LJCC

Further reveals will go down in the later chapters, but yeah, I really wanted him to stay rooted as a good person with baggage, shaping him into why he turned out good.

😂😭🤣 I just googled, and the name's etymology is glue. But I did base Klebber Toledo on this Brazilian actor, Klebber Toledo (same name) who is the host of Love Is Blind Brazil. 😄

I have a ton of friends who got divorced in the pandemic, so, er, I didn't want to say anything if that happened to you. 🤣 But yeah, I'm also bitter about this story, but the Klebber and Dennis have lived in my head for two years, and all I can say is their love story is pretty annoying, and all I've been saying is, "Why can't it happen to me?"

In my experience, the loudest critics of passive voice are often the worst at spotting it. They’ll point to a sentence like “Susan had walked to the shops” and declare it passive. It isn’t. It’s active, just in the past perfect tense. The true passive construction would be, “The shops had been walked to by Susan,” which sounds awkward precisely because it shifts the focus away from the subject performing the action. Passive voice removes—or at least softens—agency. But sometimes that’s the point. “My dog was hit by a car” keeps the emotional focus on the dog. “The car hit my dog” spotlights the vehicle and, by implication, the driver. Similarly, “someone shot him” draws attention to the unknown actor, which might matter in a murder mystery. In the chaos of a battlefield, though, “he was shot” may be more accurate to the lived experience and less misleading about the importance of the shooter. Like most writing “rules,” the guidance against passive voice is meaningless if you don’t understand the reasoning behind it. If you can’t clearly explain why passive voice might weaken a sentence (or when it might strengthen one), you probably shouldn’t be policing its use. And you definitely shouldn’t if you can’t reliably identify it in the first place. Active voice is often stronger and more direct. But effective writing isn’t about rigid obedience to rules; it’s about control. A well-placed passive construction is far less rare and far more useful than its harshest critics would have you believe.

Because the pandemic overtook whatever burgeoning relationship they had. Fear, paranoia, and a lot of questions about the unknown would surely be at the forefront for anyone in their situation. I mean, that's how I felt, and I'm guessing with everyone else. And as Klebber said, unless both of them agreed they're together... They're not together. Anyhow, their story is just starting. Hehehe. I have a question: why is it a funny reference? You did say that you had a terrible experience when COVID happened; that's why you may have had an aversion to relating to the two protagonists, solely written for a romantic love story, which is okay. Parts are written in a documentary style, but not the entire story. The overarching theme of the entire story is expressed in the documentary, but the entire plot is explained through the 3rd-person POV narration

SEVERAL YEARS AGO... When Alfonso Jeremiah Toledo got sick, his wife, Martha, made the tough decision to sell the ranch, utilizing the proceeds to settle Alfonso's hospital bills and outstanding bank loans. Their residence in Jersey became the sole keepsake that the patriarch had passed down to the Toledo family. In the midst of spring in 2011, along New York State Route 73, a few months after Klebber got accepted to Columbia University, Alfonso had just concluded his bi-monthl

Yeysh! Imagine writing about two people locked in the house together during the pandemic. Realistically, one of them should've turned out to be insane, but, erm, they're both introverts, so it's heaven for them.

I'll post 3 chapters this week to make up. Heheheh.

😆 Well... I hope so too. 😭 But does Klebber luurrvve Dennis?

AHIHIHIHIHI... They haven't even started yet. 😭😂🤣

Yiz. Was really busy with work that all I did was eat, sleep, and work for the two weeks.

CHAPTER 12: DAY 4 - THE FREEFALL (Days Until Departure: 1 Day) About a mile away, the gorge coiled and turned, leading our adventurous duo to their chosen destination for the day: the ziplining spot. The grassy path was cleverly hidden, tucked behind a thick cluster of bushes behind a screen of Trumpet trees. It was a secret route, not easily noticeable by most tourists—the same path they had taken a few days back when they climbed up the mountain as part of Dennis's

From experience, people who have 0 alcohol tolerance who suddenly get slobbered with booze tend not to remember anything. But at least Dennis got a glimpse of Klebber's past. AHIHIHIHI. Well, Klebber did get punished with, er, someone's tongue. 😂

Gay men thirsty for real affection... STOP CALLING ME OUT! How dare you! A couple of my beta readers started hating Klebber. But they got him to their side fairly quick. Heheh. I'm not gonna say why or how, but...it'll happen. You might not hate him. I didn't want to turn the sex into smut. But there is going to be a sexytime where I really tried making it romantic, that even I was like, "Damn it. I want something like this," at which I fapped afterwards and cried at the same time. I'm tempted to say something. AHIHIHIHI. But it's, er, kinda' towards that direction. Thanks! I owe that to a friend who said, "Why the fuck does Dennis sound like he's always constipated? He bloody needs to chill out." Yeah... a lot of editing that happened between the dialogues. It's seriously the hardest to write.

CHAPTER 11: DAY 1 - THREE'S A CROWD (Days Until Departure: 4 Days) Last night, arriving straight from the airport, when Klebber saw The Four Seasons signage emblazoned at the entrance, he felt his blood boil at this anomalous secret discourse of 'Surprise! I lied to you! We're actually staying here.' Maybe this was a mistake. Perhaps Dennis had entered their details incorrectly. But seeing how this driver, this personal chauffeur who picked them up at the airpor

Sorry for the late reply. One piece of feedback I'd gotten is that Dennis has a lot of issues on the surface. But it all boils down to one thing: he's afraid of rejection. That's what prompted me to focus on that in the coming chapters. He's very lovable. He just doesn't know it yet.

I think my best writing comes in Part 2. And yeah, I really had to shift the writing now that Pandemic's involved. Pandemic's a bitch, always ruining things. Part 1: First Half—Talks about how Klebber and Dennis met. Second Half—Focuses on Klebber and his trauma starter package, as you mentioned (without revealing too much.) Part 2: First Half—Focuses on Dennis and his trauma starter package. Second Half—Deals with Klebber and Dennis's inner struggles in this relationship, and mostly with how they deal with outside forces and how they affect them as individuals and as a couple. Klebber's past marriage will be the central bone of contention in Part 2, the second half.

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, there's going to be a lot of growing from our protagonists in the next several chapters. Stay Tuned!

NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY: THE LONGEST THIRD DATE, PICTURE LOCK PRODUCTION DATE: YEAR 2022 (POST-COVID19) LOCATION: NETFLIX STUDIOS, NY OFFICE, 888 BROADWAY, NEW YORK EPISODE 2: INTRO The sun's rays beamed down, illuminating the Earth as it rotated in space. Satellite footage of the world revealed city lights fading into the night as the Grand Central Terminal platform in New York overflowed with a sea of people. In Kabul, Hijab-clad women formed a queue at a shoulder

Part 1 isn't finished yet. 1st half is done. 2nd half is coming up this Sunday. Table of Contents is in Part 2. 😭

And now... Let the shitshow begin... *evil laugh* *MWAHAHAHAHA*

SCENE 2: CORONA & LOCKDOWNS

I might write the sequel next year. I need a break. lol. Plus I have a dark story I have in mind I'd want to write.

COVID gets slightly intense in part 1's second half. It's definitely the background star of the show. So it's still a LONG LONG WAY till the reader gets suckerpunched by COVID as the epidemic progresses. There's a chapter in Part 2's second half that speaks about Martha's experience as a nurse, and it gets pretty harrowing because it's fairly realistic, also mirroring Part 2's departure from Part 1's comedic nature into the more serious subject matter of Dennis and Klebber's relationship. I somewhat dislike writing that part because it takes you out of the lovey-dovey Costa Rica and our two protagonists' love bubble. But I know that the gravity of the pandemic has to be written because the pandemic is a central figure to the plot. The BREAK-UP was meant to be part 3 of their love story. But then, it'd be 2-3 years after the pandemic when Klebber and Dennis actually broke up, and when their breakup happened,. Removing COVID from the story would pull readers out of the narrative, since The Longest Third Date is fundamentally about two people who fall in love while being stuck together during the pandemic. So I thought of writing it as a standalone sequel called "The Longest Engagement," which might be more appropriate. That's the 2nd Netflix interview basically, which talks about WHY they broke up and IF they got back together. But I haven't written anything yet, so let's see if I ever get to the point of writing it. As for the WHY they BROKE UP? The entire novel, Part 1 and Part 2, never clearly discusses it and only talks about it AFTER the fact of their breakup. I was saving that for the planned sequel. But... I have left some crumbs in the story as to the WHY. It's my Where's Waldo.

ACTIVATES GLOMAR RESPONSE: I can neither deny nor confirm.