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Yeah... science fiction is starting to get too much like work for me. lol.

I have mentioned before that I enjoy Tom Clancy's epic length novels. He had three intertwining series all set in the same world. This is another thing I like. Having a created world where you can do different series of books and the characters bump into each other. Without Remorse is where we meet the major recurring character of John Clark. This is a good solid book that is a pageturner. It's been entirely too long since I've last read it, so it is back into the queue for the next time I'm devouring books. If you like political and military stuff, or Tom Clancy's stuff in general, this is a good book to read.

For the authors out there, remember, we have two themes for Fall 2018 for you to write for: For everyone else, let's flashback to Fall of 2012 when everyone was waiting for the end of the world.

What browser are you using? It works fine in Chrome and Firefox. I can see a partial issue in Edge. It doesn't work in Internet Explorer at all (And IE shouldn't be in use at this point)

Other than the fact that the link I included in my post, gave you the Fiction category already selected make sure the "All" is not checked. see how the selected categories are grayed out? Unchecking "All" makes them selectable. I showed this for another filter box in the video linked on every page.

Another thing to be aware of is that if you Follow the Author on the author page or Follow their profile, you'll still get notifications. We are working on finally correcting the Notification issue as we think we've managed to identify the cause. It's not nearly as clear cut as you'd think it would be. That was just released per this blog post... Set category to fiction. This eliminates Poetry. Then set your Genres to not include Science Fiction and Fantasy https://www.gayauthors.org/stories/?filter_categories=1&filter_genres=1%2C2%2C3%2C4%2C6%2C8%2C10%2C11 That should get most of that stuff. However, this system is about finding things, not blocking them. And no, we're not going to block authors either.

2 Hours ago. https://www.gayauthors.org/stories/

Yes. When you follow from the author page, you get notified of just story stuff. When you follow from the profile, you get notified of everything. (Including stories, in theory)

Today we are going to talk about how Follow works. In the forum software, Follow works by notifying you to new content in the item you wish to follow. So, if you follow a blog, you get notified of new blog posts. If you follow a blog post, you get notified of comments to that blog post. If you follow a Forum, you are notified of new topics to the forum. If you follow a topic, you're notified of new replies to the topic. When you click the follow button, you get these options: The default is "A Notification when new content is posted". Right below that is "change how the notification is sent". You can choose Inline (default) or email or both. You can also choose a daily digest of updates (good on busy topics/blogs you follow) or a Weekly digest. You can also choose to follow something and then not get notifications. This is handy if you want to support the author without getting the alerts. Since following at multiple levels can be confusing, I'd thought I'd use this blog as an example. If you were one of the members following the blog "Anthology News", then you got a notification this Anthology Flashback blog was posted: There are only 11 people following the blog at the moment... so this is a great time to click Follow (it changes to Following once you've done so)! If you wanted to be alerted to comments on this blog post, you'd need to follow the blog post. In the example above, you can see 5 people are following that blog post. I was one of those followers so I could respond to comments and use reactions. If you comment on a blog post and want to see what others think of your comment or if they reply, then following the blog post would alert you to any additional comments. Now, we have a whole bunch of site news blogs I think are worth following that are intended to highlight writing tips, ideas, and stories. Be sure to follow them here: I hope this helps! Let me know what you think in the comments below. And be sure to like and follow those blogs. P.S. The process described in following works in theory for Stories as well. There are still some odd quirks with the system we are working to correct. The proper advice here is to be sure to both follow and like a story. You can also follow an author. When you follow an author, you get notifications when they post new stories. (Follow the Author to get notifications to new Stories. Follow a Story to get notifications to new Chapters). We are actively trying to address the issue where you are not getting notified of new stories/chapters properly. It is a very stubborn and persistent bug.

@grahamsealby Cia's response works best under the current system. The upcoming update to the stories software, which will hopefully be posted this week, handles this better. There is not a separate advanced search page any more with the new version. When you click forward to read a story and then click back, it returns to your search results (the blue highlights show what is being filtered)

Rick Riordan has become a juggernaut through Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse Mythologies with his interlocking series of books. They all started with Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. (Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief being the first book) I've read this 5 book series and I have the other 15 or so books in the interlocking series, but I haven't read them yet. The man is just cranking these things out. They are aimed at teens, so they make a great light read for those that like modern fantasy, a la Harry Potter.

@Carlos Hazday That is something different. @wildone was premaking the Sunday Wrap-Up blog and the system isn't smart enough to know not to send out the notification when it is a scheduled post. You'll get tagged again when it goes live. I also received the notification, because I follow that blog and can see it.

@northie@Carlos Hazday@Renee Stevens I do plan to continue rotating through the anthologies, including repeating them when I've made the run through. Since we get new people on site all the time, it is my hope that they check them out.

Welcome to another week of Anthology Flashbacks. This week brings back to the summer of 2012... Do you like these weekly flashbacks? Let us know in the comments below. Click Follow on the Anthology News Blog at the top of the page. And, of course, be sure to review stories to let the authors know how you felt about their stories!

So I shared a sneak peek of this post in our Writer's Circle. I encourage authors to join the club if you haven't yet because there are a ton of great posts in there, and sometimes early information about upcoming features for authors. So, we've got the new Stories user interface worked out, and we're fixing the bugs. Here's a sneak peek at it:  The quick Title search will now be on every page. The previously empty search field now has "Search stories..." to give a clear indication of what it is. The filter bar replaces the advanced search functions... and it is a live filter. This means if you select "Follow" and then select Stories I Follow, you get this: The search is applied instantly, and you can see it dropped from 883 pages of results to 2. Or how about Complete Fantasy Stories sorted by word count: We've updated the Authors' pages as well: We are hoping to be able to upgrade this week. There will be some bugs to work out, but we need to test on the live server with more people to finally squash them all. When we upgrade, there will be a topic posted for with more information and for bugs like we've done before with directions of what to do if you encounter one and what information you need to share.

As I mentioned in my book blog a couple weeks ago, I have been a fan of the Chronicles of Narnia for a long time. I've always been a bit disappointed that they didn't do all the books as movies, but they also seem to run out of steam in the process. (this series included). That said, I think they did a good job with 3 movies they did in this series. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was the best of the 3 though, I think. If you haven't watched it and you like fantasy, this was well done.

Another great article! Thanks @Comicality

We have switched back to the internal search system. This should speed things back up, but you're going to see the search index building dialog for awhile.

I think this is tied to the search system as other sites are reporting similar issues. We'll have to look into it further. I've not seen it happen yet myself.

Hmm.

We will check into it.

This is an interesting fantasy world that doesn't really have magic. There is a very large series of these books, including a couple of spin-off series. It's a well-developed world and the books do have some good emotional impact. There is one note of caution here. For some strange reason, the books in this series are NOT stand alone. They end abruptly without warning and start right back up in the next book. So be aware, that if you pick up this book and like it, you're looking down the barrel of 9 books to get the full story with them getting a little more book-like towards the end. Definitely an enjoyable series!

I hope everyone is having a great week! I'll be filling in for Renee for a while. It's time for this weeks prompts, supplied by our prompt guru, Comicfan. Just a reminder, and for those who haven't worked with the prompts before: prompt responses under 1,000 words must be posted as part of a collection. Prompt 676 – Creative Tag – The Myth There are myths all are all around the world to explain nature. Your task is to write a ta/’le explaining why volcanos explode. Prompt 677 – Creative Tag – List of words Use the following words in a story – An old photo, a book, a bird, a topaz ring, and a newspaper. Did you write a prompt response last week? Don't forget to share it below.

The first thing I need everyone to do today is click on the Follow Button. This blog is something Authors should be following as a great way to participate in the community. Whether it is writing an anthology story or two or three for the Fall Anthologies or reading the ones below and leaving a review, participation is a great way to get yourself or your stories in front of more people. And in case you need this... *hint* *hint* This week's flashback brings us up to Spring of 2012 with the topic of It Wasn't Me!

Instead of the usual Tuesday Tech Blog this week, I'm taking the day to wish my first online author friend a very very happy 20th Anniversary of him posting his stories for us all to enjoy! On June 19, 1998, 20 years ago today, Comicality posted his first chapter of New Kid In School on Nifty. https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/highschool/new-kid-in-school/ (If you look at chapter 1-2, you'll see the date stamp) Comicality hooked me right away on his stories. I emailed him early, and we had a few exchanges. Eventually, I formed Gay Authors, and I got him as my very first Hosted Author here. Comicality is, in fact, the only author who still has a hosted site here on Gay Authors. https://www.gayauthors.org/comicality/ 💗💜 Love you Lots Comsie! 💜💗 Thanks for all the great memories for the last 20 years! 🍹 Here is to many, many more! 🍹