C James

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.

Ahhh, well, yes, like leaving the central character about to be rendered limb from limb, literally about to be hacked to bits? Ahh, good point on LTMP: What I meant was, in the POSTED stories and chapters, so of course, anything beyond Ch 9 would not count on the cliffhanger issue. Can we agree on that? Sounds like we're pretty much in agreement. And WHAT? Where, exactly, did Shadowgod say that?

While I do agree that it is strange that anyone who has read LiS could possibly think they have seen worse cliffhangers, I think we can probably attribute this to the wording of the question; "worse" could be read by some to imply "not good". Therefor, I think it is clear that your honored title of :king: King of Eeeeevil Cliffhangers :king: has been, hereby and forever, re-affirmed! Now, now, Echidna, I NEVER said I'd be too upset to post a chapter! I merely said that I was so rattled by the threat to shadowgod's title that I was unable to concentrate enough to format the chapter into HTML I might, possibly, have neglected to mention that I had already formatted said chapter. As for canceling the results of this poll, well, we'd also have to cancel the results of the other poll. That would, of course, leave us back where we started, with Shadowgod being awarded the title of :king: King of Eeeeevil Cliffhangers :king: by a very select GA committee.

<Cough>!!! I'll merely quote the proof from the chapter itself; these atr the last lines of the last two scenes with Jacob in them; Now, considering Jacob's scene (the last we see of him in the chapter) closes with the words "one last and final time." I'd say it looks like he's not going to make it. You also gave him the symptoms of collapsed lungs in BOTH lungs; if that's what he had, he'd very likely die en-route to the hospital. So, I do hereby declare and proclame; this was the Mother of all Cliffhangers! (and excellently done; of that, there can be no doubt. ) And BTW, that "last and final time." phrase fits perfectly; very evocative, and part of why I consider you to be the mater of evocative wording, along with being :king: King of Eeeeevil Cliffhangers :king: Your chapters are full of rich and descriptive words and phrases, so, don't think it's only the cliffhangers I aim to honor you for. I'm sure glad we're having this conversation now, and not a few weeks from now, but yes, I do admit there might, just possibly, be a cliffhanger in FTL. But I can't be sure; if it's there, the only way I can think of that it could have got there is that Shadowgod slipped it in during the beta... (He does love cliffhangers, you know... ) And okay, OTHER than FTL, you won't see any cliffhangers in my currently posted stories. We can agree on that, right?

ACK!!! Now, now Shadow, that's not true!!! You ended LiS 26 with hints that the character was dead... They were also heavy at the crash scene itself. And just becuase Steve's lifeless body (And no, I don't wish it was you! Blackheart had his motorcycle crash and ended up addled, after all slumped to the sand, covered with fresh blood and gore, does not necessarily mean anything bad had happened! In fact, wasn't it you yourself who said that as the shot that saved him had already occured, it wasn't really a cliffhanger? I know I can find that e-mail if I look...

But they were essentially unharmed at that point, just working on their tans, and Eric even said "Have a nice day". How can it be a cliffhanger with "Have a nice day"? Now, now, Bondwriter, you can't say the last chapter of LTMP was a cliffhanger; by a definition, a cliffhanger has to leave the protagonists in major peril. Uncertainty as to whether or not they kissed hardly qualifies. This is why the next-to-last chapter of FTL wasn't a cliffhanger; either Steve was dead, which would not be a cliffhanger, or he wasn't dead becuase the shot that saved him had ALREADY been fired before the end of the chapter. Now, for an example of a real cliffhanger, I give you LiS 26! That was a real one! And I'm very much looking forward to reading Camy's latest chapter of Serpah, hopefully sometime today. Edit to add; just saw shadowgod's post denying any involvment with a cliffhanger epidemic. This is veeery interesting... Id do indeed notice an increase in cliffhangers since Shadowgot came to GA, and I have indeed heard rumors that he is running a secret cliffhanger school.. Hmmm...

Graeme, has it escaped your attention that there are no cliffhangers so far in LTMP? That sort of torpedoes your claims, I think.

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:

ACK! I don't know how you're doing it, but the side accusing me of using cliffies is pulling ahead! ARGH! And worse, I'm being accused of using worse cliffies that Shadowgod himself! That's preposterous! He's not the :king: King of Eeeeevil Cliffhangers :king: for nothing, you know! Humph! Ummm, I hope you only voted for me in question #3; one and two are there only to set me up for defamation the the dark and prickly forces from down under... :2hands: ACK! Why won't anyone believe me: Shadowgod is the :king: King of Eeeeevil Cliffhangers :king: (confirmed as such by Graeme's own poll) so therefor it stands to reason he, and he alone, should be voted for in the first two polls. What hath the Echidna wrought?

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.

Ahhem!!! You didn't beat me to it; on Sept 22nd I posted this; In which I said; I added the bolding, but otherwise that's an unaltered quote. So, see, I blamed ME for not getting it to him on time. Of course, I might also mention that after nearly a week and a half of waiting, he tells me to send it off to Emoe unbetad (Which I have done), but I wouldn't mention that. Not I. (However, give Shadowgod a big THANK YOU becuase he did Beta 11 and 12, and they'll be heading for Florida today!) Edit to add in the interests of full disclosure; I really was late with ch 10; I usually try and have a chapter ready to send to the team about two weeks before posting date. I didn't make it that time. However, this incident proves something... It proves where Cliffhangers come from! You can clearly see in my sept 22nd post, that I shoulder the blame. And what do I always say about any errors that remain in a chapter? All remaining errors are mine and mine alone! So, see, I don't try and pin blame on others... I do, however, try to (literally) give the devil his due when it comes to cliffhangers; that's shadowgod's domain. If any do appear in my chapters (and that, BTW, I do not deny) all I can say is *I* never use cliffhangers, and we have the :king: King of Eeeeevil Cliffhangers :king: adding things during the beta, well, you do the math... Now you know where cliffhangers come from... Now, a SEQUEL to Bourb? Ummmm, does this mean Bourb is ending?!?!?!??!!

So you haven't voted yet? Cool! You will, I'm sure, want to vote for yourself in the first two questions...

ACK!!!! But you DO use cliffhangers... Not even you can deny that LiS 26 was one lulu of a cliffhanger. And i see how you voted! I knew the vote totals before you did, and I see them now! I think you're in denial... you are, after all, the :king: King of Eeeeevil Cliffhangers :king:

Ahhh, but you have been claiming that I use cliffhangers.. That's propaganda!

: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.

I've merely been getting the word out about this nefarious poll. I'm just astonished that seven people thing I actually use cliffhangers! The Echidna's propaganda must be more effective than I'd thought... :2hands:

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.