Krista

Oh gosh *hides eyes* I can't be here in the comments section until I've settled in and read the story. 😮 Dangerous! Also, "sports ball teams" I don't know if my mind should be in the gutter with the way it was worded, but it tripped right in there anyway.

Revolt, because I think it is a rather fluent mood on GA, either jokingly or... rather unabashed really.

What?! I'll have to change my mood to aghast if this is so. Such a sad day, if snarky isn't on the list.

Depends on if I've been a clucky hen and/or posted a new chapter. I had 25ish when I logged during my lunch hour. Logging now I have 35. And I don't have them disabled. I'm nosy and I want to know what people are doing.

I'd believe you more if you had set your mood to, "Snarky." Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Do better.

17x1 would also be clever.

Yeah, I'll dodge that question, for now.

That's the POV of first. Unless the character tells your narrator what they're thinking, you just have to assume right along with the narrator based on underlying observations, evidences... until proven out. You have to think about Davin's nature, is he reliable, does he have hidden motives, etc. Joel isn't the most reliable narrator to be fair. He waffles a bit based on his fluctuating mindset. He thinks things in moments and then backtracks on those thoughts. I do want to write a character that goes either way and in doing so is also far more open to threesomes.

Woops, did I forget one? lol... because I didn't actively dodge one. Let me go back and look...

Learned to Lie wasn't my idea to begin with. It was an idea given to me by, @wildone. I think he was writing it for an anthology story. I got to read the portion of the writing. Then he lost motivation to continue it. So, I told him that I'd like to run with the idea, because I liked it. I changed a lot of the writing to fit my own personal tastes, but the beginning idea was his. The first chapter leaned heavily on that. It was also a bit of a seat of my pants decision to write it for the Secret Author contest. I knew I was rushing head-first into a deadline and a wordcount that would leave the idea a bit lacking with readers. It took some prodding and the completion of, "The Best Year," for me to start working on this story again. To answer your question. I do not outline my story from beginning to end. The most I do is character descriptions. I embed a few plot important aspects tied to those characters. For example for, "The Best Year," Jackson is a character study of someone who isn't serious, he is unapologetic, careless, and I wanted him to test the limits of readers on whether or not they found him worth reading, based on him not being likeable off the bat. I knew within the writing to make him end up being worthwhile that he would need to show growth. That's as far as I went with him though. I do plan out endings for some stories. I don't with others. I have an anxiety about ending stories. I never think I do it with the most conviction or in the best of spots. I knew how I wanted, "The Best Year," to end. I also knew how I wanted "Elias" to end. I did not know how I wanted "Ridley" to end, and most people would have much preferred that I continued that story a lot farther than I chose to. This story, I didn't not have a sought out and planned ending. I just knew the variables that I needed to work on before I could allow the ending to come. And it is absolutely true when I said that I didn't know going in who of the characters that I wished to write would be Joel's partner through all of this. I eliminated Colt at the beginning. I knew how I wanted to depict Colt, Davin, Gavin, Roy, Jonny, Lorianne, etc. I did not know who would be the best fit for Joel. Who I liked him with and who I thought readers would connect the best within the make-up of all of those dynamics. So, no it was not planned. I had a little * followed by 'Possible love interest' in their character descriptions and there were multiple names that had them. I knew Joel was going to remain with the Connley family though. That was the bigger plot aspect that should have read as obvious as soon a Trace met him on that bridge. I had to build tension in that decision, if it was too easy of one, then him being there wouldn't have landed. I knew that, but as far as him attending Tempton High, or Fletcher High, that was up in the air in the beginning. And since that idea was slightly up in the air, then his love interest naturally followed. Proximity is the best way to create chemistry with characters. If they never see one another, they can't form the chemistry. So, with that said, that eliminated anyone that I knew would be staying in Tempton. It also eliminated some characters completely, that never made my character sheet to begin with, truthfully. Anyone he meets after attending Fletcher hadn't been added to the character sheet either. ***To clarify - The decision for him to attend Fletcher came earlier in the writing. I want to say just after the fourth or fifth chapter. My mind was made up, but I allowed Joel's not to be. So, this very well could have been a bit of a different story, the constant being Joel and to a point the Connleys and Kepler twins. The ending is what I'm still struggling with. I'm being told by my brain that I need to work on it still. Or up to it better.

I'm guilty as charged about not deleting things after I've posted. I did it one time recently, somewhere, and it backfired and now I wished I left it for the person that needed to see it most. Prompted a mood change to uninvolved and everything. That mood didn't last long, it is one of my 'never going to change' faults. Again, guilty as charged. lol. Yeah, I did unintentionally belittle poor Davin. I mean I do write him with a little less care than I do Joel, so some of him is lost to the back of my mind and I let him fall where he does. Organically. So if he reads as you've pointed out, then I feel him a stronger character for it. I just didn't set out to make him that way down to the letter. His character sheet is actually almost mirrored to his Brother's in my character sheet descriptions. The rest came about through my mind at the moment. Which, I think happens with most writing. Putting flesh on a skeleton. Sooo.... Colt smelling like Sandalwood, does that change your mind on him a little bit? Or would you simply bathe him in the soaps you preferred. Thoroughly.

I give you permission, make it feral and filthy - and you don't even have to wait and post it April 1st. If you need notes on character descriptions, I'll supply them for you. If we could talk about all the guys and my thought processes without spoilers, I'd explain the false hope feeling. I did a little bit with Colt. But he was on the list. He just happened to be the first one cut from it. I broke many people's hearts and no one knew I was doing the breaking until I started posting the chapters.. lol, because I do think Colt was a heavy favorite early on. It is a bit of a surreal thought for me to have, because I was very much on the fence at who to find for Joel. And that list included "Unknowns" if he chose to go back to Tempton, because during the time I was considering pairings for him with the characters I had... my mind wasn't made up on that either.

Oh gosh... went from zero to ten with the watersports fetish. I can't even. The fact that in my early days of Nifty reading as a wee teen too young to read it... I had to look up what it was... Yahoo being the go-to tool back then, and I was far too young for it not to scar me for life. And I was on dial-up, so it was a slow scarring. For me, this writing is a hobby that I do. I do wish to learn and discuss technique and all that. I think it is fascinating, and important discussions to be had. But, I also feel that at least here, hobby writing can be celebrated and not shunned due to incorrectness. So, it gives creativity more freedom where otherwise it could be stifled and bogged down. Mind you, editing is important. Effort needs to take place and the story needs to read and function as a proper and clean-as-you-can-make-it story.

The story is not completed. You'll get a new chapter Friday or Saturday. Sunday if I'm lazy, or Thursday if I'm wanting to piss @wildone off by posting a day early. We'll see what happens when we get there, it is always a surprise to me really. Colt seemingly smells like Sandalwood. Which, is a decently good scent, but it is a bit overdone. Mac-and-cheese stinks, delicious, but I hate the smell of cheese and I don't like the smell of pasta in general. Whole wheat pasta smells worse than the processed stuff though. And yes, sex usually is rather convincing. It leads to bad decisions all the time, the promise of it, and the after-orgasm-glow. They are both closeted. I think that's a running theme with me. I typically write my characters in a love-type-thing both closeted, but different reasons as to why they are. Joel is closeted because he knew he had to be in order to keep his family. Now he's just scared out of any mindset that would ever allow him to come out, until that changes. Davin seems to just be closeted for the hell of it, because he hasn't shown a ton of fear or anxiety about people knowing him... there was possibly a little bit of that when he talked about his reluctance to follow Joel when Joel bolted from the baseball field. But who knows. I think if Joel was to come out fully, Davin would simply step through the door with him though or that's what he's giving off to me in this stage of the writing. I couldn't say if that is going to be a true experience or not. *whistles* If anything he'd stay in the closet so he could keep sneaking into Joel's room and no one be the wiser. Fox in the chicken coop, so to speak.

Well in Roy's defense, his first name is Grady. But then, I have no damn idea why he'd prefer to be called 'Roy,' when Grady is far superior, but here we are. That is my doing, of course. Sometimes the way my brain functions, confuses me. I like the name Grady. But yeah, he has a very southern sounding name throughout. Grady Roy Mason. Probably less so than Jonathan "Jonny" Lundst Jr. And Roy is cute. I like Roy. I don't know about your cousin, he is your problem. But this fake Roy is cute at least. And he does come with baggage. Jocks are ridiculous. Some of them so superstitious that they cannot change their socks, foot fungus be damned. Joel is not that, he's ridiculous in a lot of other ways all on his own. So, in your Jolt scenario, which one would be the bottom? You want Joel to bottom for Davin, but would that extend to the Jolt pair? Well, to be honest the first chapter did fit the title. Learned to Lie. It was all his small omissions and careful lies to save face that led to the fallout. But me continuing the writing, made the title hit and miss throughout the changing themes and maybe Joel's growth. So for a small gift to me we'll just go with ironic, instead of erroneously titled. Because I know I suck at titles. lol.