Graeme

Happy 23rd Birthday, mate! I hope you have a great day. Why not start celebrating now, since it's your birthday here in Australia

Thanks for the update, James! Best wishes and good luck to everyone in the area.

But think of the damage he could do if he got it? Cody might get into serious trouble... No, I think the title has to stay with CJ. For Cody's sake.

How about we start a petition to ensure Shadowgod is never, ever given the title of 'King of the Evil Cliffhangers' ever again? CJ is keeping the title safe at the moment, so Shadowgod is unable to provide evil cliffhangers in his own story.

Happy Birthday!

When I'm in the USA, I hire a car that's got an automatic transmission -- I'm not even sure it's possible to hire a manual transmission vehicle, at least with the companies I hire from. The biggest problem is actually car parks, not the roads. The roads tend to be easy because you're following other people. But car parks have people driving everywhere, I keep finding myself on the wrong side.... We're getting a bit off topic

LOL -- I don't consider Federation Square to be a thing of beauty The Yarra Valley, maybe, but not Federation Square. Any your friend shows a large degree of wisdom.... I rarely go into the city, so I don't have to look at Federation Square very often, but I can't go past it without rolling my eyes.

Tasmania is very beautiful, but the other states have their beauty, too. There's something awe inspiring about the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, and Kings Canyon in the Northern Territory, too. You just can't compare them with Tasmania, because they're just too different I love New Zealand, though I haven't seen a lot of it. The North and South islands are very different in nature, but both are definitely worth seeing. They also produce some of the best white wines in the world, in case you're interested....

Happy Birthday, Ian!

Make that "some teenage Australian slang" because I'm not familiar with it, either, though it'll probably be obvious if I had seen the footage

He's also taken I've just been reading the article in Melbourne's Herald Sun (one of the two major mainstream newspaper's here in Melbourne. The other, The Age, is owned by the same group as The Sydney Morning Herald and has the exact same article as posted above). There is a section for reader comments, and they reflect the views of PluginMatty above -- they are generally derisive of the TV coverage, and split about whether Matt's sexuality is relevant. Yes, he's an inspiration, but what has his sexuality got to do with winning the gold medal? Regardless, it was a spectacular last dive

You'll notice that the Sydney Morning Herald article mentions Matt's sexuality and his boyfriend (as an aside, the Sydney Morning Herald had the exclusive when Matt came out publicly as gay, around a year ago). I'm a firm believer in that a persons sexuality shouldn't be newsworthy unless it's relevant. While Channel Seven may be overly sensitive on the subject, it's better in this case to be a little cautious. I suspect they'll mention it at some point, but probably in one of their current affairs/informal chat sessions. NOT in the celebration of the victory. I have to disagree with you here. Diving is not a major sport in Australia, and while he'll probably get some product endorsement offers, I don't think there'll be many, regardless of his sexuality. Consider the marketing that Australia's gold medal archers, shooters, cyclists and equestrian riders have had over the years? Essentially none. The only exception I can think to this rule is the Oarsome Foursome (quad rowers) and, to be honest, I cringed when I saw the ads they were in. The money may have been good, but I think it would have been better if they never did those ads. I wish him all the best, but I don't expect him to get much in the way of marketing offers -- and that's got nothing to do with his sexuality. Let's face, Australian's love sporting heroes and his sexuality isn't going to offend enough people to make a big difference. I would be more concerned that marketers tried to exploit his sexuality, which could have a negative impact, not a positive one.

From the Sydney Morning Herald. I saw the first dive, which, as was mention in the article, wasn't one of Matt's best, and I couldn't stay up to watch the rest of the final. I woke up this morning to some good news A perfect 10 From teenage retirement to Royal Easter Show high-diver to gay icon to gold Olympic medallist; Matthew Mitcham's journey to success has been an amazing roller-coaster. Mitcham's pulled off a stunning final dive in the 10 metre platform, scoring an incredible four perfect 10s, to steal the gold off favourite Chinese diver Luxin Zhou. Mitcham finished with 537.95 points. ... One person who has been by his side for the entire tumultuous and now brilliant journey is his partner, Lachlan, he was in the crowd last night courtesy of a Johnson & Johnson Olympic sponsorship. Mitcham is one of only a few "out" gay athletes in Beijing and the first Australian to openly declare his homosexuality going into an Olympics. He's been a cover-boy for gay magazines and featured on the cult gossip website Perezhilton.com accompanied by the tagline: "Yum. Yum. Yum! Can we have a piece of that????". ... Don't forget to check out the photos from the diving!

I thought it would be good share a different type of story This is from The Age, one of the major newspapers in Melbourne, Australia. Lesbian and gay archive emerges for anniversary by Dewi Cooke August 23, 2008 THEIRS is a quiet life filled with friends, hobbies and a cat named Jessie. But a "bond of steel" has welded Mac Ronan and Geoff Allingham to each other for the past 60 years and, even though he shudders at the cliche, it is the best way 82-year-old Mac can think to describe his lifelong relationship with Geoff, 81. It is a bond that emerged almost as soon as they met, outside Melbourne's Princess Theatre in 1948, but was properly forged in 1953 when they were two young lovers on a year-long global adventure. ...

G'day, and welcome to GA. If you need any help in getting your story posted, please don't hesitate to ask Good luck! Graeme

While technically paparazzo (I found dictionary references that say paparazzo is the term, with paparazzi being the plural term) may be the singular, in common English usage, you'll probably find that paparazzi is both singular and plural. It's not correct, given the Italian derivation of the term, but it's what people recognise. I wouldn't be concerned. You could change it to be correct, and hence educate we dumb masses that didn't realise there's a different term for the singular, but that's up to you

Happy Birthday! I hope you've been partying hard (or will be tonight) and don't forget you're allowed to keep celebrating tomorrow because it'll still be your birthday in the USA

I'm not disappointed. I just found it amusing And seriously, given that it seems to be getting the gender wrong more than 50% of the time, maybe they should just invert the gender selection in the program You can't blame a "gay writing like a female" bias, either, because I noticed that it was also wrong most of the time for the straight writers. In short -- it was a bit of fun, but not to be taken seriously.

G'day, cowboy147! Welcome to GA. There's certainly a lot of information here, as well as a large collection of authors. You may need to get up to five posts before some parts of the site are accessible to you, but check out the eFiction section, the Writer's Corner and the Editor's Corner. Once you're ready, the Sneak Peeks forum can be used to show us a little of your work and get some feedback. Good luck!

Be nice, Matty. I was in Hobart last week, so I know what your weather is currently like. England would still be nicer, even with the rain.

Dear, Mr. James, I have just received an email from Chase and Brandon asking if I could find them a new author, as their current one has publicly indicated a bias against them. I have, for now, placated them (you own me the price of return flights to the Great Barrier Reef and a week at the Hayman Island resort in the Whitsundays), but you have two unhappy characters on your hands. They had been looking forward to their wedding, but are now reconsidering the whole idea. Please have a chat with them fast before everything goes off the rails. Yours sincerely Graeme :mace:

In Shadowgod's defence (not that he really needs it), but as Changing Lanes is set approximately two years in the future, he hasn't done that riding yet. The daredevil riding only exists in the mind of the author, not in real life (since it's not yet 2010). I think that exonerates Shadowgod for any blame....

I sort of did that with my first novel, where the lead character was depicted as homophobic. The short answer is that I didn't even try to make him a 'hero of the people'. I know I had a number of people tell me that they couldn't finish the story because they couldn't stomach the lead character, and I had to accept that. My goal was to make him 'real', which included enough likeable characteristics that readers had something to hold onto. Everyone is a mix of likeable and unlikeable characteristics. Generally, most people have more likeable than unlikeable parts, but focusing on one of the unlikeable parts (like my character who freaked out when a good friend came out of the closet) came turn readers off. That's life.

I just tried with four pieces: Chapter one of my next novel (pre-edit): Female Chapter one of my next novel (post-edit): Female, but by not as much (my editors are male -- their influence shows ) My Fall Anthology entry: Male Another short story I've been working on: Female Fun

Seriously, folks, some people do find the term 'breeder' offensive at times. I'm one of them. I know when it's used as a joke, but there are a lot of people who don't realise it's intended to be a joke because they don't know the people involved in the conversation. I feel I have a right to say something on this because I'm gay and a breeder