Graeme

I haven't seen this topic discussed elsewhere here at GA, though there may be an old thread somewhere. I agree with you -- to start with, copying stories is a breach of copyright. You CAN get away with a link to stories hosted at another site, but copying without permission is not allowed. Worse -- copying and not attributing the source is THEFT! He can't argue that he's copied them for personal use, because he's put them up on his site for others to read. I'm not sure of the correct way to approach this, but there are a few lawyers here who can suggest some courses of action. I doubt any of my stories are on that site, since it looks like it is mainly culled from Nifty, but I share your distress. I'm also very annoyed by what this person is doing.

Thanks, Mark, for the links. There are a number of parents here, and I don't think any of us haven't been scared for our kids at some stage. I really do feel for the parents -- I have no ideas how I would be in their situation, but I strongly suspect both my wife and I would be complete emotional wrecks.

Happy Birthday, Tom! :music: :music: Wishing you a happy, healthy and prosperous year ahead.

Happy Birthday, my friend! :music: :music: I hope you have a great day and an even better year ahead.

I don't think you wasted your time on it. I was very impressed by what you did. Circumstances meant I couldn't take advantage of the work you did, but don't think it wasn't appreciated. Sorry, Nick, for going off topic for a moment....

I'm more curious about why so much of the media thinks this is news....

ROFL!!! I don't know why he's so eager for Chapter 26: It could be just a very dull and boring filler chapter. It's not as if I ended Ch 25 on a cliffhanger (I never use those, after all ) Any luck with the poster yet? I can accept Aillie getting it wrong, but a goat of such esteem should know better. Echidnas are monotremes, not marsupials. Yes, they have pouches, but they are their own little sub-genre....

Also check out the Getting your story noticed and The Care and Feeding of your readers' forum threads in the Writer's Corner. There are a lot of useful comments there.

That poster isn't very accurate. The last I heard was that there was over 80 million sheep in New Zealand. It also reminds me of one of my favourite songs: Cows with Guns. This useless post has been brought to you in an effort to make C James pull his hair out from anguish at the rubbish populating his story thread, and realise that the only way to make us post something sensible is to put up the next chapter of For The Love as soon as possible.....

Kitty, I hear what you are saying and I have to agree. I'm not involved in the law, but I've heard enough to know that there are dead-beat dads who don't pay child-support and who go out of their way to avoid showing an income and hence can claim they can't afford to give their ex any money. Equally, there are some women who do whatever they can to make sure their ex doesn't have access to their children (sometimes with good reason). I'm an optimist -- I would like to think that the majority of times people will do the right thing. Divorce is rarely amicable, unfortunately, so there has to be some pain involved. The responsible parents try to make sure that the pain doesn't get transmitted to the kids. Who, as a general rule, should get prime custody of any children? As a principle, I think children under 12 should go with their mother and children 12 and over should be asked their own opinion and that's the primary driver. Why 12? Because that's approximately when puberty hits and life becomes complicated. Up until then, children tend to be more centered on their mothers. HOWEVER there are always exceptions where the mother is the poorer choice and fathers CAN successfully look after children under 12. The principle I have put forward should not be the overarching factor in the decision. I also believe that access by the non-custodial parent should be encouraged as much as possible -- no access should be either by the choice of non-custodial parent, or as a last resort of the courts. I'll concede that some of this could be a social bias -- people expect young children to be with their mothers more than their fathers. Our legal system tends to reflect this social bias (which could make it a self-perpetuating thing).

The justice system is based on the principle that people are supposed to tell the truth under oath. By commiting perjury, the mother has not only committed a serious offense, but has shown that her character is seriously flawed in that she doesn't appear to think that corrupting the justice system is something she shouldn't do. "In a child's best interests" also includes the environment that they will grow up in. The mother has shown a disrespect for the legal system upon which the nation is based. While it is unlikely, (the circumstances are such that the mother is unlikely to commit the same crime again) it has to be considered if this will lead the child to have a similar disrespect for the legal system. I won't go as far as to say that there is no doubt about the judge's decision, but I believe they did the right thing. Dom's comment about damage to the child is, to me, the clincher. If it had been perjury on another topic (such as what assets she owned during the divorce settlement), it would have been a lot tougher call.

Thanks, Nick! I've enjoyed your posts, and I'm especially pleased to see you develop as an author. I look forward to reading your stories for many years to come. :king: :king: :king: :king: :king: :king: :king: :king: :king:

Hi, Joe, I understand a little of what you are feeling, though my wife would understand perfectly. I had to have her old pony put down the other week. She had had him for over thirty years.... Graeme

They test the blood, but the tests are not reliable. As there are people with HIV who contracted it as a result of blood transfusions back in the 80s, the Blood Services around the world became paranoid on the topic. Because HIV tests can return a false negative in the first month after infection (that is, they report no HIV when there is actually HIV in the blood), and many blood products only have a shelf-life of a month, there is effectively NO reliable test for HIV that they can use. I agree that the questioning needs to be refined and targeted more accurately, BUT I fully support the intention of the Blood Services -- to try to have a blood supply that is as clean as they can make it. Just imagine that if someone you cared for had a blood transfusion and as a result contracted an incurable and ultimately fatal disease -- what would you think of the person who donated that blood? THAT is what they are trying to prevent.

The family animals.

There's something about kittens: you can't give them up. Once they grow up, it's too late.... I don't have pictures on this computer, but I'll see what I can find when I get onto my home PC.

Good to see you here, thornton! Don't let C James tell you that lurking is okay -- not unless you're happy to follow his example. Seriously, welcome to GA!

These and many other uninteresting and useless questions will be answered in a future chapter of... let's see... ah... who cares anyway? ROFL!!! Let me guess -- he held the phone around the wrong way and took a great photo of himself!

SPOILER I had this nice fantasy going about why Eric was adopted AND YOU'VE RUINED IT!!! I have been very much aware that it's written as 1st person, and that means we only know what Chris knows. It was quite possible that Eric was adopted and Chris simply didn't know. It was even possible that Steve didn't know (given the age difference between them, he may have been very young when it occured, and he's forgotten)... AND NOW MY THEORIES ARE ALL RUINED!!! My best guess as to what happens next is that Eric grabs the sheriff's gun arm with a comment along the lines of "If you kill him, we may not find out where the real datastick is!" I'm also guessing that Chris will lose the phone in the resulting chase. Given that we know that the story goes for several chapters more, it is unlikely that firm evidence against the sheriff will be turned over to the LVPD soon. I could be wrong -- it could get there, and the resulting chapters include trying to find the bad guys (who, naturally, have disappeared). I'm still intrigued by WHAT the sheriff has been up to. $50K of equipment that needs something from that datastick? My new guess is that it contains logins and passwords for some computer system that the sheriff and his companions are going to break into and steal... something. We now know that Blackheart is the one who provided the original (and why he won't replace it), and he's a hacker. We've got confirmation what the second encryption key is -- though the guys have already guessed that and passed the information onto Dex. We know lots more, but there is still so much that we DON'T know....

C James told us to look at where the chapter title phrase appears in the story, and (assuming he's not trying to misdirect us), I found it intriguing. It is the Peidmont Sheriff talking to Eric, and he says, "If blood weren't thicker than water, I'd kill you myself." I suppose it is vaguely possible that Eric was adopted -- it hasn't been confirmed one way or another. The other possibility is that Eric is romantically involved with one of the sheriff's relations. With the adoption option, I'm also allowing for the possibility that Eric is Thaddeus's illegitimate son -- which is why they are so much in cahoots. Strangely, the ending doesn't bother me -- unlike some of the other endings. It seemed to fit the moment perfectly -- just like a flash going off and illuminating/freezing a scene for a moment before the action resumes. I liked Betty in this chapter, and I'll agree with an early comment -- it's one of the best chapters so far. We find out more about what's going on, as well as a lot of action. Well done!

Happy Birthday, Patrick!

The person I see in the mirror today is a lot happier than four years ago. The essential difference is that I've finally accepted my orientation. Oh, and I've also got more grey hairs. This has nothing to do with having two young boys, of course.

I don't know the answer to the question, but I believe it's simple mathematics -- the more readers, the more feedback. Only a small percentage of readers respond to an author, so you need a lot more readers if you want more emails. This means that you have to write something broadly appealing. The 40 chapter story about gay unicorns with a leather fetish isn't likely to do it. Stories that readers can relate to are the best bet, and that tends to mean young characters (14-25) in a contemporary setting. Once you have that, you then need to attract readers. Word of mouth is a good way to attract new readers -- a person is more likely to read something if it is recommended by others. This means that forums like the ones here at GA are useful -- if someone sees a story that has attracted a large number of comments, they are more likely to become interested in reading it themselves. There is a thread on attracting readers in the Writer's Corner here at GA. As to what makes a story attractive to readers, that's tougher. Ultimately, it has to be well written. A reader should find themselves lost in the story, imagining that the characters are real people and maybe even finding themselves inside the story as it unfolds. There isn't a formula for that. All of the elements suggested can be in a story that is well written -- or none of them. It's not the elements that make up the answer -- it's the sum of the parts. This isn't really a satisfactory answer to the question, but I don't think there is one. Sorry.

It's not how big it is, but what you do with it...

Tsk. Tsk. And you're the author of the story! We DON'T have a blond and brunette being chased around the country roads in a Charger, because: 1. The Charger has been stolen, and 2. The brunette is now a blond. How quickly we forget....