Graeme

Both of our current vehicles are Mitsubishi's and we've had them both for well over 10 years. Mine has been very reliable and the only reason I'm getting rid of it is that it's just too small.

LOL -- thanks, Tommy, but I don't suppose you can expand on that a little? To be honest, the idea of what type of vehicle to get solidified when I took notice of a Honda CRV Sports in the traffic a couple of weeks ago. It was the right size for what I was looking for, and I thought it was a good looking vehicle, too. Price may end up being the killer, but I've always got the option of a second hand vehicle, rather than new.

I've reached the point where I've decided I need a new vehicle. The criteria I have is: Economical, as most of the time I'll be using it for going to the city and back, a round trip of about 100km. Not big, as I'll need to park it in a variety of locations, depending on where I'm working on any particular day. Capable of pulling a 7'x5' trailer carrying up to 300kg of weight (one or two dirt bikes, canvas tent, and assorted camping gear). Some off road capability, as when we go camping once a month it's on country properties and there's no made roads, only tracks. Capable of sitting four people, with good leg room for the back seat. My boys are growing up fast and they need space. Not too pricey. I've got a current budget of up to $35K, though if I have to, I can push that higher. To me, that sounds like the compact SUV market, of which the current contenders in the new vehicle market are: Toyota RAV4 Nissan X-Trail Honda CRV Ford Escape Mazda CX-7 Holden Captiva Mitsubishi Outlander Subaru Forester I may end up having to go for a used vehicle because of price, which opens up some more options as far as vehicles, but for now I'm going to go with the above. Any comments? I started looking around last night, looking at the Toyota, Ford and Holden options. I'm not that impressed by the Holden Captiva (though that may have been the saleswoman, who kept pushing me to buy the more expensive Captiva 7 when I said the Captiva 5 fitted my needs better), and the base Toyota RAV4 is only just within my budget. The Ford Escape is currently on special, but the dealer told me that the 2010 model is the last one -- they're not going to sell the Escape in Australia any more. I've been searching and I can't find confirmation of that. Does anyone know if this is the case? Any comments on the above models, or other suggestions that would meet my needs will be gratefully read (don't suggest the BMW -- that's really, really outside of my budget). Graeme

I've got the first season. Still waiting for the second season to start here in Australia. I suspect they're waiting until the rating season is well underway, because the first season was extremely popular (they ended up repeating the whole season late last year). It's great news that there's going to be a third season, too!

Nifty serves a very useful purpose, and I would hate for it to disappear or die. As several people have indicated, they found GA and other sites through Nifty. I'm no different. My very closeted self found nifty and I'd read late at night. I found a few great stories that I absolutely loved. When I \went searching to see if I could find other stories by the same authors, I stumbled across other stories sites. In my case it was CRVBoy first, I then followed the links from there to other sites and eventually ended up here Along the way, I found encouragement to start writing and to accept my sexuality. The rest is history. None of that would have happened without Nifty. If it wasn't for Nifty, I'd probably still be a deeply closeted gay guy who was growing steadily more miserable with my life.

I don't believe it's valid English, but it's in common use, and in a lot wider use than just coming out of the closet. It's now used for many types of secrets that are revealed. eg. "Bradley was outed as a secret Collingwood supporter." "Most people were very supportive when Kevin was outed as a ballet dancer." "His parents didn't know what to think when Scott was outed as a Republican."

I agree with NightOwl. The video should only be released if someone can present a reasonable 'public interest' scenario. Entertainment, publicity and ratings are not good enough reasons.

No, you're not the only one who is surprised. Now, I certainly strongly wished he was gay, because he seems such a great guy and extremely cute, too, but just because I wished it, that didn't make it true. As for fantasies... why do you have to know it to fantasise about it?

Non-exclusive means that an author is free to post the story elsewhere as well. The non-cancellable and perpetual parts are what allows Nifty to say that they won't remove a story without suitable compensation. If you post there, you still own the story, but you're not allowed to remove it or edit it without their approval. Nifty serves a purpose. That purpose is not for everyone (eg. I've never posted there and while I've considered it a few times, I've always decided that my stories are not appropriate at that site). That doesn't mean that posting there is not worthwhile, but you should post there with a correct understanding of their terms and conditions. I know several authors that say they get a lot more feedback from readers once they post at Nifty and that's one of the site's greatest strengths: the sheer volume of readers that go there. If that's what you are after, Nifty is a good place to post stories. If you have other goals, other places are more appropriate.

Yup that we are :-) Quality, not quantity, is what's important

If you're ever mad enough to watch movie credits, you'll often see someone whose job title includes something like 'Continuity'. That's another aspect of beta-reading -- checking for continuity. If one chapter has a character living ten minutes away, and another chapter has them living thirty minutes away, the beta reader will hopefully pick that up and tell the author so it can be either explained (they moved) or fixed. To expand on the relationship between editors and beta readers, the editing tasks span a spectrum from spelling, through grammar, sentence construction, and onto story flow, scene complexity and overall plot. It is rare to find someone who has strengths in all of these areas (from the technical through to the artistic). Most of the time the editors here at GA concentrate on the lower, technical aspects of editing. The beta readers tend to cover the more artistic aspects. As an example, I had a scene in a story where I had two people arguing. A beta reader pointed out that there were other people on the room, and that they should have reacted to what was going on. I had been concentrating too much on the interaction between the two main characters and had neglected the others. As a result of the comment from the beta reader, I was able to enhance the scene and make it more realistic, and hence stronger.

I remember chatting with a guy when I lived in the UK who claimed to have have slept with over 100 women. He was in his early twenties.... Promiscuity is not a 'gay' trait -- it's a human one, though it appears to be more prevalent in males than females (though it could be that the females are just more polite and don't boast about it ). Not everyone is promiscuous, but some are and for them it can be right. When people are doing it for the wrong reasons, though (like Cody in DnCW), then it moves into self-destructive behaviour.

I don't believe so. I don't think anyone in my generation or younger expects a nuclear war, at least not one that will destroy the world. I can see nuclear weapons being used, but I don't see it escalating into a worldwide catastrophe. This is a more interesting question and I think the answer is no. If it falls, it will take time to relearn the basics before it can achieve the technology base required for modern society. Once they achieve that, they may very well to choose a different technological approach and society will be different as a consequence. I think it's more that this genre taps into the fears of the modern world, rather than any myths or legends. It's the classic 'what if' scenario, and really doesn't take much input from other areas. I don't watch or read traditional horror. I don't find apocalyptic fiction scary because there is, to me, a disconnect to my current life. It's a 'what if' scenario that may be realistic (eg. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's 'Hammerfall'), but that doesn't mean I find it scary.

Simple questions with not so simple answers Compels or compelled? My motivation has changed over time. My initial motivation was to see if I could write something original that was of decent quality. Educating my readers with some tidbits about Australia was a bonus. Today, however, my motivation is more in that I want to write something interesting. For example, I had some ideas for the recently released anthology but I never wrote them up because I just didn't feel that they would be interesting. They would have been okay, but they would have merged into a sea of similar stories. I don't want that. A similar thing affects my posting on the forums. I find it hard to make a post that I don't think is contributing. I'll occasionally make a post to reinforce a point that someone else has made, but most of the time I won't post if I don't think I'm adding to what the thread is about. Recently, I'm also finding my 'real-life' commitments are taking precedence over both my posting and my writing. I suppose that's a natural consequence of my boys getting older, but I do find it frustrating. I'd like to write more, but when I find the time I often don't find the motivation. The longer it is since I last wrote, the harder it is to get back to it, because I know I'll have review what I've already written before I can restart. A question you didn't ask, but I'll answer anyway, is what inspired me to start writing in the first place. It was having what I thought was an original idea. I had been reading a lot of quality gay fiction, and Drake Hunter in particular (his site is, sadly, not longer on the Internet). In one of his stories, a character reflected on how he lost two friends when he came out -- one because he came out, and the other because he hadn't told them beforehand. It made me reflect on what the impact on a coming out would be on those around that person. There were lots of stories at that time about coming out, but only from the perspective of the person who came out. I decided to write a story from the perspective of one of that person's friends. Given David's initial attitude in New Brother, I was blown away by the response from the readers. I fully expected to get some flames, but even now, several years later, I've not had a single flame about that story. I've had people disagree with David (which is fair enough), but they've always been polite emails and willing to discuss the subject. I no longer aim for the same level of originality that New Brother presented, but I still try to aim for something a little exceptional. There is so much variation in the human experience that the narrow focus of so many stories still irritates me (to varying degrees). Of course, I grew up on a diet of Science Fiction and Fantasy, so looking at things from an obscure perspective is something I've experience for a long time

1. I agree that honesty upfront changes the situation. Most of the pain I inflicted on my wife was due to her not understanding before we got married that I'm attracted to guys. Unfortunately, I was deep in the closet at the time and while I made an attempt to tell her in a roundabout way, she misunderstood and I didn't realise she misunderstood. 2. But I disagree that it's the same as looking at other people. If I were straight, my wife would be the same gender as any competition. There is nothing that the 'competition' could offer that she couldn't compete with. But how can she compete if it's a dick I want? The psychology is very different. She can't give me what I want. It was only when we both sat down and discussed it and the options did we have a chance to save our marriage. From anecdotal stories and statistics, a lot of marriages in my situation (where a partner comes out AFTER they're married), either the straight partner isn't interested in discussing it, or they are unable to come to a mutually acceptable compromise. To be honest, I'd love to have a boyfriend, but that's unacceptable to my wife, so I don't and I won't. That's part of the compromise I made to keep our marriage together. So, yes, honesty is the key. If both parties can be honest, and as this is a fundamental part of the institution of marriage they have to be brutal honest, then I think it can work. The question is whether both parties are capable of that level of honesty before they get married. I agree with it's situational. And, yes, you're free to discuss things in more detail via email. I'm happy to be very honest and open about details if it helps you. All I'll keep back is information that could identify me. Psychologically, yes there are differences between males and females, but there are also differences within each gender. Any general statement will always have exceptions. But in this case I think it's the general attitude (probably driven by society) on promiscuity, and on the general level of sex drive. Society expects females to be more monogamous than males. Just think how it's generally perceived. A male is considered to be a stud if he's had lots of partners. A female is considered to be a slut. So, society encourages males to be promiscuous (up to the point of marriage) while it discourages females. After marriage, the male is supposed to have his sex drive fulfilled by his wife (and there's a societal 'understanding' that if that doesn't happen, it's 'almost okay' for his to look outside of his marriage to get that done). But what if his wife can't because she's the wrong sex? That's the pressure that can build up on a gay male in a straight marriage and society doesn't understand it. I can't comment on whether that pressure builds up on a gay female in a straight marriage, or how the sex drive pressure works with females. I am... shall we say... not qualified to answer that

And thank you to CJ, for stepping in and helping when I was called away for work. We have a great bunch of stories (and one poem), so thank you to everyone involved in writing, editing and beta-reading the entries! Your efforts are very much appreciated

Thank you for asking the question. I'm in this situation, as Robbie stated. I'm gay, and I'm married. A few years ago I wrote an essay for the guys over at The Mail Crew on this subject: http://www.themailcrew.com/graeme.html Have a read, and if you've any questions, please feel free to PM or email me

Picking five best stories would be difficult enough. Trying to put them into an order would be impossible, because it's hard to judge stories that are just so different in nature. eg. Dom's "Desert Dropping", Dan's "The Rider's Pride", and CJ's "Let The Music Play" (to pick but three) are completely different in nature and I don't believe you can compare them and hence sort them into an order. And that's without considering short stories which are in a class of their own. It's very difficult to compare short stories to novels because the reading experience is so different. As hh5 linked above, there are some absolutely fantastic stories in the anthologies, such as Lugh's "It Was Monday", Ieshwar's "Little Raindrop", Dolores Estaban's "Till Death Do Us Part" and Tiffani Chin's "Awakening The Devil Within" (to pick four) that are also completely different in nature. Comparing stories and trying to pick a top five in order is, I think, essentially impossible. At the very least, it's incredibly misleading because it imposes a very, very subjective ordering that even the person making the list can disagree with, depending on how they feel at the time.

War's End by Mark Arbour World War I is coming to an end, but for two men, both former soldiers, peace means a return to their separate homes and their separate lives. :nuke: :nuke: Spoilers Below!!! :nuke: :nuke:

Generally, I don't mind if different people have different interpretations of what I wrote, though it bothers me if someone tells me that they're offended. I generally try not to offend. Challenge, yes, but not offend. There is one short story I wrote that seems to have roughly split the readers 50-50 on the interpretation. That's fine because the story was deliberately written to have two interpretations. The only annoying thing is that for one of those interpretations the story comes over as extremely weak. I could have done better in that respect, but I'm happy that enough people 'got' the other interpretation that it wasn't a complete failure.

I believe that if I say something is wrong or bad, I should offer suggestions on something that would be better. For example, if I'm commenting on wording, I'll explain why and suggest alternatives. If I'm commenting on a plot flaw, I'll try to suggest workarounds. I don't often comment on other people's stories, and I warn them ahead of time that I'm not gentle when I do so. But if I'm going to criticise something, I feel I need to explain why and, where possible, show examples of how something could be better. On the flip side, I expect similarly harsh treatment if I send something to someone for comment. I want any potential flaws to be pointed out, because I feel it makes a story stronger if they are eliminated. If something doesn't seem logical, or if I've missed something that should be happening, and it didn't, then I'd like to know about it. The most common problem I have from this perspective is concentrating so much on the key characters in a scene that I ignore the other characters who are there. I still remember a scene when I had two characters involved in a dispute, and someone pointed out to me that the other characters there should have reacted -- I hadn't shown that. Because of that feedback, the other characters present DID get involved, and I think the scene is a lot stronger as a consequence.

You'd probably have trouble finding it on USA TV, but the Commonwealth Games start in New Dehli on 3-14 October. Can you put your life on hold until then? The new season of Top Gear appears on Australian TV tonight. If you don't know about the show, get the last X number of seasons on DVD (it's a British show) and check it out. Once you're addicted, let me know Otherwise, the AFL (Australian Football League) pre-season competition starts up soon. If you like good looking muscular guys in shorts, keep a look out for it I believe you can find it on USA TV if you look hard enough. Just to entice you, here's a link to some of the guys.

I don't think it has anything to do with whether the author is moral or immoral. It's how good their imagination is Personally, I have a lot of trouble writing 'bad' characters. My first novel was supposed to be about a homophobic teenager. I couldn't do it. He started off superficially as being homophobic, but I couldn't maintain it because to do so would require me to justify his homophobia to himself. Similarly, in my latest novel, the nominated 'villain' turned out to be a fairly nice guy who had made a huge mistake. That's just the way he turned out. For me, a character has to be internally consistent. That means they have to have reasons for what they do and why they do it. The reasons don't have to make sense, but the character has to be believe them. The result, for me, is that I have a great deal of trouble writing about a character who is immoral, because they all tend to come out as flawed, rather than immoral.

You haven't indicated if you've responded, but I thought I'd share a recent experience I had. I received an email about a recent short story where the writer disagreed with what he thought I was saying in the story. It wasn't a rant, though, so it's not in the same category of what you received. What I did was to tell him that he was wrong to say that I was saying anything in the story. All I was doing was writing something to try to make people think about the subject. The views of the characters in the story are not necessarily those of myself. In this particular case I mainly agreed with the person sending the email, even though that was not what the characters in the story thought. If you wanted people to think about a subject, and you get emails on that subject (positive or negative), then you've succeeded. You've made an impact on someone and I think you should be proud of the fact.