Krista

Yeah let's not ask to be spoon fed by GA with these themes. If you want a more detailed approach to a short story, there's plenty of Prompts to choose from. These themes are open ended and broad stroked to allow for loose interpretations. I can list you everything my brain has come up with for Horizon. I'll not do it though, for the reason above. I don't wish to spoon feed anyone. You may disagree, it is your right, but I found Cia's post to be constructive. There are many tools at our disposal to help get away from stagnant thought processes. She took the time to list some approaches to that, for anyone that may read or come across the advice provided, who may not have thought about those minor tips/tricks to jumpstart creativity. Like I said though let's not encourage the idea that we must be significantly guided in our creativity before it becomes worthwhile. We're spoon fed enough in everyday life, stretching our brains a bit will do us a lot of good, I'm thinking. But, for people who are stuck on at least Horizon and wish to pick my brain for the above and/or want me to post my take on the Theme, I will. I just didn't want to feel pushy. As for Unspoken, I've not allowed myself to focus on it as much.

Good luck. I made the attempt once, but almost 500k words for me, with my brain spoiling the next part because I suddenly remember what happens kind of makes it difficult for me to read. I'll have to forget more of it before I can settle in to read a story of that length. I've managed to read Ridley three or four times though. I've reread Ellis chapter one and two twice each already, still trying to figure out if I'm going to like the story enough to continue writing it. Beginnings are rough for me to gauge things. Hopefully it smooths itself out and unfolds a bit. Otherwise, I might be starting an extended writing hiatus.

Thank you for enjoying the story. Shows and films based in Europe with the school social dynamics within them and such are fascinating to me. And I'd be lost if I tried to do Soccer/Football? 😮 or Cricket. But yeah, writing sports aspects, the actual sports can be a little bit tedious to write. I went into deeper depth with my character in a different story that was a swimmer. I don't know if I would have it in me to do that for baseball, it would be quite the ask for my brain to manage. But I hadn't covered baseball, so that was mostly why I decided on Baseball for Joel.

I know, they're completely feral.

Thank you for enjoying this story. I know there's a lot of character stuff that's in the air, mostly side characters. Joel's story arc from lost to finding his place is over though. We left him in a good place to move along with his healing and growing.

I'm imagining a very high pitched voice saying you, because your butthole is puckered out of fear.

You used different fingers to point? Who points all their fingers in a general direction when they're making the same point to each of the persons they're pointing at? 😮 Who got the middle one?

Yes, yes I remember. Coincidently, I PM'd you with my answer to this prior to me noticing this. Yikes. Scary. And how quickly you sank... no, you poured gasoline on that boat them blew it up. At times. But you're not the only one, of course.

I keep having to bring up what my grammy used to say... When you start point that finger, you need to mind the three pointing right back at you.

I am glad you saw the errors and self-corrected. I was distracted by rambling, so I didn't get around to it in time. But you rectified yourself. But you can't then fuss at me, when you were the cause of your oopsie. I won the argument either way.

Okay This is my last big mushy thank you for this story. I am truly honest when I say I didn't expect the level of reading, engagement, and shenanigans that I received with this story. I am going to be one hundred percent honest with you, the story "Ridley," saved my writing life and my engagement with this community. I received so much love for that story, but before that I had every intention of stopping my writing. I approached the powers that be and told them that I was discontinuing my writing. I had just finished the writing to, "The Best Year," and although I was thrilled with the overall writing with that story, I thought I completely wrecked my relationship with my readers throughout the writing. I was late with posting new chapters, sometimes months passed between posts. I was having to constantly apologize for my lack of writing. Some of our older members passed away waiting for that story to end and they never got to see it. It felt like I failed and I couldn't and didn't want to see myself make that attempt with anything else. I wanted my stories removed, because I am the type of person that wants a clean and thorough break from things. If I wasn't going to be engaged with the community, writing, I didn't want to my online presence out there unmonitored. If I'm not using it, I want it gone, that's how I am with online things. When I stopped writing my GA blog, I wanted it gone, in the off-chance that I left the site I didn't want people reading my thoughts, about my life, and knowing me without me knowing them. I am protective of my writing, so yeah, it would've been deleted if I held on to that belief of me wanting to leave. I was told that my body of work would be a sincere and significant loss to GA and the community. That changed my mind, I suddenly felt a little selfish, for those people that enjoyed what I had built here, etc. So I decided, okay, I'll just take a break. So I took a break, only logging like once or twice a month, if I'm remembering correctly. I think that's why there's such a loss of engagement with me and comments on my stories some during that time. I decided to write Ridley, it was for an Anthology and of course it was late and too big. I decided to post it anyway, thinking that I 100% still wasn't forgiven with how I treated readers during the posting of, "The Best Year." I was genuinely surprised. I also knew I had a complete project in Ridley. Still had the final chapters of "The Best Year," left to post as well. And although I don't think a lot of the readers I lost came back to that story, some of them did. But I found such a warm reception with Ridley, that I felt better about the approach of writing a complete project, then posting. I learned that is the only way I could ever function as an author here moving forward. I was not going to go back to writing with an unknown posting schedule looming over my shoulder. With all that rambling, that's why I keep stating how appreciative I am for everything. How much love you've shown the writing of this story, to me, and even if we're just in here talking smack, being filthy heathens, up to shenanigans, or talking completely off topic, I've felt a lot more engaged with readers that I thought were long gone to me. I don't know if I'll have another story on the go soon. I don't know when I'll be posting anything as I haven't been working on anything else in the background. So with that in mind, I just want y'all to know with full transparency what you all meant for me as far as my writing goes, why I've felt the need to thank you all multiple times, and why I seem a little bit overwhelmed and surprised. I honestly don't think I deserved it. I know the story did a lot of the heavy lifting too. If the story outright sucked, then yeah... we wouldn't have a lot to talk about other than the sucking of the story. And I also want to thank y'all for taking the time to Review the story. I don't respond to reviews, as I have this big hang-up in my mind thinking that reviews are for Readers to leave and prospective readers to put weight to. Not me. I hope that hasn't put people off leaving reviews, me not responding to them. I have responded to a few in my earlier writing, but it just clicked in my head that reviews are for me to read, but not weigh in too heavily on, if that makes sense. Yeah, I'm a little bit strange, I'm thinking. Also, I think I promised posting the Character Sheet. I might do that in the, "Where I'm at..." topic later. And when I say Character Sheet, it is pretty much the only 'planning' I do prior to writing a story. And I add to it as I go along for quick references so I don't send @wildone on information gathering missions because I can't remember things. Thank him too, if you feel it in yourself to do so. Not so much that it will give him the big head... it is big enough, the cheeky thing. So, thank you for this story. Maybe there will be more writing to come from me. Not going to commit to any one project and say, "this is the next one..." learned my lesson doing that as well.

There were wet asses in, "Standing in Shadows," "The Best Year," and "Learned to Lie." I rest my case.

Hmm.. I think I remember who started it, but in the off-chance I'm wrong, I won't say. I will hint and their name starts with a C. For the person coming up with Javin, to clarify. So you diminished OUR Celia on purpose? How dare you! You monster. 😮 It goes against my better nature to give credit where it isn't earned. There was wet asses before you started reading Learned to Lie, and there will be wet asses after... And I hate that this is starting to sound like some sort of weird kink for me, I assure you that it is not. lol. Appreciated, but not elevated to kink level.

As someone in the medical field, at least in my specialized field I know. I know when I am lied to. I don't appreciate the lies, I don't really ever say, "I know you're fibbing..." I just rebuild my whole approach to compensate for those little fibs they all think they've gotten away with.

Yeah, Lisa Benton is risking the total implosion of her family. She's already lost Joel, despite Joel saying that he still loves her. I think he does, but he doesn't respect her anymore and that tends to cause more harm. If you no longer respect the person in front of you, you no longer see their value as you once did. Love can remain, but not trusting them, wanting them, etc. She's lost him and maybe one day she may need him and he won't show up. Or, she may come to her senses, but he is too far removed from her that he doesn't want to put the effort in rebuilding a bridge that she destroyed. I don't know. But yeah, she is risking all of that, unknowns and all. At this point my "Bullet Point" document may be longer than my three-ish page character sheet. Not a bad thing. Roy didn't leave Fletcher willingly, his parents forced him to because of Jonny and the near miss of sharing a prison cell with him, waiting to be bailed out. Having the, "drug dealer' reputation, one that doesn't fit him as he was mostly just along for the ride... accomplices are still charged, mind you. He might as well have been a drug dealer just by being there. That probably made him more willing to leave Tempton, so maybe it was a little of both. Roy and Joel were sort of mirrored in that they both were a bit segregated from the student body as a whole. Joel because he was afraid.. and Roy, because of his loyalty to the asshole Jonny that I feel a lot of people would have avoided. Guilty by association. They both needed a bit of a reset. I guess I'm happy that I was on the fence about "Joy," and gave that to Roy. He deserves it, that soft smile and brown eyes proves it.

Thank you for sticking with it and enjoying the story.

You will be punished for this. Especially for 12. Doubly punished for that.

You are so brave!

Thank you for reading and enjoying the story. All good questions. I can't answer them... but they are good questions. Weighty questions, for which some of them do have hints as to how they can go. Also, Joel's character and how he may handle things may come into play. But yeah, I still can't answer those, but I'll need to make a document for the questions in my own mind and some echoed in these comments for the off-chance that I can put them to good use. Thank you for sticking with this story.

If it wasn't, the thought of just Westley coming for family dinners, etc... it needed to be eye opening. Dad Benton definitely saw that writing on the wall, I'm thinking. As a parent it would wreck me if I even thought I could be harming or pushing away any one of my children. If I was doing it, I sure as hell wouldn't want my husband being a willing 'bystander' just because I've somehow forced him to fall in line somewhere along the way. Those dynamics feel so tragic to me and it would break my heart. So writing a character like her, even in the limit ways that I did, has been interesting. I don't know if I could do it if she had the same words put to paper that Celia had... it would be a heavy burden for me to work through in the writing. But, still I think it would be interesting. I don't know if y'all would have put up with it though. She hasn't changed her mind with Joel out of the picture, knowing everything she was told. I doubt she'd change if he was still living under that room. But yeah, she lies better than anyone else in the story. Celia tried to call her out on those, but she didn't budge much. Joel is done with lies. Probably for the best, he wasn't the best liar to begin with.

How about, instead of a sequel I just entertain y'all and do a Q&A. Although if y'all have some non-spoiler general questions y'all wish to ask, I'll be open to answering. But noooo.. I can't do that. No. And I am so uncultured that I don't know what Superfriends are.. lol. But that does sound interesting, asking a lot of questions. Pointing towards the writing later explaining them. And all of these are good questions. That I can't answer. For obvious reasons. Although as forgetful as I am, I probably do need to make a bullet point in the very slim, around one percent chance that I will be starting any sort of sequel. Because I didn't for Ridley and now I'm wishing I did... not because I am of the mind to do a sequel for that story either, but just in the off-chance the information stays there. Maybe remind me.

I will miss how you jokingly diminish characters. I found it hilarious throughout this whole thing. And yeah, Joy would be the perfect name for a Roy/Joel ship name. It was almost a thing, as you know. But I wonder what two "soft" puppy type dudes would look like. Although Joel did beat up Jonny's face for him, and slapped around Jaxton a little bit... but other than that he was rather soft puppy. Roy is pure puppy though, I'm thinking. 😮 But yeah, I don't know how that dynamic would have looked if I took the Joy route and not the Javin. I wonder if Joel would even be the top in that relationship... since y'all all seem to think he can't be the top in any of the rest of the pairings y'all entertained. *whistles* Maybe I shouldn't start this debate again. And it is true, I gave you all more wet asses than I thought I would with this story... And you are to thank for Colt's... I won't give you credit for the rest of them though, calm down. Also, thank you.