C James

Ooops, sorry, that was in a post by Talonrider in Graeme's story thread; this goes to prove, as if it needed proving, that I should never trust my memory.

The chapter delay, and any errors, are mine, but we can blame Shadowgod for everything else. For example, my internet connection went belly-up for several hours today, and I blame Shadowgod. Have you been bothered by any mosquitoes lately? Blame shadowgod! See, it's easy and fun.

Ahh, this is true! OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming of blaming Shadowgod for things.

There won't be a new chapter today, and my sincere apologies. I was late getting it to the team and it's still being worked on. I'll send it in as soon as it's ready.

I'll go against the grains here and say that website is one of the worst I've ever seen. First, it uses flash. That's bad in and of itself; many people, such as myself, rip flash out of their browsers because the damn player does not have a way to disable it, and flash is used for moving adds which are an extreme annoyance. (If anyone wants it, just google "uninstall macromedia flash" and you can find several methods to rip the misbegotten miserable crap called flash out of your system. ) BTW, if you're getting the impression that I don't like flash, you're right! So, I loaded the site on my laptop, which does have flash in one browser (I added it for the rare occasions when I need to see something that uses flash). Worst site I have ever seen for it's purpose. Ugh. Looks like a dang video game, highly annoying moving graphics, crappy interface, and the most important part of the site (it's pitching books, after all), the plot descriptions, etc, appear in windows that cut off much of the text. Oh, the excerpt download doesn't work, either. Give me a nice, plain-text website any day; with one of those, I can actually find the darn information without the annoyances, and unlike this horrible site its even searchable. Thanks to this site, I now have a negative feeling that I remember in association with the author, which I suspect is not a prime goal of the marketing. :thumbdown: :thumbdown:

Much the same for me as for Graeme. I prefer to have more than one writing project active so I can switch back and forth, which comes in especially handy when I get blocked on one. Also, like Graeme, I find working on future scenes is another good route. Sometimes, especially after a busy day, I just don't feel like writing. Those are the times when i have to push. My usual way around that it to switch to a scene that's easy to write.

:king: :king: :king: Happy Birthday, Lost Cause!!!!! :king: :king: :king: Have a GREAT day, and I hope things continue to go well for you!

Me? A tease? Nah, I'd never do such a thing! There was a kiss in the chapter, as promised by the title. I'll even give a minor spoiler for chapter 10, and hope the Echidna isn't loo... YEOUCH! Owww... OK, OK, no spoilers...

Me? Cruel? When have I ever been cruel? Ahhh, but Graeme, since when have my chapter titles been vague? Remember "The Kiss"? Well, there certainly was a kiss in that chapter, and such a romantic one, next to the main fountain in Rome's Piazza Navona.

ROFL! Well, yes, I suppose a sequel is possible. ACK!!! No pincushion!!! Noooo!!! I only meant the past stories! There may, or may not, be surfing in LTMP! Spare me, Echidna!!! I think you mean Epilogue... Well now, for your amusement, I'll mention that I received some rather harsh criticism via anonymous e-mail a couple of weeks ago... Someone was very vociferous in their complaint that I had TOO MUCH graphic sex in LTMP. Bear in mind that this was before the possible kiss in Ch 9 had been posted. :wacko: Humph, I do not have worms. BTW, this isn't the first mention of tequila in LTMP. That may, or may not, be related to the title.

Well, of course I take night classes. I'm well known for showing up in the darkest hours, blasting the old Brian Adams hit on my car stereo or IPod, "I wear my sunglasses at night". I am, after all, known to lurk in a lot of places... It goes with being a lurker, after all.

:king: :king: :king: Happy Birthday, Steve!!!!!! :king: :king: :king: Have a great day, and happy 39th!!! CJ

But my chapter endings are always nice and sedate... I'm just making suggestions on how to vote, for the convenience of those who wish to help but don't have time to read the poll questions. Opps, my bad on the spelling; I'm prone to typos, as Emoe and the rest of the team will surely attest. But, Ieshwar, surely people who read my stories will know that I'd never use a cliffhanger? Shadowgod and Graeme, however, certainly do... Why, as Wildone pointed out, every chapter so far in Graeme's current, excellent story, "Heart of the Tree", has been a cliffhanger, becuase the central character is in continual danger of being befelled by a dire conspiracy, and is literally in danger of being hacked to bits at the end of every chapter!!

Don't feel bad Graeme, I didn't get it either; it never occured to me that I put surfing into that many, but Ishewar is right!!! BTW, I can at least release the title of Ch 10: Tequila.

Our resident Echidna, Graeme, has had his first Eeeevil attempt to take Shadowgod's title away rebuffed, but he's at it again, with another Eeeevil poll! Now, he's trying to malign me as well as undermine Shadowgod! So, I urge you all, help defeat this infamy from down under, and go to his latest Eeeevil poll, and vote for Shadowgod or Graeme in the first two questions, and for me in the third. Let the battle be joined!! The Heard and Capricans everywhere, CHARGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :2hands: :sword: :battleaxe: :axeman: :mace: This has been a public service announcement, brought to you by C James, the non-cliffhanger-using goat.

It's certainly one way to give the characters a bright and shining (well, glowing, at least) future, and it would diminish any calls for a sequel.

See? The Scar and Dimitri are good guys... Their methods might be a tad controversial, but they're just nice guys, off doing their thing... They haven't even done anything bad... (Well, unless you count that one airliner full of innocent people Dimitri brought down, but hey, nobody's perfect...) Well, sorry to dissapoint, but they do connect. Of course, I'm not saying it will be soon: it might be in the last sentence of the last paragraph, at a big concert which turns out to be a real blast... :nuke: and they band ends up going on permanent tour, carried by the prevailing winds along with the rest of the fallout... I've always believed in ending a story with a bang.

Hrmmmm, well, close... But I was thinking more along the lines of Dimitri and The Scar for your new neighbors. You'd have a blast with those guys! Well, I could bring up something from the comments that I forgot to answer: The issue of Jon's "Gays are promiscuous" remark was raised. That's a good catch, and all I can say is we haven't heard the last of it.

:king: :king: :king: Happy Birthday, Ieshwar!!!!! :king: :king: :king: I hope you have a wonderful day, my friend, and an even better year!

Ayers Rock has been mentioned... So has how the two story lines interconnect... Okay, I hope the Echidna will forgive me, but here is one very possible plot outcome; The Scar's real goal is theft. He's after Ayer's rock. Now, that rock is well over a mile wide, and is even larger below ground than above, so he's got quite a job on his hands. That's why he needs to nukes; to get the thing moving. How do the storylines connect? Instinct is playing is playing to an enormous crowd in Alice Springs when the see Ayer's Rock lifting off in a glare of harsh light, over a hundred miles to the west.

Oops! Sorry, I'm kind of over-tired right now, and your's quite right; Vote for Shadowgod or Graeme in the first two questions! Vote for me or undecided in the thrd! And I still suspect an antipodean conspiracy!

Awww.. Why is it that y'all our out to try and tarnish my precious reputation as a shy and quiet lurker, and now you're accusing me of using cliffhangers, too? Awww.. That's so mean...

Okay, I'm back. The Muse finally gave me a break, halfway through Chapter 14. Whew! I can't answer any questions about future events (the Echidna will make a pincushion out of me if I give any spoilers) but I see some great guesses! The title, now that I can discuss! Antici....pation. is sort of based on a song in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I can't claim any credit for it; this one was Shadowgod's idea, and I loved it! (see? He does more than just add cliffhangers to my stories! ) And Yes, Graeme, I must agree; Dimitri is a nicy guy at heart. He's just... misunderstood. Now, I have a bit of bad news on the writing front. Prior to my writing blitz, I was having some delays due to trying to work out the detials on some plot issues. Long story short, Ch 10 went in quite late to begin the teams' work on it, and it arrived at a time when Shadowgod is swamped with his work and school (see his post in his forum about this). It's not ready yet, and I don't think it will be by Tuesday. Sorry. (I'm serious here, this isn't like my attempt last week to imply that I'd delay a chapter; this delay is real, and becuase I was running behind.) The good news is, my writing blitz has given us a cushion of chapters, so delays are less likely from now on. Now, speaking of Echidnas.... There is one thing that we could do to help and encourage poor Shadowgod, though; it seems that the Echidna, fresh from loosing his eeevill attempt to take Shadowgod's title :king: King of Eeeevil Cliffhangers :king: for himself, has launched yet another assault on Shadowgod, via another poll in poor Shadowgod's forum! So I urge you all, help defend our Anonymous Beta Reader, and go to this poll and vote for him in all three choices. If you can't find it in your heart to vote for Shadowgod, then go ahead and vote for Graeme. Just don't vote for me, becuase I can't be a party to this eeevil attempt by the Echidna to deprive poor Shadowgod of his hard-won reputation. :,( :,( :,(

Woody, welcome to the forum! I can't answer any of the question regarding what Brandon and Chase will or will not do; all I can say is, at the end of the chapter, the chapter ended. I'll reply more in this thread tomorrow, I promise, but its 4am here and I'm dead on my feet. I've been working during daylight, and writing for most of the night for two days now; I'm still on my writing blitz. I apologize for neglecting the forum for these past three days. I do read all the posts, but, I can't really explain it; Wednesday night I just got inspired on how to get write a section that had been giving me a lot of trouble, and as i wrote more inspiration hit. I wanted to spend as much time as I possibly could writing it all down before I forgot it. Since this writing started, I wrote most of chapter 11 (completing it), all of chapter 12, and I'm 2/3 of the way through 13. I also was suddenly hit by an idea for the fall anthology, which I wasn't planning on having anything ready for, but I wrote that, too. YEah, it's been one hell of a ride; I've never had a writing binge like this before. Anyway, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for neglecting the forum and this thread. I'll be back tomorrow with replies, I promise (This applies to several PM's I'm overdue to reply too, as well). I want to thank you all for the comments you've posted; I appreciate them more than I can possibly say. They are what keeps me motivated to write, and I enjoy them all, each and every one. Thank you all so much; You're the best. Your adoring fan, CJ

LoL! Wow, thanks everyone! And Bondwriter, those pics are GREAT! Sorry for my brief reply, my muse is on a rage tonight (morning now, actually) and I need to get back to writing. Thanks!! CJ