C James

Happy Birthday, W.L! Have yourself a fantastic day, and many happy returns! :king:

Happy Birthday Greg!!!! Have a great day, and an even better year!

Ahhh, but even if so regarding Jerry, let's see... What about invading a central American country with a force of 62 men, and seizing power? And then after launching a way, being kicked out, and then later, trying it again? And on a THIRD try, this time to conquor ALL of central America, he was killed. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/...amp;oref=slogin Or this much more recent escapade; http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.asp...44.7lzmdt8e.xml Speaking of strange; how about this for a plot? a 28 year old sergeant, along with 17 even lower-ranking men (some of whom, like Dimitri, are mentally unstable, though moreso than Dimitri,) conspire, with the aid of some heavy drinking, to take over the country. Assume the sergeant is in school (the equivalent of high school; he had very little education and was taking night classes) when, one night, after some more drinking, he and his 17 compatriots attack the government. The Sergeant, due to holding the highest rank amongst the conspirators, takes over the coup, and thus the country. Utterly far-fetched? Agreed, but this isn't fiction; it happened in 1980 and the man's name was Samuel Doe. The country was Liberia, which at the time of his coup had a very long history of Democracy. He ruled for a decade. BTW, Wildone, nope, no mention of the Shadows having any kind of spelunking experience. Great speculations here!!! BTW, just a reminder; this story has about reached it's conclusion; there are 47 chapters plus a small epilogue. CJ

Thank you Krista!!!! They are so mean and unfair... A few ever-so-slightly tense chapter endings, and they are out (literally) for my hide!!

Hi Kit!! Thanks!!! The ending was supposed to follow the satire theme as well as the horror theme; I was going for irony; he'd been wanting his Muse to strike... and so it did. It also went for the satire theme; break the rules of writing and bad things can happen. (or your Muse might be displeased...) I did make quite a few goofs with that story; previously I'd only written one short story, and I'd never used third-person before. However, it was fun. The repetitions in the early part were to make the narration sound more "Edwardian". My intent was to slowly change the narrative style as the story progressed, to change the mood and increase tension. Thanks!!! CJ

Thank you Krista!! Goats are sweet and innocent creatures that should be protected and not harmed.

It was only a little scratch. BTW, I don't know whether I've mentioned this before, but the LTMP sequel is called "Changing Lanes" and begins when LTMP ends, and features some of the LTMP characters. "Changing Lanes" is not the original title; I originally called it "Changing Lanes in Full Force" until I ended up abreviating it by it's initials like LTMP. His Shadowyness thought that was hilarious, as did Graeme. I, of course, change the name right away; as we all know, a goat would never have anything to do with a cliff. CJ

The area of the Eastern Settlements is ice-free in summer (a little brash ice in the fjords) but the weather, now as then, is tempremental. A big part of the problem is cost; its one of the most isolated places on earth. However, I hope to see it done one day. That's interesting about Lief! (For those who are unaware, the "Vikings" were from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and the Finns of that Era were a separate people... Sweden did not annex Finland untill about two centuries after Eric the Red's time) I must admit that my knowledge of Finland is sketchy; most of it stems from my interest in the Winter War against the Soviets. I've only been there once, and I wasn't there for long. Hrmmm, I wonder... Eric the Red had to leave Iceland becuase of being convicted of murders. His parents had moved to Iceland due to having committed murders in Norway. (hmmm, interesting family trait, that). Perhaps the family history goes back further, and there is a Finnish connection?

Yes... I was thinking that! :wacko:

Hrmmm... My "Blame Shadowgod" campaign seems to be faltering...

I totally agree with the points in this thread. Thank you Kevin for raising this issue. The reason many of us (myself included) post our work is that we like to see reader response and interact with readers. If you read a story, give the author a comment, or a post in their thread. That's not much to ask for the many hours the author and their editors and betas spend working on it, and in most cases reader feedback is the only pay they will ever receive. No one is asking you to read stories you don't want to, just to send the author a comment or a post if you do become a reader. For a long time I was very active in giving feedback, and I still do whenever I read a story; I just don't read that much anymore due to having a lot to do online and off. However, I will mention one other aspect of this; if an author is complaining about not getting feedback, and that author is reading stories and not giving feedback themselves, they ought to take a look in the minor while they complain. (please note; I'm not referring to anyone in particular, nor do I have anyone in mind (or even know of anyone to whom it currently applies), just stating a situation that, if it occurs, is hypocritical in the extreme). CJ

That's a good point!! OK, first, here's the paragraph that IMHO best sums up the situation;

Who? Me? a tease? OK, I did some editing on Chapter 43... Just to one sentence, which now reads;

Poor Helen... She takes a bullet for Eric and she's still derided. BTW, the "c**t" remark concerns me; from what I understand, some may see that as similar to a racial epithet. It's also one of our filtered words on the forums, so please, don't use it here. Thanks. Okay, hrmmm, good points about Dimitri's assault; I should have been clearer. I just re-read that part and muttered "oh, Crap!" I remembered to say that the lone outside deputy was not visible from inside THE house, but I neglected to say that his post was not clearly visible from the Biker's location (the Jacobs Ranch, a few hundred yards to the south). It says he was sitting on a log beside (so at the side of) the house, and was the front faces the road (to the east, per the text) he could either be on the north or south side. I thought i had said "north" at some point, but I didn't. It would be the most sensible location; it would cover the area blocked to the biker observers yet also cover the driveway. However, I SHOULD have specified it. I hate to change posted text for anything other than typos, but I'm considering doing so in this case. My apologies for the ommision; that was sloppy on my part. Unless anyone comes up with a good reason not to, I'll make a change to the posted text and make it clear that the exterior deputy is on the north side of the house. (I took pains to specify, more than once, that the Jacobs ranch is to the south, for that very reason, and here I go and goof up the thing I was doing that for. Duh!) The Biker's response time was due to the distance. A couple hundred yards (per the text) means Dimitri was right; if his plan had worked, he'd have had time to get out. His plan was high-risk, but workable *IF* nothing went wrong (but it did). Dimitri's attack was a classic asymmetric strategy; rely on assumptions to get to the target, bypassing permiter defenses instead of going force-on-force. As for the Air Force, did they goof? Yep! They made bad assumptions. They assumed that the threat was over after the first attack because, firstly, the attacker was dead, and secondly, the reason for the attack was gone; the information had been transfered. Did they overlook the glaring fact that a second attacker might be out there and not know the attack was futile? Yes, they did. That might seem like an outrageous mistake, but it isn't. It;s called operational chaos. During an emergency, things like that happen all the time. For example, the two F-16's scrambled out of Langley on 9-11 headed over a hundred miles out to sea instead of heading for Washington (or guarding the naval facilities at Hampton roads) because no one thought to give them a heading after takeoff? Well, it actually happened! There are countless examples of such mistakes (by no means limited to the US military, or any military for that matter). Things like that happen in an operational environment all the time. I had them goof mainly because, in real life, both the good guys and the bad guys make mistakes. Dimitri and The Scar have made some, and so has the military, and so has Instinct. Also, bear in mind; the Air Force already has what it needs from Instinct, so they are no longer a national security asset. Under those circumstances, I think arranging for a protective detail plus the fact that they were protected by a small army made sense. The only other option would be to sequester them on a military base somewhere. (and having civilians on a military base during a DEFCON 1 would be problematic in and of itself). The normal option would be to stick them in the Federal Witness Protection program, but Instinct's fame precludes that option. And now I can finally explain why Chapter 19 had an, errr, somewhat tense ending. (The reported death). Think about it.... had it not, would the Shadow's rock-climbing ability have been as well remembered? I needed something to drum home a few things, their rock-climbing being one. There was another long-term thing too, but that you haven't seen it yet. CJ

Why is it that everywhere I look on GA, there is either a goat being carved up, roasted, or some other horrific demise? (as if being hooked up with Martha wasn't bad enough... makes the oven seem not so bad, no?) ROFL!! This was funny! Crazy, but funny.

You are of course quite right on the spelling, it is the O.K. Corral. (Bondwriter is my Zeta-reader extraordinaire!) However, Tombstone is definitely in Arizona. I've been there many times. Ed Schifelin gave it its name, and unfortunately it's rather touristy today, but there's still a lot of interesting history, especially in the surrounding area. Hrmmm, speaking of which, I wonder of the O.K. Corral has anything to do with the etymology of the word "Okay". Oops, no.... a quick check says not because the term was in common usage before the famous gunfight, so that idea is out. LoL.

My personal preference is very much for "okay" because that's the word while "OK" is an abbreviation. There are, of course, as Graeme, mentioned, special circumstances. For example, if the characters are discussing a famous gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona, it would not do to have them say "The Okay Corral".

Ahh! But, look at it this way: LTMP is a very long story; 44 chapters so far (It has 47 and an epilogue total). Now, how many chapters ended with, ah, tense endings? Chapter 19 (The reported death while climbing) Chapter 37 (Fire in the Sky, ending in the crippled plane with inbound missiles) and now Chapter 43, with Brandon's dilema regarding whether or not to shoot Eric. That's three, out of 44. That's well under 10%. So, CJ

Would I ever do such a thing as that? To answer your question; in my stories, yes, that's the definition I use. Oh? You want a one-word cliffhanger? There's only one: Shadowgod. Both Wildone and Benji got at least some aspects right! I suppose I should mention the clues in those four paragraphs... Eric's blood trickling; if he'd just taken a full-on, point-blank shotgun blast, it would do a lot more than trickle. Brandon dropped the Shotgun in part due to the shock of thinking he had actually killed Eric. (From Dimitri and Chase's POV, it would look like a kill). Chase's elbowing did indeed save Brandon from a bullet in the head. Eric dropped his shotgun within easy reach; hoping for a shot at Dimitri, but he never had the opportunity. Give that they had no time to think, I think they did ok. BTW, the clue to Jon's level of injuries; the bullet hitting him, while seated, caused him to spin out of the chair; that pretty much limits it to a shoulder strike. However, that would only really work if his chair was a little off-angle anyway, and it wouldn t be much of a spin; unlike in the movies, getting shot does not send you flying. The force is actually the equivalent of the kick the shooter feels when firing. For a gun with a heavy kick like a shotgun or a .45, it's enough to send you staggering, not flying. For a smaller weapon like a 22 or a round from an AK 47 (7.62 NAto Standard round), not so much. BTW, yes, the AK, a Soviet weapon, fires NATO ammo. The Sovs were clever in that regard; they designed most of their equipment to be NATO compatible, right down to bomb attach points and aircraft servicing carts. The reason was strategically sound; if they were invading Western Europe, they wanted to be able to use seized ammo and maintenence equipment to the greatest degree possible. BTW, you don't know how hard it is for me to resist the urge to fill LTMP with bits of technical info like that, LoL.

ACCCK! Now, now, no leaking!! You've been adding cliffhangers to LTMP again, haven't you? See the trouble you cause? Shame on you for stirring up all this BBQ frenzy!!! Hmmm!!! I seriously would like to know the actual answer; I've googled a bit, and so far I seen nothing to preclude a one-sentence paragraph. If there was though, how would I write scenes like those four paragraphs? Sorry, Only shadowgod can do things like that, and speaking of Shadowgod, he has a major, though very sad, announcement to make today... There ya go, that's a shadowgod cliffhanger!!! BTW, cliffhangers can be even shorter than a sentence. They can even be one single word.

Well, ummm, we don't know for sure that anyone (well, except for Toowoomba and its environs, and Gunter, and the police, etc, ) has been blown to hell yet... However, we DO know what is happening in San Francisco... Poor Cody!

What have you resolved? Aww, Mike.. Look at the definition above.. See the highlighted bits? The dilemma brandon faced at the end of 43 was not the chapter end, there was a paragraph after it about Paraguay. Also, the four paragraphs I posted don't count; they are the beginning of the chapter, not the end. BTW, here is my definition of Cliffhanger Awwww... But Your Shadowyness, I did offer to have Eric take Cody along, but you declined...

AACKK!!! Now, now, let's not be hasty!!! If you BBQ me, I can't post Ch 44 and you'll never know what happened!! AAAAACCCKKK!!! E Tu Echidna?!?!!? Oh no! Not the spines! Not the spines!!!! I think I'll go hide now...