Comicality

Awesome!!! ::Dresses Up In A Tux:: Thanks in advance for the votes! I'm hoping to be even better in 2006! Much MUCH better!!! But for now, I'm extemely flattered! So thanks! Awesome!!! ::Dresses Up In A Tux:: Thanks in advance for the votes! I'm hoping to be even better in 2006! Much MUCH better!!! But for now, I'm extemely flattered! So thanks! (*A quick note: I am still unable to post new topics here on this forum for the time being. Because of that, I haven't been too active in the board lately. But I can reply to what's already here. So you guys will have to 'lead' me on for a while. Hehehe! Cool?)

What? Gay sex? Ryan and Randy are GAY??? Whoah..I've gotta re-write that story right away! ::Giggles:: All jokes aside, I'm happy to hear that you are having a good time reading the series. New chapters are on the way. And there are a few 'spinoff' stories as well on the site! So make sure you get the whole story when you get a chance, and look for a new "Kiss Of An Angel" chapter soon...to finally see Ariel and Tyler take that big step into...well...you'll find out. Thanks again!

Hehehe, thanks so much dude! I haven't forgotten those two stories (although "Not Like The Others" gave me some trouble, because I have the undeniable to 'remix' it with added details and all). But "Pretty Poison" is definitely coming up soon. I'm giving you my word. K? As far as charging admission for reading...hehehe...you guys just paid it by letting me know what you thought. So entrance is granted. Enjoy!

To be honest, a LOT of "Magic Man 2" has been written for some time, and I do plan to release the remaining chapters of the series. There has definitely been a demand for it over the past year. It simply feel in the cracks between 'busy' and 'lazy', unfortunately. A lot of other series took priority over this one. But I'd really love to finish it someday soon. As for the contest, the prizes were never awarded, but I kept the names of all the winners, and all prizes will still be awarded at a later date. (*A quick note: I am still unable to post new topics here on this forum for the time being. Because of that, I haven't been too active in the board lately. But I can reply to what's already here. So you guys will have to 'lead' me on for a while. Hehehe! Cool?)

The "Savage Moon" series had a long pause between chapters, but they will begin again next week with the repost of the first section. Cool? Also, the dreams that Wesley had will become more clear later on in the series. As for his life as a 19 year old, that isn't really a part of this particular part of the story. It is mostly aout him looking back on what happened when he was younger. There were going to be plans for a sequel, however, if the series had gone over well (Which, so far, it is). So you may see a sequel to "Savage Moon" later on about Wesley's ordeals as a 19 year old, dealing with his past. So...that's the plan. (*A quick note: I am still unable to post new topics here on this forum for the time being. Because of that, I haven't been too active in the board lately. But I can reply to what's already here. So you guys will have to 'lead' me on for a while. Hehehe! Cool?)

Well said. And I agree. Then the Shack was in trouble, and left to drift without any place to stay, Myr was there. He gave me a space on this site, gave me a brand new Cafe message board, is ALWAYS there to help me update the site quickly and efficiently (To a point of being almost 'superhuman' about it), and sat me at a virtual table with some of the finest gay fiction writer's online. For that, I owe him everything. The Shack is a handful, and I drive myself CRAZY trying to keep up with even a FRACTION of all the stuff that needs to be done...and yet, none of that would be possible without Myriddian. Not to mention that he's maintaining all of these boards, making announcements, and watching over a bunch of sites at once. And he still has time to make last minute updates on my site early in the morning before work. That takes a *LOT* more than just hard work and organization skills. That takes a real passion and a true love for what you're doing. And he's demonstrated that passion time and time again through tireless dedication to this place. For that, I salute you man. I'm probably one of the brokest people on the planet, hehehe, but I'd be proud to give you a donation to keep things running smoothly. Any help you need, you let me know. Cool? As for good authors, I recommend this place all the time. No problems there. They know this server rocks! We're one hand gesture away from being an online GANG at this point! Hehehe! I'm definitely all for keeping this place at the very top of everybody's list in terms of being the best place for online fiction. One last thing...I say that we all make it a point to spread the word about GA whenever we can. To every author that you write to or review, to other sites you visit, or maybe when you find someone online looking for stories to read that won't fall 'flat' after a few paragraphs. There are still thousands of people who have no idea we're even here. So if you can spread a link here or there, it would help. One last thing...I say that we all make it a point to spread the word about GA whenever we can. To every author that you write to or review, to other sites you visit, or maybe when you find someone online looking for stories to read that won't fall 'flat' after a few paragraphs. There are still thousands of people who have no idea we're even here. So if you can spread a link here or there, it would help.

Yeah, sorry for the mix up. It seems that I'm able to 'reply' to posts made here on the board, but posting new ones isn't a possibility at the moment. I've tried, but it won't let me. So I put it in the mailing list, hoping that someone would bring it to this board and we could talk about it until I found a way to post it myself. As for past discussions, in order to keep the board from getting too cluttered, they've all been rotated into the Cafe Archive (above on the board). We used to have a series of topics to discuss talking about the process of writing, and you can find them there. There are at least 50 different topics there if you're interested. Feel free to bring up any others that you'd like to talk about here.

Hehehe, well shit...where were you when *I* was in high school??? I might have had a much happier 'ending' myself if I had someone to assure me it would all work out for the best. I dunno...the way I write is from my heart, from my personal experience. Maybe it's because I'm not out of the closet, or because of my father, or just because of the people around me at the time...but it was never that simple. NEVER. Not a single day of my life. The idea of 'just tell him and kiss him', while awesome for a happy story online, was a completely horrifying idea when I was 12, 13, or 14 years old. I was insecure and afraid of everything on the planet. I was scared at school, scared at home, scared everywhere in between. So Billy's thoughts pretty much reflect how I think I would be at that age nowadays. Of course, being gay is a little bit easier now, and I'm sure it was much easier for me than it was for people who grew up before me. But back then? TELL SOMEBODY? Take a big chance like that? Nooooooooo!!!! I'd rather dive in front of a bus than do that. Then again...at 14 I had a lot going on in my head. So maybe it's different for other folks. ::shrugs:: I do know this though, in the (approximately) 6 months that Billy Chase has been writing in that journal, he's made some real progress in how he sees himself. And I will make sure that it continues. Even if it seems slow at times. He's not blind...just worried. I can relate.

"Mr. Comicality?" Hehehe! I feel so important! You know, I honestly think that there's a certain anxiety that builds up as you continue to write a particular series. It's like...once you have a stable foundation for your characters, and have pretty much defined who they are as a person...it gets increasingly difficult to actually USE that knowledge for something when creating new chapters. I think, if I hadn't tried weaving in a lot of different story plots into "New Kid" (with Randy's Dad, or Ariel, or Tyler, or Sam and Matt, and the rest), I would have gotten bored with the story a long time ago. But by having two or three 'storylines' going on at once, I can talk about Tyler and Ariel when I've run out of things to do with Ryan ad Randy at the moment. And vice versa. Same with a lot of stuff that I write. It gets harder each time to meet whatever expectation the readers might have and still be true to what you want to do with the story. How do you get past the writer's block? Try this....sit down, and read your own story from front to back. Just read it as it is. Take some notes on details and stuff that you want to remember, make a character list of all your characters and what they look like (Just a brief description and all), and then think about ideas that you have for an ending. Write them down. Out of order, on scraps of paper, whatever. Whenever you get an idea for an important scene or conversation or plot twist...write it down. And then, when you have all of that written out where you can visually SEE it, try to connect those scenes with something significant. Like....say you have a big showdown in a train yard. Who's there, what's happening, and why? Once you have that scene in your head, you can think about what comes before and after it, until it connects to something else. Does that make sense? Who knows? I'm rambling. Anyway, just remember to let your thoughts flow naturally. Force yourself to 'start' if you have to, but after that, just let the thoughts come to you. I've found that when I start a brand new story or series, it's usually because I have a specific feeling or emotion that I wanted to get out of my system. Whether I was upset, or hurt, or just plain horny...whatever. And that triggered emotion doesn't last forever. So, when it's gone, I find another one to help me write more. Whatever was going on in your life at the time to inspire those original old chapters, might not still be a factor for you. You may have grown and changed a lot since then, and trying to recreate that 'old you' might be difficult to do in a story. Not to mention that you lose some passion when you're trying to move backwards with your writing for the sake of completing it. So, try to use what is going on in your life NOW to add to what is there. You might be surprised at how easily it connects. I usually have to 'remix' a lot of my old stories when I go back to them after a long hiatus, because they don't sound like the current 'me' anymore. So, try it out. I hope it helps.

((Hugz)) Rad! Thanks dude! The new "Billy Chase" chapters will be out soon, and I hope you like those too. It's a screwed up situation with him and Sam, and I've been there myself. More than once, unfortunately. Still, I'm watching out for my boy. Promise!

Shit....if JUST "GFD" is almost 1000 pages, I'd hate to see what ALL the stories would be together! That might be a bit too much for one book to hold. Hehehe! Damn...I talk too much in these stories, don't I? I know a couple stories you would be a PERFECT model for dude! Hehehe! I swear, we should have a modeling section on the Shack for the cuties that send in pics and all! I think that would be awesome! (Pssst! For those that don't know....Allyboi is EXTREMELY cute!!! Believe me! ::Giggles:

I've been reading a lot of stuff posted in the library, and I'm working on giving reviews and feedback to the stories there. I'm waaaay behind, naturally, hehehe, but I do read them. And I'll let ya know what I think. K? Right now, I'm reading two other series, and I want to finish those before I start any new ones. But if your new story is anything like "A Circles End", I'm sure I'll love it! You should put your site address up too!

Sweet! That's awesome to hear! So they're actually at home? Good. Maybe I can help them with some of that boredom soon. By the way, it's good to see YOU too, Steve! It's been a while!

Thanks so much Dio! Dude, I'll take your compliments to heart and keep them with me. Promise. ::Giggles:: Thanks man! What stories do you write online? Let me know! We'd love to have you drop by and tell us what you're working on! There area ton of really great authors at GA, and we'd love to have you as part of the family! Good writing is out there, the heart and passion for it is out there. Sometimes you have to weed through a lot of stuff that's just plain 'weird', hehehe...but you find good stuff eventually. Better than mine, I assure you. Check out the links page and stuff. You'll find a lot of good reading there.

Understandable. It's definitely a concern. But I'm working on writing down notes that will sort of 'guide' folks in the right direction without limiting their creative freedom. Naturally, I won't be able to think of 'everything'....but I'll post it here for anyone who has any question before making it official. Plus, this forum will continue to be a place for open discussion about each chapter of the story. Not to mention, we have three cool proofreaders as well, to read and help us edit! So a lot is being taken into consideration so we can do this right. Wow...hehehe "Robin", that was years ago! I liked working on it though. Even if I only did the second chapter. (There was only going to be three of us at first. Then it became an open book for the site. I hopeit's still going strong. I haven't read it in a long long time)

I'm steadily taking notes and trying to get everything straight in my head concerning this round robin story. But I wanted to know, from what you guys have read online, have you ever seen a collaborative story go 'horribly wrong'? Hehehe! Seriously, I want to know if there are any pitfalls that I should look out for before we get this up and running. You don't have to mention any story 'names' particularly (I certainly don't want to step on any toes here), but this is my first time being in charge of something like this. So I want to do it right. Let me know if you have any suggestions for the "Do NOT Do" box! Cool?

Sweet! It looks like we have our three proofreaders! Give me a week or two to finish the first chapter and edit it a bit, then I'll set up the guidelines and let you guys know what the deal is! I didn't know that this would go over so well, I'm excited about this all over again! Hehehe! THANKS! One more question for any interested authors out there. How long does it usually take for you guys to conceive or write a chapter? I'd like to set a fair length of time for each chapter. If possible less than a month per chapter, but I'm flexible on that. So we can give people time to think and get their ideas straight, write a chapter out, and edit it before the deadline. Anybody got some ideas on this? I wanna make sure everyone has time to do their best work. And still has time to live 'life' on top of it.

Hey, thanks to Viv for the awesome idea! I'd love to have proofreaders for the round robin story (Which I'm DEFINITELY excited about right now!). I think that would be awesome! It would definitely help to have someone read the new chapters before they get posted. Viv? ::All sweet and humble:: Would you like to help us out with that? Maybe if we got three different proofreaders, to maybe catch a few things that someone else couldn't? I think we could turn it into an awesome series. I'm down for it! We can get a buzz going for it. If you have any authors in mind, who you think would be great for the story, definitely let them know. I'd love to have them jump on board for this one. So grab your favorites! From websites, from Nifty, wherever! I'll get moving on fixing everything up!

Ok...I think we should actually go for it then! Maybe I can put out an APB for all of the writers out there who want to contribute to the story or something. If we can get a good five to ten who want to do it, that would be awesome. Now, Jamessavik, you mentioned a set of ground rules? Can you give me a hint of what to think about when setting things up? I've never organized one of these myself (although I participated in one, and wrote the 2nd chapter of "Robin" on Nifty), so any help would be...um...helpful. Yeah... Hehehe! Anyway, I like this idea. I just looked up "Collison" online, and I hope to get a chance to read it sometime soon. Seezya soon!

WHOAH!!! SHIT! How many pages did you say???? Holy shit! That's cool as hell!!! ::Dances:: I'm almost at 1000! How big was Stephen King's "The Stand"? Hehehe, damn, that's almost "War And Peace" size! I like the idea of the bound cover, hehehe, that'dwould look so sweet. Especially if it was unneccessarily big. Like in "Lord Of The Rings" or something. A big black grimoire of vampire lore. Of course, I'd have to keep it a secret from the other vampires in the world, who may want to hurt me for exposing their secrets.

Oooh...another good point made. So the repeat audience value is pretty much diminished by the fact that once the story is read, it's pretty much complete. Now, I know that there are books that people read over and over again, oth on and offline,but that's definitely something to consider. Thanks Matt!

Oh yeah, there will definitely be more "Magic Man" on the site. I think it's an important story about change. I think I made a big mistake with the first chapter though, because I was trying to make the character a bit 'unlikeable' by trapping him in a constant routine. Which I think people took as just me being monotonous. The first chapter got some pretty awful comments made about it (OUCH! I was a bit 'wounded' after that one! Hehehe!), and it was hard to motivate myself to write the second one, you know? I wanted Gavin to finally discover how his life was going in circles, and suddenly start making an actual 'effort' to change instead of always just sitting around trying to find reasons to be sad and sulk all alone. So hopefully this next chapter will go over better and folks will be able to see what I'm inda trying to do with the story. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The story does have a small but loving fanbase though, and for them (you included) I'll keep writing anyway. You'll have to excuse me if I ignore all comments and questions about it until LONG after it's posted. Hehehe, another hit like that, and I'll quit writing completely.

About a year ago, I thought about having a 'collaboration' type story on the website, where a different author could contribute a different chapter as the story progressed. With different people, different writing styles, different ideas about how things would go. Originally, I was going to make it a spinoff of "GFD", telling the story of a vampire 'hunter' that had suddenly lost his memory during the battle, and now had to find his entire life all over again. (Leaving a lot of open opportunities for an author to interpret the character anyway they want to, and build a history through short flashbacks and memories) And all this while battling feelings of love for a new vampire newblood that he has fallen in love with since waking up in all this confusion. All of your fave authors would be invited to join in, and anyone new who wanted to jump in as well. I started writing the first chapter a long time ago to set the stage and let everyone else sorta run with it. But I dropped it to work on other stuff. Whaddya think? If I picked it back up and posted that first chapter, would you guys be interested in reading or writing on something like that? Of course, the whole 'vampire' thing was just the original idea. We could always do a more traditional teenager in high school idea as well. Or we could do both. Or we could do something entirely different. Whatever it is, if you guys have some ideas, let me know. I'd love to get working on this and post it on the Shack. Afterall, you guys are the life's blood of the place, so why not be posted right along with all the other stories on the list. Any thoughts writers/readers?

That would be awesome! I'd love to have a version of the series printed off myself. Maybe in different chapters! That would be SO cool! Besides, my system doesn't have a page count thing on it. So I'd love to know exactly what the page count is for the entire "Gone From Daylight" story at this point. I'll bet it's HUGE! I'm dying to know! If you decide to print it out, please let me know! K?

That's ok! Don't feel sorry. I think that's a valid criticism. So thanks! Actually, I've caught some bad comments on the scene at Nifty (Which I thankfully cut shorter. I had a lot more authors that I wanted to mention in it. I had a list, and after a while I had to say to myself...'ok, this is just too much. I should stop here.). I'm glad that I did it, and the authors that got mentioned were extremely surprised. Even the ones that I didn't know were reading my story to begin with. So that was really cool, and despite the possible 'corny' idea of mentioning them all, I stand by it. These are my colleagues, afterall. Anyway, as for rushing through the chapters, I really haven't been. If anything, I've been trying not to. I took a LOT out of this chapter and the last one in an attempt to finish before the deadline. I've combined a lot of characters and conversations as well. So some scenes that were going to subtley play out over two or three chapters, happened all at once in this chapter. (Like the slow break between Trevor and Michael, the relationship between Dion and Dylan, and the disconnection of Comicaity from his student) Three characters were completely omitted (although I would love to add the 'jewler' in again at a later date), and I was working on "Born Of Fire" at the same time so everything would match somehow. But I hopethat the next chapter will run a bit smoother than this one. Hehehe, it took months longer than I thought it would. I make extra EXTRA sure that everything is perfect for these chapters (content wise anyway. As far as mechanics, the only thing worse than my spelling is my typing! Hehehe!), and the first four chapters were pretty much a breeze to write. I might have become excessively worried about the series since then. I worry about this one more than anything, and there are actual fans now that know the story much MUCH better than I do! And the want to know more about the rules, and the elders, and the hunting, and means of support, and what kind of blood the dog drinks, and the history of all the characters involved. Which is REALLY cool in one respect, and extremely terrifying in another. Because now I have NO room for error. But I'll be keeping my eye out mistakes, I promise. And when it's all said and done, I hope to have a damn good story that you can keep with you always. Thanks so much for the comments. ALL of you! Wow...I think this might be the most replies we've ever gotten to one topic in here! Thanks a ton, and I'll seezya soon with a new "Savage Moon"! (Yeah.I'm worried about this chapter too! But I'll take the risk anyway! ::Giggles: