Krista

Yes, I do a cringe when I see the notifications. Especially for my first two stories, the ones I wrote when I was in High School. Thank you for taking the time to read this though. I've forgotten most of what this story was all about, details-wise. I know the main plot points still, but the writing surrounding all that would be new to me if I were to give it a try at a reread. I'm glad you think so, please do not read Something Unexpected or Good Guys Finish Last.. lol. Your opinion may change. I only keep them posted and not hidden from view, because they've been here since I've been here. They aren't good, and that isn't me being self-critical. They suck. But, I am so glad you liked this earlier work of mine. It is sad, I couldn't write this type of story now... I don't think. I was in a place in my life where I didn't see a husband or children, or dogs for that matter. I wasn't seriously committed to anyone, I was just... living. Now as a Mom with a Husband and dogs... I don't think I could have robbed Alex of that. Not after writing him so deeply into the story.

😮 I didn't know this was happening. Going wayyy back, in 2008 when I was still a wee fledgling author with Finding Alex. That was also when, if starved for names, I would pluck them from GA members. There are a lot of former members' names flittering about in this story, I do remember that aspect of it. Lovely banner as well! Thank you for the feature.

Thank you! I am always a bit... nervous when an older story of mine gets featured here. I know the writing isn't the strongest. 2008 though, I would have been just four years out of high school when that was written. In college.. at the time. Wayyy back.

I didn't think so. I thought the characters were all boring and the writing extremely slow-paced and weak compared to the Film it is loosely based on. It also brings in Love, Simon characters in later to make some sort of attempt at combining the worlds? But they turned those characters into two "old" gays, even if they were still young men... who "knew how to be out and gay..." even though they've been out and gay all of a few months to a year themselves. It was just awkward. I 'hated' that it was on Hulu. I feel if a different streaming service took it from the start, the writers would have had more freedom. A lot of what the characters were involved in were just completely unnecessary. You may enjoy it though. If it is available to you, might as well give it an honest effort. lol Also, Prisma is renewed for a second season, so I'm happy about that.

IS THIS WHAT YOU'VE DONE? Is this why you've been asking me if I've been on GA lately with a little Halo emoji? I KNEW it wasn't anything good.

I was out and about at work, so all I got was the phone alert. And I just pressed okay and went about my business. We did have a nurse come back to the office laughing, because her devices all ran the alert and the client's television went off. She had forgotten all about it and until she read the text along with the alert thought all hell had broke loose. Her poor client is over eighty years old and restricted to a walker, I couldn't imagine what that looked like in that house at the time. And, I did come up on car accident around that time, and wondered if the alert caused it, but it was a minor accident and first responders were already showing up.

Thank you for keeping up with my story so far, especially through the slow posting. It means so much to me. The Tattoo was on Luke's list. So far they've crossed off... two of those? I want to say. I think I have them saved in my notes.. lol. And yeah, I can see Cindy going cross-eyed on that one. "Tattoo, young man!" and then be like, "Well sweetie, at least it is a bible verse.." Good thing she doesn't have Jackson in class, and notices his hand writing, because... that.. that would be hard to explain. lol. Woops, if it reads that Jackson has a tattoo, that's a goof on my part. He's not supposed to get one/have one. Some sports organizations have weird requirements for uniform coverage, and what a person has on their body, and jewelry, etc. I'm not sure if a lot of those are still in place or enforced though. I do know Women's basketball had minor upheaval over women celebrating by popping their shirts, like men do.. to highlight the team logo/name on the front. If it showed stomach and sports bra, you got a "conduct warning" or a foul. Either way, tattoos are rather common these days on all athletes. Good point, I know a lot of very promising high school sport stars completely lose interest in college and decide to focus on academics. I was the opposite, I wanted to play in college. I just had some bigger injuries and not a lot of recruiting coming my way for that to happen. Big fish in a very shallow pond sort of player, I had great numbers against bad competition. At least my high school appreciates me and retired my number and put my name on the banners.. lol. And, this is the last chapter... of sorts. I'm still writing, but the next chapter starts the "Epic-log" chapters. I call it Epic-log, because I don't know how long these parts will be. I will be jumping around and covering parts of the story I wish to cover, and not have them being a nice and fancy linear timeline. I don't jump too far with the next part, just a few weeks really... we'll see if y'all like that jump or not. Ohhh no, no piercings. I guess not yet for them anyway, neither of them seem like the piercing type. Although, if Luke didn't have the tattoo on his list, he didn't really seem like the tattoo sort either. If there is one, I once wanted tattoos, they were meaningless unlike his. They hurt worse coming off than going on, or at least I think so. And yes, I did mention a jewelry store. Thank you for keeping up with this story for as long as you have. Sometimes characters are just ghosts in the periphery. I mostly wanted to convey a sense of.. normalizing their relationship with everyone in the room being completely okay with two gay guys being in their spaces. I guess now-a-days people aren't as obviously against sharing spaces as they once were, but that's all she was to me. And it is finished, in one way, and beginning in another? The Epilog chapters are starting after this part. I hope I wrapped up a lot of the house cleaning sort of things in the last few chapters. He beat Pete, solidified his plans, found out Luke's plans. There are some things left for them, but not a whole heck of a lot. So we'll see. The best year cannot turn into the best half of a decade though... lol.. which mind you, is how long it may take me to write the thing.. if it hasn't already.

The horn rang out and I dove off the block, the cool water hitting every nerve in my skin. Under the water, it was muddled silence. The violence of ten pairs of feet kicking hadn’t erupted yet and the swollen crowd couldn’t be heard at all. Kicking underwater, I knew I had to be fast. Tony told me not to push beyond what I could do in the first fifty, but this was the last event of the long weekend. It was what I had been waiting for, the entire night before it melted away and as I surfaced. Bre

Happy Birthday! I guess I have to be nice to you today. Sigh.... I'll see you tomorrow.

Lol. I'm glad you remember this story, because I feel over time that I've forgotten most of it. There definitely is. I do remember that one.

Sorry! I honestly don't remember getting a notification on the 10th. Might have been lost in the shuffle of things. The next parts are written, the next part is massive, I think its page numbers are in the 20s... woops. I've been busy with real life things as well, and honestly haven't had the time to really devote much energy to anything writing... that I hope, will smooth out and change in the coming weeks, and I can finally get something out for you guys to read. I do apologize again, I probably should have announced the delay.

It 'tis for me.. lol.

Yes, it bothered me in the rereading more than it did in the writing. I think he did half-way think that he should change, but decided to leave with his mother anyway. If he had stayed upstairs and collected himself better, he probably would have. I should have either had him be more curious about what was happening downstairs, and forget about the blood. Or, have him shower. His father's blood being on him all the way up to the creek and shower, I would like to say could be symbolic for his father and what he did to still be following him/on him. It isn't... ahaha, but I could have explained it that way. I wonder if y'all would call bullshit and be like, "Naw, you just forgot that he was covered in blood.." To bother you further - Ty never mentioned the blood either, which if he saw both the clean and the dirty one, he would have noticed one of them smeared with blood, that looked wet and redried onto the shirt. Unless he thought it was mud from being out in the elements and in the creek water. --- The unresolved questions are the ones that I have always wished to address. Those are more or less the unanswered major plot points. I will need to research a lot. Legal stuff goes well above my head. To work out an ending either way would need me to understand the material better, I would want either outcome to be believable. The good and bad outcomes. The other questions are easy though, I can do romance, the survival/self reliance can be a bit of a challenge, but it comes with restrictions. Jace is human, and most humans know what they need to survive, they just may lack the skillsets in certain circumstances Still, way easier than a lot of other points I'd have to take on. Coming back to Jace's character after all this time will also be something. I liked his bluntness and clever snarky nature, wrapped up in a guy that doesn't think things through - like the running barefoot and handcuffed idea. The act that started the entire story as well, was more of an action not a thought process. But yeah, the Legal aspect of this story has me hesitant to take it on, mostly. The fact that I also still have unfinished projects screaming at me, means more and more time will pass before I get to it. I am currently struggling with the Anthology, maybe I can switch my focus onto other things that already has a nice base under it to work up from.

When you put the white jeans away, Steven... leave them where they are. As they should have been left back in the eighties as it was.

Oh gosh, another opportunity to do a Werewolf story... I still have that one on the back burner to rewrite and maybe do a mini-story out of... I don't need a second one. And I have another prompt already saved in my to-do list.. since I kind of half-promised a Wildthing heathen I'd make the attempt. I wonder if he remembers that, in his old age...

Edited the quote to shorten it: You're an A++ reader Gary. And your entire post was wonderful.

Samesies. Although, you 'have' to be consistent in doing it this way, which I am not. lol. But I like to know what people are thinking as they read it, and as I write it. As a guide, but also to know how my major plot points are received.

I'm a little late to the party, but I also am a rather old member. I started in eFiction, saw the transition to Stories, and then another transition when it updated to a new system entirely. I still don't know anything about self-promoting, but I have some ideas as to why people may see lower than expected numbers of views. Views to me aren't as important as far as it being an numbers thing, it isn't a tried and true indication of a sloughing off of readers based on content. There are a lot of factors at play that one may not be considering. The rate a person updates their stories with new content is a big factor. You need to be consistent with that, I am by far one of the worst authors to read based on consistency. I am not consistently updating and writing, at all. People wait months to read the next chapter, and for some people - that is far too long of a wait. So I expect to lose readers, I hate to lose them as I do love engaging with people who want to discuss my writing, characters, and the like. I just don't have the time nor the energy to write on a consistent basis. I am also an author that struggles to stay motivated on a story, I get distracted by other themes. The Genre has a lot to do with it as well. They aren't stagnant, there are shifts in what people tend to want to read. In my eFiction days, Romance, especially Modern Romance was extremely popular. All of the eFiction stories that made the top 10s, Most Popular lists were general fiction with a main theme of modern romance. The community has shifted away from those types of stories, although still extremely popular there has been a branching out to other genres, and some have risen to the challenge. For the better, mind you, but you have to realize that some themes are just more popular than others. If you're not actively engaging in the community yourself, you're doing yourself a disservice. I don't mean this as promoting your own work, but just generally being here. If your online presence isn't felt, you're not all that visible overall. If the Story Archive is the only place you're actively engaging with people, your draw will be limited to just those avid readers. You will remain rather unknown to the general community and unless you have stories that hit a ton of recommendations, reviews, etc, you will remain as such. If you're active within the community though, more people will see you and they will engage with you, if you're a pleasant person to be around. That may bleed out to your stories, but it isn't guaranteed to. (The jury is still out on me, I think) I have in the past picked up stories from people that I've found interesting within the community, that I wouldn't have actively sought out otherwise. If you're not engaging with your readers in the Archive at all either, you may lose readers. Don't leave comments on read, indicate that you've read their comments. Engage with the readers who leave them. Thank them for their contributions. Try not to just sweep their comment aside with a general, "thanks," and nothing else - even though I know I'm guilty of that myself at times. If the reader took the time to read and comment the very least you can do is respond. You may not lose views/readers, but you will most definitely lose comments/reviews. Don't force a reader to just "Like" and move on, because you cannot be bothered or feel you don't need to give them something back. Giving and Receiving criticism is a learned experience. No one comes out of the gate being good at it. It took me months to actually listen to my editors in my early writing. I was young, and I bristled up rather awfully when someone told me anything negative about my writing. My first story sucked, I still have it posted, but it is garbage. I didn't listen and it remained as such. I didn't grow much at all in my Second story either, so me bristling up and not being open to criticism stifled me, and looking back I've realized just how detrimental that was. Habits are hard to break when you allow yourself to stay the course, even though it ends up being the wrong one entirely. Still yet, I am rather critical of negative reviews, or comments. Especially if I feel the content of the comment or review, lacked any critical assessment. Most people will happily digest ALL positive responses though, but the weight of them shouldn't be tipped too heavily in their favor, look for true constructive criticism too. Like I said, learning, we all have to learn to accept true critical assessment and we have to learn to overcome whining/complaints, and the overall negative things people may say that doesn't have a lot of true merit. If you're an author and your response to critical assessments that has actual constructive criticism is poor or defensive - you've lost an asset. You may think you're better off, but glowing comments that overlooks negative impacting things in your writing sets you up for failure and you never reach your true potential. Knowing the difference also takes time. Learning how to give constructive criticism also takes time. The method Myr discussed about doing so privately, is good. But, delivery in the telling also has to be considered. People tend to listen if the tone isn't biting with every word. I believe @Cia has mentioned the sandwiching method. Of praise, critical assessment, and ending with encouragement. You can be critical and kind all at once, you don't have to tear something apart to get your point across. I personally care about readers and want them to stay, but I am also an author that knows what she likes. I will write the stories I want to share. I know my stories are flawed, and aren't to the taste of everyone. This is a hobby for me, nothing more. I have thought about stopping numerous times. I've asked privately in the past for my stories and my rank as signature author here to be removed. Luckily, I was talked out of it. I'm over a million words into this thing, and I still generally like it here, being here for as long as I have. For a lot of people, this is just their place to be when it comes to this sort of hobby. I personally would like to see this place grow - and believe me, this community has had quite a few growth spurts. But, I wouldn't want to see it grow just for the sake of growing, because it gave up on its true purpose.

I need to indulge in a few to keep me from offing you.

I suck at snippets and the like... I'm a horrid salesperson so I never know what to do or how to go about doing those sorts of things.

Overachiever. I may or may not have written the first letter to my story yet.

hmm.. why not both?

Yes, that was my opinion as well. The longer I watched, the less I liked the main characters in Bros. All the screeching one did, and the other was just boring. I guess they were supposed to compliment one another, but I just couldn't. Some of the committee on the project with them were way more amusing for the lesser amount of screen time. At least with these two, you wanted for them to be together and have a happily ever after - even if I did think both of their HEAs were too easily gotten and too unrealistic.

Oh mercy.... I can hear the clock ticking.. lol

Yes, I think most of them have turned the lights off and kept on working.