw in the first entry on this blog. • Do you think your math skills and musical ability contribute to your innate sense of form and meter in your poems? Your ability to look at your surroundings and use mathematical and scientific principles as allegories to love and life is quite remarkable and definitely unique. Do you look at an object or read a mathematical concept and see the poetry within? Or do you have a poem in your head and look for a concept to fit it? • I wish there were an easy description of how music and mathematics relate to what I write. Often, it has their interplay that conveys to me a sense of balance and sound to each line or couplet. If I listen to what gets scrawled in my notebook, I hope to hear something as compelling as my favorite music, or as true as any axiom. Frequently, I am taken by the sound of a scientific or mathematical word, and a poem gets built around that. Words like implicit differentiation and lanthanide series have their own rhythms and stories to tell. A few times, someone has dared me to write about a concept that was foreign to me - such challenges have proved irresistible. Often enough, it is what I see my students reviewing in their study halls that plants those words in my mind. Thank you for asking! • • • • • We visit again with AC Benus in this installment. Last month he answered a question about his Christmas at Famous-Barr series; in this entry, he addresses his poetry. Poems are more prominent on the site than when I first joined and a lot of the credit goes to AC. He’s encouraged, prodded, and mentored poets to the point they have become a vibrant subset of the community. • You write sonnets beautifully. What advice would you give someone starting out? Are you self-taught? If yes, what did you do to become such a good poet? • The answer to am I self-taught is yes. As for advice, I’d say listen to your heart and what moves you. Poetry is all around us at all times, in song lyrics, in jingles, in the lessons we learn in school, but maybe one day something will break through and make you go ‘wow.’ That happened to me the first year of high school. There was something about Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn, and particularly the concluding lines "Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all we know on earth, and all we need to know," that made me wake up and want to write myself. So I’d look for that moment and that piece of poetry, in any style or form, that makes you go “Oh…”. Learn from it and figure out what exactly the poet did to shake you up. After that, read as much as you can, and get busy writing. Thanks for a great question, and I will post a longer answer in Live-Poets Society, so please look for it. • • • • • That’s it for this month. Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Season and the New Year brings you health and peace. Remember to send me your questions so we can discover more about our authors, their lives, and how they craft their stories. How about we focus on the authors of your favorite love stories next time around?

Somehow missed replying when you posted your comment. You're the only who caught that slip of the tongue! It'll all be made clear in a few weeks.

CJ and Chipper are both in mourning. Or at least they'll be when they sober up. I wasn't surprised. Miami overachieved this year and the media frenzy about the Turnover Chain made people talk crap about hot the U was back. Coach Ritch said we'll be back when we are competing for National Championships year after year. Until then...

NYE in NYC is something I've been wanting CJ to experience. Maybe I can have some woman kidnap Sean in the middle of Times Square. What with Kathy Griffin having been fired from CNN, we need a slightly mad, wine drinker to make an appearance.

Funny how writing and learning not to use THAT all the time worked better than drugs ever did in the past.

I like writing group scenes with several people talking at the same time. LOVED the one in the bedroom between the suitmates. That was masterful.

It wasn't the best of years, it wasn't the worst of years. But it was the definitely a shorter year. Okay, fine. It was only 24 hours shorter than the previous one, but it sure felt like it went by in the blink of an eye. I think it's age related. Two years ago tomorrow, on January 1, 2015, I posted the first chapter of CJ's story. Two years, 119 chapters, and over half-a-million words later, the damn kid's wormed his way into my heart. And apparently, he's had a similar effect on some of you. Some initial readers abandoned the story; I assume something I wrote didn't sit well with them. Others have come on board, read from the beginning, and are now clamoring for more. To each of you, lapsed, current, and future fans, my thanks. Your reactions, comments, and reviews are treasured. It's gratifying to know I've been able to entertain and at times move some of you, my apologies if I disappointed others at any point. I'm committed to finishing Georgetown, there are three more books in the works. Regardless of what I may have said, subsequent entries are possible but not guaranteed. A historical novel, relying on actual people, places, and events, is hard to write in the future. Georgetown concludes in May 2020 and I'm finding it difficult to exclude those little things which have been integral to the tale. Let's see how I feel after CJ graduates from college. Some of it will depend on what happens in the White House, Congress, and the State Department. Some, on how loud the characters scream. What began as therapy for crippling depression has become a joy. I now have a cyber family on Gay Authors, and an imaginary one in CJ, Ozzie, Cesar, Brett, Ritchie and all the others. Both make me smile on a regular basis, something I didn't do much of when I started writing in the summer of 2014. Whatever I decide, please know I've come to appreciate you more than you can imagine and should the story continue, I promise to do my best to remain faithful to you and the characters. Maybe I'll even improve my writing some more. From me and the Abello-Davenport-Liston-Peterson crowd, HAPPY NEW YEAR! May 2018 bring you and yours health and peace. Everything else is secondary.

Great twist about Bailey being a cornerback. You surprised me with his home situation, I conjured a dead or jailed father and a 'lost' mother, not an abusive one. I think you're setting up Declan to be a hero and hope you won't drag it out too much before you have him do the right thing.

Am I the only one who likes Declan. Tough macho attitude but underneath... Well, that's two predictions in two chapters. I better quit now.

What a pleasure to read a well developed and written story with interesting characters! Even if I could see the the Declan-Bailey 'thing' coming a mile away. I'll pace my binge reading so I can savor the remainder of the posted chapters.

@IBEX Some great ones north of Tallahassee riding into Georgia. I really need to write the next chapter, takes him to New Orleans and I was just there so have some interesting stuff to mention. Youll be happy to hear CJ's riding his bike to Laconia in 2019. Writing those scenes next week.

@Potterslashfan First spouse?

The easy part first. There are four sections to Georgetown. I decided to split it in four because each section has a unique event crowning it. Roar covered the beginning of CJ's college experience, Over The Rainbow covers the remainder of his freshman year and summer break. Book's written and editing's almost complete. Seven chapters. Time Goes By tracks with his sophomore year. Book written. Seven chapters. Lovely will finish up the college years ending in his college graduation. Book in process, about three chapters to go. total projected at ten. Now comes the hard part. First I want a break even though the characters have already started whispering dialogue lines and scenarios. Two options for what follows and I really haven't decided. We jump ahead one year with a short story, another jump in time and a second short story, followed by a jump to 2035 and a multi-chapter story. The first short story I have the idea and a rough outline. The second one I have the idea and location but nothing else. These two may not get written and could be incorporated into the final one in short flashbacks. The last one has an outline and a bunch of the chapters have a rough draft. The first epilogue is written, the second one has the opening but needs a couple thousand more words. Anything after Georgetown's tentative. I do ride a motorcycle and I want to go skydiving for my 60th. As far as what your '8 years' implies, I refer you to Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing. Not a chance I could match that masterpiece. In case anyone out there is a fan of the show, here's something dated last month: http://ew.com/tv/2017/11/29/aaron-sorkin-reveals-idea-for-west-wing-revival-and-it-wouldnt-involve-trump/

I'll save long replies for comments on the next book. For now, let me just say THANK YOU. I will, however, take the opportunity to once again highlight @Bucket1, @Reader1810, @Kitt, and @Mann Ramblings. I could not have done it without them.

@Potterslashfan I think there are as many reasons behind comments as there are readers. Each one of us gets something different from anything we read and that affects our reactions. Some readers dislike politics period and are afraid of getting tainted by anything that includes politicians LOL Some of our most liberal members objected vehemently to CJ's attitude towards guns and some on the right objected to his logical approach to selecting a candidate to support. You're right I never made it a secret there would be political involvement by him. It started in Summer when he met Brian Sims and cascaded from there. I'm flabbergasted by the amount of support and number of readers reacting to the story, never expected such popularity. But the most popular stories around GA tend to be MM romances involving teens who are often filled with angst. I bucked all those trends by having a smart, thinking kid and supportive parents who encouraged him to be his own person. The sex, drugs, and 'butch' activities (motorcycles and sports) turned some people off. When I first showed CJ smoking pot while visiting his cousins in Chicago someone told me CJ would never do that. My stories are not for everyone, but I've tried to be honest and realistic in portraying a millennial gay teen growing up in an affluent urban environment. Thank you for the encouragement. I'll continue in the same vein but hopefully with improved technical writing.

So much to read! Not enough hours in the day if I want to keep writing. I would reduce TV time but too many good bowl games in the next few day LOL I have a bunch of open tabs on my tablet for whenever I have time.

Owen's a little more reserved than CJ. He'd rather have his other half in the limelight. CJ, on the other hand, keeps pushing for people to recognize what Owen does as or even more important than his involvement in politics.