Graeme

Australia doesn't have many places above 2000 meters.... On a more serious note, we had one of our driest winters on record last year and now that it's summer here, it's really hitting hard. We've been in drought conditions for years and this summer it is REALLY hitting hard. We've got farmers who are shooting their stock because there is no feed for them, and no one is buying. When people ARE buying, it sometimes costs more to transport the stock to market than they are able to sell them for. There are ancedotal stories of farmers locking the house, locking the gate, and then going out and killing themselves . Australians tend to be very independent and stoic about difficulties, so you know things are getting desperate when there is a major push for advertising mental health services (and suicide prevention in particular) in rural parts of the country. I saw a newspaper making a prediction of drought-breaking rains in April. I hope they're right....

Happy Birthday, WVSailor!

Escaped from the local zoo? I've heard enough stories of kangaroos escapings, and echidna's are a lot cleverer than kangaroos....

I'm waiting to see if the boys go to an 'alternative' restaurant one night and have roast echidna....

Welcome! I would suggest posting it in eFiction. Another possibility, if you'd like comments, is to post part of it in the Sneak Peaks forum, though you need five posts before you can get in there (I believe Joe is able to do miracles, so if you PM JSmith, he might be able to bypass that restriction for you). Good luck! Graeme

Tragic Rabbit across at Aweseomedude has done the same for several of his short stories -- Lucky Strike Hit Parade 1941, Der Cowboy and The Sacred Band of Thebes being only a few examples. I think it's up to the author to a large extent. For me, if something appropriate came along I would incorporate it, but I wouldn't do it because I thought I had to. It's one of those things that should be used sparingly, in my opinion, which is why I voted for "Why not". You don't want the pictures to be a distraction from the story.

I may be mistaken, but I thought goat meat was used in some traditional Mediterranean meals. According to this link, goat meat is used by the Greeks, Spanish, Mexicans, Chinese and in the Caribbean. There is also apparently a goat cook off in Texas each year:

If you wanted sinister and ominous, you should've gone with Thaddeus C. James. If you'd told your editor that was your intention, I'm sure he would've changed it for you. I'm afraid that's your own fault.

I had to read the chapter quickly, so I probably didn't appreciate it to the fullest. I'm not concerned about the ending -- Veronica's comment and the note makes it pretty obvious that Steve has an ex- and it was a old note that Chris found. I expect that after a bit of angst, it'll all be sorted out. Fundamentalists with fire-and-brimestone preaching are a cliche in gay stories, and, like Bondwriter, it's something I have trouble relating to. I accept it's something that happens, but I've never been able to properly appreciate it. On a technical note, the jumping ahead in the timeframe seemed clumsy to me. It could be because I read it quickly, but it was neither a clean jump, nor a reasonable condensed summary of what was going on. Steve is having problems at school, and Chris, while concerned, seems to skip over it quickly. I would've expected at least one scene where he tried to talk to Steve about it OR narration about his attempt to talk to Steve. There also wasn't enough of how Chris felt about it, and as someone with a new boyfriend I would've expected him to be VERY concerned -- even if he didn't know how to talk to Steve about it. Remember, this is a first person narration, so I would've expected more of the emotions and thoughts that went with the situation. I can see why the story jumped ahead, but I think a break, and then a quick retrospective would've worked better.

Well done, Razor!!

Sounds very familiar In my case, I have a couple of primary beta-readers who provide a first round of comments. Then it goes to my editor and he and his friends beta-read it. Only after that second round of beta-reading does it actually get edited. As a suggestion on the double paragraph spacing, I'm guessing that you use the default paragraph spacing and therefore have a blank paragraph between each written one. What I do is to alter the default style so that there is a one line spacing before each paragraph. This eliminates the 'blank' paragraph marker, and will probably allow it to post to eFiction without that issue. I don't know, since I've never tried to post to eFiction, but I've had similar issues with other forums so I suspect it'll work. Graeme

I'll just add my support as Colin and Luc have given the details. You did nothing wrong. I've been asked a couple of times where my stories are hosted, and I never even considered the possibility that it might be a rude question....

I'm definitely a 'happy ending' person. I can handle bittersweet, and I've enjoyed some movies with sad endings ('Less Than Zero' being one I can recall from memory), but they aren't my preference.

It's a good idea, but I understand why people aren't doing it here. I've been following the lead of other posters in only including links. There are potential copyright issues in copying articles. Many sites get away with it because it's not worth enforcing, but it's one more thing that Myr and the site administration can probably do without worrying about. Until they say otherwise, I'm going to avoid copying any article that may be copyrighted. In my case, I would like to think that I would still love my sons no matter what they become or do, but there are many things that would make me very disappointed in them, and wish they would change. Despite that, I can't see myself refusing to admit they were my sons.

Unless, of course, it refers to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which this year will be from 2nd Feb to 3rd March (the date of the parade and party). If this was nominated as a theme, I'd suggest it be a more generic Mardi Gras/Pride/Community Party theme.

Thanks, Kitty I've been thinking of some options since my post above. These are generic and while they apply to any season, some seasons would be a better fit if you still wanted a seasonal theme: Independence Graduation Renewal Endings Travel Water (ie. anything to do with water: water sports, sailing, boats, cruises, drowning, beaches, lakes, etc) Children Work/Employment Growth Exhaustion Hiding I think that's enough for now

As I would like to participate, I would suggest NOT doing the following: Spring: - Groundhog Day - Spring Break Summer: - Independence Day Fall: - Thanksgiving Day The reason is that these are all basically North American themes and if I want to participate it would be an Australian interpretation of a North American event. Yes, I did it for Halloween, but that is something that is a lot better known in Australia than any of the above. There are spasmodic attempts to celebrate Halloween in Australia (usually failures), but the rest of the above have no Australian equivalent. From my limited UK experiences (I liked there for 12 months ten years ago), I don't believe they have UK equivalents, either. I don't have a problem with any of the other ones. The 'season' of the anthology isn't as important as the theme, and all of the rest are events that have an equivalent here, even if it's in a different time of the year. Some of the other suggestions that have been put forward previously were to base it on a phrase (that should be included in the story somewhere), rather than a theme, or to use a picture as a basis. Have these been vetoed? I can understand the problems with a picture, but a generic phrase should still work -- is there a real reason to link the "theme" to the "season"? For example, "gay victory" is something that leaves a lot of scope. It might be the core of the story, or just an aside. It could be a great win, or a pyrhic victory.

Happy 21st Birthday, Krista! I hope you have a great day, and a fantastic year ahead

Happy 17th Birthday! I hope you have a great time and an even better year ahead.

I hope it makes a difference. Sometimes something like this will -- as it is a lot higher profile than someone down the street coming out. Thanks, Rick, for posting it.

A couple of links: The Foley-Mashburn Saga by Brew Maxwell, as well as a couple of other good, positive stories, can be found on the Mail Crew web site: http://www.themailcrew.com/pdfpage.html You can also find it at CRVBoy as individual chapters. The first chapter of the first book (Tim) can be found at: http://www.crvboy.org/stories/brewmaxwell/t/index.html On a personal note, The Foley-Mashburn Saga and Working It Out by Don Hanratty (available here at GA as well as on The Mail Crew web site on the above link) played a major part in my finally accepting my homosexuality. I can thoroughly recommend both stories, and I've seen many others recommend them, too. If you want a print novel, rather than online, I've heard good things about the stories by Alex Sanchez from people I trust: http://www.alexsanchez.com/ I also believe one of them was on the recommended reading list for high school students in the parts of the USA for a time, but I'm but not sure which (one of the Rainbow series of novels, from memory).

I have to politely disagree. Since I signed on this morning (1st January, 2007) I have seen multiple posts by C James, all to do with the stories in the Winter Anthology. It is 8:55pm on the evening of the 1st January, 2007 here in Melbourne, and C James is clearly listed on the "Today's top 20 posters" with a total of 12 posts. How he manages that with a daily posting rate of 0.00 is a mystery, but I'm still sticking to my original theory -- he's an alien goat with uncanny powers.

Congratulations to everyone -- very well deserved

Happy New Year! It's already over nine hours old here in Australia

I thought the name sounded familiar Greetings from the antipodes, Nono! Graeme