LJCC

I messaged him years ago about one of his stories, and he was kind enough to reply to explain some bits. I don't know him personally, nor have we had any interactions in real life. But, as an author, it's my great honour to say that he will be missed. His stories will remain imparted on so many of us—the gay children who grew up reading their stories, those authors who've passed and moved on—they'll forever be, it not, inspirations for us to write better. Wherever you are, mister, I'm hoping you're in a better place. I assure you, your stories will be read...By all of us. Thanks for the stories. Regards, LJCC.

Some writers confuse Western as in a novel with a setting from the West as opposed to its real meaning, which is "Cowboy, hot cowboys". 😅 I'm guilty of this.

Currently at 107k (at the time of this message) with around 9 or 10 more chapters to go. This is quite a long story, something I never anticipated, to be honest. So roughly around June or July'ish.

For those reading my story, I swear, I'll have it finished before June. 😅 80k+ words in, and I'm still, er, more than halfway. Haha.

Then the mom says, "Victor, you're gay?" Victor says, "No shit mom he's literally inside me. Duh!"

I've been blasting this music on repeat for a while now. Gotta love the 80s.

I did have a beer at a McDonald's in Spain. So this kinda' makes sense. Also, why is this AI guy so hot? I think I'm having a phase for mustachoid men having mullets.

I have a feeling this is going to be a good read. And I like that this is greatly edited, which shows quality.

Ah, got it. So moving forward, all text has to be the same format. I guess I'd have to edit my previous story for consistency. Thanks for the heads-up.

So basically, this is what I'm seeing right now as I'm typing it here, which used to be the same in the past when i'm writing a story. Now, I seem to have lost the ability to edit my text and other things, and I'm just seeing the most basic of formats. Can you please advise if this is a "Me" issue or something that's really changed moving forward? If it's a me issue, can you please advise how I can change it back? Thanks heaps.

I've been waiting for someone to correct me on the translations apart from Tagalog (my bestfriend translated those for me), and most of it is, er, Google Translate. 🤣 OK. You're my official German translator. I'm kidding. Or am I?

😂 I'm guilty of buying Playgirl.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Trainspotting. It really makes you think, as a Brit, why we're better than Scottish people. (I'm kidding, btw. I dated a Scot so I love Scottish men.) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the most American novel I could think of that uses dialect writing. If Mark Twain wrote it differently, in your standard American English, I doubt it would have had the same impact.

Like Lord of The Rings? Tolkien literally created a new Elvish language in his novel. But then again, it is a NEW language, so he had to give insights to his readers as to wtf he was writing about; otherwise, people would just assume he was writing gibberish. I think he published a large glossary of terms and explanation at the end of his novel. I guess no writer would write a novel if half of it was written in another language. It's like if I wrote a novel in Italian with 80k words, and 40k of those are in Italian, then I'm assuming (AS a Reader) it's an Italian book with English context made for Italians that just happens to have English written on it. However, if I am writing an 80k novel with roughly 500+ words written in Italian, I don't think that constitutes a story losing context in its entirety due to language barriers. For example, in the current story I'm writing, I provided a parenthesis explanation for the text because my characters are literally speaking Italian in dramatic phrases. Why did I translate it? These two characters in particular are multilingual. They can easily switch from Italian to English with ease. So my logic is that they weren't speaking Italian because they don't speak English, or they have a hard time speaking English. They speak Italian because it's another part of their language. Reading the translated text written in English is reading it as though they themselves have said it in English. But in this sample, from the same novel: I didn't translate the Brazilian (Portuguese) text because Martha's speaks Portugeuse-Brazilian (the language she was born in), Italian (her father's native language), Swedish (her mother's native tongue), and English, the language she'd learned at school and eventually mastered when she migrated to the US with her husband. And I even explained it in my story: I wanted the readers to read it in a language they don't understand because I wanted them to feel Martha's passion and that she's a Latin mother filled with spunk. This is the translation: Como se atrevem a machucar meu filho daquele jeito? Só porque são ricos acham que podem fazer tudo! How dare you hurt my son like that? Just because they're rich they think they can do everything! Did it add context if I translated it? No. Because earlier paragraphs already explained that they were rich. The point is, GA has the freedom to post all your translated text because there's no limitation from a publisher that you only get to write a certain amount of text. It's a fact at this point that any author writing on this site can freely do so. But it'll depend on you, AS a WRITER, to gauge if said translations are harmful to your story or worthwhile.

The comments in the story are gold: Straight pride As you read the short story you can’t help but draw parallels to how events are unfolding in America with the hyper acceptance of homosexual propaganda, and the junk science of the non existent homosexual DNA. It is chilling and frightening the backward progress homosexual offenders are making in all walks of public and private life. We now have a military that gives special protection, treatment and clearance for soldiers to openly practice dishonorable homosexual conduct/sex. Our “safe school” Czar appointed by Obama has brazenly boasted his intention to queer our children with homosexual social engineering. Children are being punished in schools for having a biblical worldview concerning homosexual perversion. People are getting fired, not being hired and/or promoted if they have a work place that favors homosexual conduct. More and more those who oppose the demonic homosexual agenda are unjustly being labelled the sick bigots who are really the ones who need “fixing.” If backward progress continues at the current rate in favor of the homosexual lie, then Charles Beaumont’s “The Crooked Man” short story may very well be eventually made fully manifest in the very near future. And if that is the case, I for one will not go quietly into the night! □ Reply 0 September 22. 2014 at 3:38 am noteven You are a fucking idiot.

Aww. Yeah, it was hard to write and be inside the head of a ditzy billionaire. This was really strange because I normally don't write this way. But alas, experience is king, so I had to try new things. I'll finish your story once it's done and completed. I normally read stories that are done and completed. I've been burned by incomplete stories before, so I've been traumatized.

YEEZ. I'm planning on re-editing the entire thing with the new one. Although I'm being lazy about it. 😄 I'll probably finish it by next year since I have several pending stories to finish. Re-editing this is just a side-project.

First, it's word count. But then again, this isn't a publishing house, so everyone can do what they please. But those translations add to the word count. Secondly, unless your demographic is young adults ages 21 and below and you're using foreign words to express sentiments, places, or actions, then you could offer a glossary to educate the youngins. Thirdly, translations break momentum. "Ti odio, cazzo! You promised me we'd be together. You liar! You lied to me. Bugiardo! Mi hai mentito. Why did you lie to me?" Compared to: "Ti odio, cazzo! (I fucking hate you!) You promised me we'd be together. You liar! You lied to me. Bugiardo! Mi hai mentito (You liar! You lied to me). Why did you lie to me?" I'd be more pissed off if someone wrote a very dramatic moment that way because you're putting words into your character's mouth. If you're Italian, Ti odio, cazzo! has more meaning and weight. And if you're a western reader who googled what Ti odio, cazzo! means, you'd be able to understand the subtext that the character is implied to be hurting—as intended in the scene. An example from ROBERT LUDLUM's BOURNE IDENTITY--intended for mature readers. Or at the expense of his life, and there were moments last night when that was a distinct consideration. “Tu es fatigué, hein, mon frère?” his brother shouted, grinning at him. “Va te coucher maintenant. Laissemoi faire.” “D’accord,” the brother answered, throwing his cigarette over the side and sliding down to the deck on top of a net. “A little sleep won’t hurt.” There were no translations, no glossary of words (since the setting is in Europe and uses a lot of foreign terms), just the entire dialogue itself as italicised. The point of this paragraph is to elicit confusion about a man who had wandered to the sea, as the boaters were confused if this man was still alive. It's a brilliant SUBTEXT to apply in the story because, as you're reading the French conversation (if you're not French), you're confused and muddled about the protagonist's fate, whether he's dead or alive. That's why it wasn't translated to English, because it feels authentic, it feels real, and it literally fits the setting—at which the start of the story indicates Mr. Bourne stranded in France, without memory. The thing about translating foreign text is that you're assuming your readers are idiots, when in reality, they're smart and educated and could answer 1 + 1. If you want to give them a crutch, go ahead... It's YOUR STORY. I won't force you to blow me if you wrote translations or provided a glossary of terms in YOUR OWN story. What I'm saying is, IF IT DOESN'T make sense... Why put it? If it doesn't fit... Why force it? Which is where foreign text mostly applies, depending on your story's demographic and intended purpose, YOU, as a WRITER, wrote it that way for a reason. And that reason is FOR your characters, NOT for your readers. So, I'll shut up now. I don't want to get stabbed here. Haha. Suck me before stabbing me, please... whoever you are. 🤣 Send me off with a smile. Tnx.

You were affected when I said, "The request for a glossary reveals the entitlement of someone who's used to always being the intended audience--?"' Sorry darling, I'll be more generic than that generic term or phrase I typed, literally unintended for no one. I'll make it extremely vague and obtuse; no, I'll turn it into a decagon in case you feel hurt by circles. I pwamis. Now, let me kiss that booboo. There. All better? Now put that dick away. That's not what I meant.

I can't believe you've been a member since 2010 and only posted a story now. I've been a lurker since 2009 [I had to edit this; I was in my second year of university, so it's probably around 2006 or 2007], when there was a frigging chatroom (which I, er, was an avid chatterer), and I only joined in back in 2017. It only means your story has been in the works for almost 14 years, marinating in the background.

I feel attacked! 🤣

You don't have to italicize, translate, or provide a glossary. There's no need to make the language and world of the characters seem foreign or unfamiliar, catering solely to the white Western reader. The request for a glossary reveals the entitlement of someone who's used to always being the intended audience. They're unaccustomed to looking things up themselves, inferring from context, or embracing the discomfort of not fully understanding something, like the rest of us do. Growing up in the UK, I spent my childhood immersed in American novels featuring characters named "Yanks or Yankie"—a concept that seemed totally foreign to me, yet I grasped its meaning well enough within the narrative's context. Decades later, when I finally discovered what "Yankie" truly meant, it was disappointing. A derogatory word could never capture the enchanting melody of that term. I find inspiration in writers throughout history who have resisted glossing in all its forms. Salman Rushdie, in the introduction to the 40th anniversary edition of Midnight's Children, explores his quest to write in an English that isn't controlled by the English themselves. He reflects on how the flexibility of the English language has allowed it to become naturalized in various countries, with Indian English, Irish English, West Indian English, Australian English, and the many variations of American English all carving out their own unique identities. In my second-to-last novel, I decided to translate a few Filipino terms. My thinking was that the book wasn't primarily meant for Filipino readers; it's a Western-style romance set in the Philippines, so the italicized words were there to provide context. But if my target audience were Filipinos and the story was written in English with a sprinkle of Filipino English tailored to the locals, then honestly, I wouldn't give a damn about translating the text.

Thanks heaps! Yeah, I'm also excited for this. 😁 This'll be my side project.

The problem with adding their happy ending is that it requires me to add another 100k+ words to an already 100k+ novel. And that requires a lot of time. My plan is that I'll write The Longest Third Date while rewriting this on the side. Then finish Mr. & Mr. Danvers, then proceed to finishing this story, and then I have another romantic/comedy novel in mind pending to be written. So by 2050, I'll get to finish everything.🤣 Hopefully, I get to publish three novels this year. My goal is to finish this story, Mr. Danvers, and the longest third date. That's wishful thinking for now, depending on my free time.

Thanks for the support! 😄 Yes, it's a rewrite + added things. And the story is over. But it's not yet over in the sense that I've somewhat ended the story in an open-ended way. Depending on the time and energy I've spent rewriting this, I might finish it. This is the FINAL-FINAL edit, cause I really don't want to touch this story again. So I'll be fleshing out all of the characters while rewriting this shiznit. I'm hoping I don't go mental after this. Because chapter one alone already took me a month to rewrite. So, it's not an easy process.