Marty

My apologies for taking so long to reply, but thanks for those nice words, sandrewn. It was actually your birthday greeting to me on my 71st birthday, and the gentle prodding that you gave me about the fact that I have been a member on here for over 12 years, with very little activity, and had not added any new stories to GA for ages, that actually gave me the impetus to actually get myself involved with the community again. For that, I owe you many many thanks.

Cheers Northie! I may give it a go later this evening. Busy cooking dinner at the moment. 🍴 I'm making no promises that anything I may come up with from a prompt will appear online though... 😉

for the feedback, Sweetlion. I have already looked at the Writing Prompts on GA and none of the ones I looked at so far have really grabbed my attention. I'll maybe go back and have a look at them again. 😊

Great story, Geron! I particularly loved the very last sentence. Even if it didn't go exactly as I was expecting it still impressed me. So much that I now feel I must go and look at some of your other work. And the comments above about Ursula Le Guin's work make me think I should dig out her stories and read them again....

About ten or so years back I was doing a fair amount of creative writing and had even put a little of it online. One of my pieces even appeared in the 2007 Fall Anthology "The Rainy Day" here on GA. Then paid work (from which I am now retired), voluntary work (particularly in the LGBT-support field - in which I am still involved) and various other things (such as developing my creative skills in digital photography) all managed to get in the way and I reluctantly decided to put my creative writing on hold. I still maintained my love of the written word and so have still been doing a lot of reading in the intervening years. A few months back my muse, after she had been on a long holiday to destinations that are unknown to me, decided to pay me a brief visit to tell me that I should start writing again. That prompted me to log back in to GA for the first time in a while and see what was going on with the creative writing community. Although the site itself has certainly changed over the years, it's good to see so many of the old crowd still here - and to even see some names that I recognise from other sites (some of those sites sadly now no longer active). So, after reading some of the stories and poems, I decided to take out Author status again (I say "again" because I am fairly certain I did once have author status - but that probably got removed because of my long hiatus) and see if that would prompt my muse to return again. So in the past week or so I have uploaded a story and a couple of poems - probably really just to try to justify (if only to myself) having that status. But none of them have been new work, just old pieces of mine. And that's really what's bothering me. I want to write new stuff! I've a couple of ideas that I am playing with. There's two novels that I really should finish that have both been on hold for over ten years. I've over 50k words done on one and 70k on the other, but neither of them are any way near complete, and both have chapters missing (as in I have early chapters, later chapters, but in-between chapters missing - if that makes any sense). I've struggled with both in the past few weeks, but don't seem to be able to move on with either of them. I know some people will suggest that I just start uploading the existing chapters and that that will give me the impetus to complete them. But I tried that on another (now defunct) site 12 years or so back and it didn't work. I just left readers asking me to complete them and I never did. And I don't think it would be at all good of me to do that again to the readers on GA. There's also a completely new short story (maybe 4k to 7k words if it ever gets written) that's been going round in my head for the past while. I've tried numerous times recently to type it in. But every time I try it just doesn't seem to want to flow. I'll write half a page, read it through, and just not be happy with it. The idea is there! And I'm sure in my head that it is a great idea. But it just doesn't seem to want to leave my head and appear on paper (or on the monitor of my laptop). I sometimes actually finish up with a headache trying to write it. Is it writer's block? Has my muse deserted me again? I have the fucking story in my head! So why can't I write the fucking thing?? I know I could just upload lots of my old stuff on here (and I may well do that with some of my pieces). But I would feel somewhat of a fraud if that's all that I do. If I'm going to call myself an author I feel that I ought to actually be writing some new stuff as well. Questions: What is the cause of writer's block? How does an author overcome writer's block? O Muse, where art thou? The piece mentioned in the first paragraph that I wrote for the 2007 Fall Anthology "The Rainy Day" can be viewed here if anybody is even remotely interested. 😉

why is the world round? why is the sky usually blue? why does the postman always knock twice? why is that almost every tom dick and harry seems to be called mick these days? why is the future not like it used to be? why is it that foreign countries always seem to be full of foreigners? why do the good die young? why does it always seem to be raining these days? why does friday always come immediately after thursday? why do i bleed if i cut myself? why did god create mosquitoes? why d

Okay. Maybe I misunderstood. When Griffin says (thinks?) So I could work for myself, pick the clientele I wanted to write for...be happy, I assumed that meant he was thinking along the lines of continuing doing the advertisement writing that he been doing for the previous six years.

I must admit that I feel somewhat sad that Griff seems to have given up on the stars. It almost seems as though they are more important to Benny at the moment. I'm also not convinced that he will find copy writing really fulfilling in the long run. Perhaps he'll decide to experiment in a more creative writing sort of way, and make his fortune through that. Or maybe once he moves back home he'll rediscover the joy of the stars. Mere speculation on my part. I see Chapter 5 is now up, and that's the final chapter. I think I'll just stop trying to second-guess Geron, and just read that final chapter to see what 😊 actually does happen. Great story, anyway! I particularly like the way you have managed all the time jumps so well.

Another great chapter! I loved the help that Benny and Griff gave Gary and Clint in helping them get together. And I agree with Griff's mum - Benny certainly has been good for him. Love Griff's mum as well. 😊

It's already in the moderation queue. 😊

I've never come across this wonderful poem before but, when I read it, I was reminded of something my A-Level Biology teacher said to us more than fifty years ago in class one day. We were at the part of the syllabus concerned with the nervous system and the teacher commented something along the lines of "It's amazing that, out of all the living things on earth, humans appear to be the only species whose brain can ask itself the question 'how do I work?'" I really did find that amazing at the time. And even if science could (can?) now show that we're not the only species whose brains can do that, it still seems a pretty amazing thing to be able to do. I wonder if, with the rapid growth nowadays of Artificial Intelligence nowadays, we shall ever create a machine that will be able to ask itself the same question... The poem also made me think of a not quite so serious poem of my own that I wrote several years ago which started every line with the word why... Maybe I'll see if I can dig it out sometime and try sharing it on GA (even though it has no gay related theme in the slightest). Having said all that, I'd also like to say just how much I enjoyed this chapter. Thanks, Geron! I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the story.

I understand what you are saying about wanting to have kids and the ability nowadays for two guys in many countries to marry and raise a family. However, in the context of this poem, Brian only said he wanted to be straight (nothing about wanting kids). In the chapter notes I said that at least part of the poem may have been autobiographical, but it is possible that the real person (if he even exists) on whom I based Brian's character actually was straight; or (perhaps even more likely) bisexual rather than gay. Maybe that could even explain why the poem says that "he'll always be my best mate"? Also remember that I am getting quite old. If Brian kept me sane in my thirties, that would have been back in the late 1970's and into the 80's, when society wasn't quite as accepting as it is nowadays. Now, having said all that, many thanks for your comments on the poem! 😊 Writing can often be a lonely thing. Reader feedback really does makes it feel all that more worthwhile.

Thanks for your feedback, Parker. It means a lot to me when authors/poets of your ability praise my work.

I do indeed. I have the fondest of memories to carry forward.

Thanks for the feedback, Mancunian. I'm really glad you liked it. 😊

I could really relate to this story. It brought back memories of my mother's death fifteen years ago, and the painful decisions that myself and my six siblings had to make in order to respect her wishes.

I really enjoyed this story. Thanks for posting it.

Thanks for the recommendations, Mikesboy Tim. I'll keep an eye on both Live Poets and Zero to Hero.

Thanks, Mikiesboy. Particularly for calling me a poet! 😉

Yes, that's what I really meant when I said that I'm not a fan of labels: I don't like labelling other people. I'm happy enough to accept the labels that others may put on themselves, but I don't think I have any right to put labels on them myself. And labels are only that: labels. I could label myself as a gay man, but that label would only describe a part of me. An important part, definitely, but not the whole me. And the whole is always so much more than the sum of the parts.

To All The Boys I've Loved I guess Bobby was my first love Though I didn't know it at the time Making discoveries together When I was eight and he was nine. At twelve I fell in love for real When David showed me the wonders of wanks He wasn't really all that good looking But I still owe him thousands of thanks. Two years later a friend's little brother Hearing-aid - just starting his teens Didn't just teach me sign language But also what love really means. Then Patrick s

I have to admit that I'm not a fan of labels. There was a cult 17 episode series that aired on British TV back in the 1960's called The Prisoner in which the unnamed protagonist (known only as Number 6) exclaims: ""I am not a Number! I am a free man! I will not be filed, stamped, briefed, debriefed or numbered!" You are who you are, Thorn. Embrace yourself. 😊

Thanks Cia!

I'm just a wee bit confused. I purchased Author Status in the Store recently and my status was shown as Author: Author. I decided this evening to try adding some poetry to the site, so assumed I also needed to purchase Poet Status as well. Now my status is shown as Poet: Poet instead of Author. I don't see any way of changing this. Of course the answer is probably staring me in the face but I'm just too stupid to spot it. As I do more story writing than poetry, I would prefer that my status would show me as an author rather than a poet. Is there a way for me to do this? (And it's not the end of the world if it can't be changed.) Cheers Marty

I occasionally try my hand at writing poetry. I'm not sure whether any of it is really any good, but I'll drop some of it here occasionally just to see if anyone likes it.