Dusk

I've posted a couple of historical fantasy stories recently that some of you might be interested in. Life Prison. In the unmerciful world of Mercy Prison, there is no rule but unending pain. For Merrick, the arrival of his new guard provides hope that he may break beyond the boundaries of his life prison. But appearances can be deceptive, and Merrick does not yet recognize the danger this guard poses to his future. Coded Messages. One of them rapes prisoners. The other wants to help prisoners. So why are they talking to each other? They're both available at the Life Prison Website.

Thanks for posting these.

Boy, am I old-fashioned. I use Netscape 4.75, circa 2000. It gives me a slimmed-down presentation of Web pages that I like. However, certain sites - such as the GA forum - don't show up well in it, at the type size I read. I was using IE6 for a while as my back-up browser, but the pages loaded slowly, and every time I looked at Google Tech News there was a new alert about a virus that attacks IE. So I switched to Firefox this month, and I'm very happy. Unlike Microsoft, Mozilla will give me security updates for my browser, so I'm much less likely to be attacked by a virus. And the pages load lightning-quick in comparison to IE6.

Boy, my anecdote isn't going to shine in this company. But . . . Back in my twenties, when I was taking a long hike through the swathe of countryside that cuts right into the heart of Oxford, I came across a sign that said, "Wolf on College Meadow. Please keep to the path." Well, you can just bet I did. I sped through that meadow at top speed, swivelling my head from left to right as I went, trying to figure out where they kept the wolf. Only later did I realize that I'd been passing through Wolfson College Meadow.

My mother used to try to convince me that I was totally abnormal for not wanting to carry around a bathroom's worth of items. Judging from the above list, she was correct. I used to be sewn to my backpack like a Siamese twin, till the family member I live with got obsessed with taking Teaching Company tapes out of the library. Now he borrows my backpack all the time. So I resort to a college bookbag, and to heck with the fact that it clashes with my oh-so-masculine denim vest. Minimum I carry: Magnifier (I'm partially sighted), money and ID and credit cards and library cards strewn all over the bag because I haven't gotten myself a new wallet, notebook and pens, kleenex. And if I'm not carrying a book or newspaper too, it's a sign I'm seriously ill. Given the number of coins I have floating around, and trouble I have fishing them out of my pocket, I've thought of carrying a change purse, but I don't want to screw up people's minds that much. I'll wait for our society to get a little less gender-rigid. Comb goes in the back pocket of my jeans and keys go on my belt. Left. At least I manage to fit the expected image that way. Dusk (feeling left out because I don't carry a screwdriver)

DarkShadow wrote: "When a new 'style' of painting, for instance, is brought into the public eye, if enough people like it, it becomes a new 'style'. People don't say, 'YOU CAN'T DO THAT! That's against the rules.'. Well some do, but generally the majority wins out, and a new 'style' is born." That's exactly what happens in writing. The reason I write "labor" rather than "labour" is because, in the eighteenth century, Noah Webster said, "To heck with the extra U - that's a British affectation." I've no doubt that there were screams of protest at the time at this summary dismissal of traditional spelling. Yet, over time, his view prevailed. In other cases, new styles do not become fashionable. Either way, innovators can expect strong protests. Painters are no more immune to this than writers are. I think Matthew's post puts the matter very well: These rules (actually, guidelines) usually develop for reasonable causes. I say "usually" because a bunch of eighteenth-century grammarians decided that English should function like Latin, and we've been stuck with their descendants' whining ever since then. But for the most part, a guideline is there because a lot of writers in the past made a royal mess of things when not following the guidelines. This isn't to say that guidelines should never be broken. But if you're going to create an unconventional sonnet, it helps to know how to write a conventional sonnet first. Marty wrote: "(Taken from this site)." It looks to me as though the person who wrote that has a background in computer science. I'm not surprised he's applying rules that commonly occur in mathematical writing to other types of writing. There are loads of exceptions to the "rule," but generally speaking, one through nine are spelled out. After that point, journalists and novelists part company: most style manuals for journalists require that higher numbers be represented as digits, while most general style manuals encourage novelists to spell out all numbers. The only thing that's likely to really irritate a reader is not spelling out one through nine, because that's so rare in fiction - unless, of course, you're showing something like a temperature. Concerning books that answer the "why?" for stylistic questions: I can recommend Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, which carefully traces the various disputes over proper grammatical use - with examples - rather than simply ordering the reader to follow a particular usage. While the editors do offer their recommendations at the end of each entry, the dictionary provides you with the information you need to make up your own mind.

In addition to the sites I mentioned in this post and this post, I've posted stories at BDSM Library (which doesn't have many gay stories, but my stories are likely to stand out for that very reason) and Slash Cotillion (which hosts historical fiction and historical fantasy). I'm really more enthusiastic, though, about announcing stories though LiveJournal (as I describe in that first link) than about archiving. If I'm going to submit a story to three archives, it will take me about two hours to reformat the HTML file three times (in order to get it to fit with each archive's particular requirements) and go through the submissions procedure three times. In the same amount of time, I can post a single announcement a hundred times on LiveJournal.

Empathy asked: "How important is it to you, to gain and develop a reader base?" For the first thirty years of my fiction writing, it wasn't important at all. I was developing myself as a writer, and I didn't expect to have any readers till I reached a publishable level. Right around the time that I reached that level, I discovered that it was possible to acquire online readers. Then readers became very important to me because I wanted feedback from them. But I'm the sort of person who would still write, even if I was living on a desert island. Gaining more readers is only important to me because (1) I don't get nearly as much feedback from readers as I'd like, and (2) I plan to sell my writings. I'd honestly get nervous at the idea of being a mega-star novelist with fans flocking to me. I doubt, though, that I need to worry about that. "How much influence if any do the readers have on your work?" It's hard for me to separate this question from "How much influence if any do the writers have on your work?" because many of my readers are writers too, at least on the amateur level. In that respect, a great deal; I learn a lot from reading the works of other writers. If you mean, do they change my storyline, the answer is, Not much. Occasionally, when I'm working on a series, some reader will point out a problem in how a scene is written - say, a character will act in what seems to be an inconsistent manner. And I'll realize, "Whoops, yes, that's a problem," and in a later story I'll add in something to explain, in an after-the-fact manner, why that event occurred. Other than that, though, my Muse tends to go on his lone path, without any need for assistance. As DarkShadow mentions, readers can also be good at pointing out frequent errors. The readers who are the best at this, I grab as beta readers. Concerning requests for feedback: As a reader, I wouldn't have any problems with requests for feedback from a writer. (Though I might or might not give it. I'm incapable of writing a thirty-second e-mail; it would have to be a thirty-minute e-mail, rewritten five times, so I don't send feedback unless I really love a story.) But when an author starts posting blackmail notices - "I won't keep writing unless you give me feedback" - that's the point at which I drop them from my list of authors to read. I think the perspective that assumes the writer deserves feedback is on shaky ground. Shouldn't we be grateful to our readers for taking the time to read our stories amidst their doubtless busy schedules? If an author attaches profuse thank-you notes to his stories to any reader who goes the extra mile to offer feedback - "Thank you thank you thank you for sending me feedback for my last story!" - or even quiet thank-you notes - "Many thanks to those who let me know what they thought of the last story; your comments were a great help to me" - then I'm much more likely to give him feedback than if he says, "It only takes you thirty seconds to write me."

DarkShadow wrote: "Deleting a story from an archive takes all of about 3 minutes MAX. Ftp in... move to the correct directory, and hit 'DELETE'. Done!" What I was envisioning was a scenario where five thousand authors sent in their requests to have their stories deleted. But yes, I too had a case where I asked that a file be replaced, and Nifty promptly complied. Nicholas James wrote: "As far as Nifty goes, my only problem with them is that they bury the stories I'm proudest of on the No Sex Page, the loneliest page in the whole history of the internet :| " Well, now you make me want to dart over and read that page. I'd been avoiding it hitherto because it screamed the word "fetish" in its description. (I'll read fetish stories if they come my way for other reasons, but I don't seek them out.) But perhaps Nifty was just trying to make the page seem more salacious than it actually is.

Cool!

The issue we were discussing in this thread was whether authors can withdraw their stories from an archive. This isn't an issue for me - I only post stories in archives if I'm sure I won't withdraw them later - but it might be for other authors here. Does GA have a policy on that matter? (Perhaps this is obvious to writers who have actually gone through the submissions procedure.) By the way, one other gay fiction place I should have thought of - because it's especially friendly to non-erotica writers, though erotica writers can post there too - is the Yahoo Group WWGSS, which has two thousand members.

Concerning the word "erotic" in Nifty's title: As far as I can tell from what's available at the site, Nifty's archivist is interpreting the word "erotic" in the same way that ASSGM's moderator does (here I quote from ASSGM's FAQ): "The main requirement for stories to be included in this group is that they are same-sex in nature, and that they involve sex. The sex does not need to be graphic, and can be merely sexual tension. If the story involves breaking off a relationship, it is about sex." According to my domain stats, Nifty is the single largest referrer of readers to me - and I post in a lot of places. As far as "guilt by association" is concerned, John Preston commented that his publishers loved him because, rather than take the high literary road and only associate with the creme de la creme, he gave readings in leather bars to "the boys in the black leather jackets, the dirty old men in raincoats." Those were his faithful readers who bought his books - even his mainstream books - and made his publishers happy. I'm able to trace clearly through my stats who some of my readers are, and which forums they found me on (because they're often coming from their blogs, and their blogs list the forums they belong to). From this I can tell that, even in the dregs of the Internet (and Nifty is hardly the dregs), discerning readers hang out. Aside from Nifty, there's also ASSGM.net (a little closer to the dregs, but not quite there) and Literotica, which has both erotic and non-erotic sections and which encourages good writers. And there's also a host of fiction communities over at LiveJournal, such as gaywriters and gayrotica. The nice thing about those communities is that you don't have to actually post your stories there - you can just announce the story and provide a link. If you write erotic fiction, my suggestion would be that you don't skip announcing your story at mixed-orientation erotica communities, such as eroticfantasies and sexstories. I get a healthy number of readers coming from forums like that. Either there are a lot of bisexual readers there or - just as likely - erotic writing knows no orientation bounds. C James wrote: "Yes, they [Nifty] are offering to sell you your own story rights!!! You have to PAY them an amount THEY, at that time, decide upon to get your story removed." I just spoke this week with an author who went through that procedure, and what Nifty wanted was a percentage of the earnings on the published story. A bit greedier than asking for a flat fee, I thought, but I think a fee is reasonable considering the amount of work it takes to withdraw stories from an archive that size. If they didn't have that penalty in place, it's likely that the administration would be overwhelmed with requests for the withdrawal of stories, and the site would go under because the administration wouldn't have time to post new stories. Since Nifty has been free since 1992, I think it's unlikely to become a for-pay site. (Of course, we all thought that about ASSGM too.) However, I agree that it's definitely not the right place to archive your story if you think there's any chance at all that you might want to withdraw it at a later stage. Concerning the perpetual rights: Well, I'm afraid that's par for the course for even respectable e-publications such as Velvet Mafia. Authors don't much like it (which is why I don't require such rights from the authors at my e-zine), but it's quite a common requirement in the Internet world. The problem is: How do you maintain an archive if readers discover that stories that they liked reading there in the past are continually disappearing from the archive? It's a difficult matter to balance the needs of Webmasters and readers with the needs of authors. What you really need to watch out for if you submit your stories to an online archive is the giving up of exclusive rights. No legitimate archive should ask for that, and a legitimate publication should have a time limit on exclusive rights. A print magazine, for example, will typically ask for First North American Rights, while an e-zine will typically ask for First Electronic Rights. In both cases, this means you're free to post or published the story elsewhere once it's published at the original publication. Occasionally an e-publication will ask for exclusive rights for a year or so, and that's a legitimate request also. But if any archive or publications say, "You own the copyright, but we get exclusive rights to the story for as long as we want" - well, that's as good as saying that you don't own the copyright, because you can't do anything with the story if they have exclusive rights to it without a time limit. Now that we've discussed Nifty's rights situation, where is the license agreement for GA's eFiction writers hidden?

Empathy wrote: "I had been reading stories on the net (mostly porn) since I was 9 or 10." Now there's a generational gap. Growing up in the pre-Internet era, I didn't get access to porn till I was sixteen. I found it disappointing. Didn't get access to good-quality porn till my late thirties, when I stumbled across it on the Internet. Jack Scribe wrote: "I hereby admit being a hopeless romantic" Me too, though friendship stories do as much for me as romance. That was the problem I had with the porn I found as a teenager; it had no emotional content. And I'm afraid that was my initial reaction to online gay erotic stories I encountered - that they were plotless and pointless. (Not that this stopped me from reading them in certain moods, *cough cough*.) It took me some exploring to find the well-written stories. I did read a few published gay novels in college, but they were contemporary fiction, and my interest was mainly in fantasy and historical fiction. It wasn't until a few years ago that I discovered there were writers working in that field. Their blurbs don't reveal this. (Pauses to glare in the direction of SF/F marketing departments.) So, as far as gay stories are concerned, they pretty much stayed in my head till a few years ago. I'd been writing fiction since I was eight and had gay stories going through my head by my teens, but the possibility of writing the gay stories down never crossed my mind because I didn't think anyone was reading gay fantasy stories, except, just maybe, as subplots within fantasy novels about other topics. If I'd wanted to write PG-rated, contemporary-setting, light-events gay stories, I'd probably have made the leap early on. But the stories in my head not only were fantasy - they tended to deal with dark events. So did my non-gay stories, for that matter. However, while I thought it was socially acceptable to write mainstream fantasy stories about imprisonment and slavery - everyone and their uncle was doing that - I didn't think it was possible to add in gay attraction to such stories without being immediately labelled a pervert. And I half suspected I was one, because the few gay stories I read online with this content were literary dreck and more than a little ethically questionable. Then, when I was doing searches for gay art, I stumbled across a site with gay imprisonment/slavery/prostitution stories. Blinked more than a few times when I realized it was a fan fiction site maintained by women. But it was filled with lots of sexually charged, fantasy-setting, dark-events stories. And I discovered that many of these stories dealt with ethical issues. That's when I realized I wasn't the only person in the world who liked such tales, and that's when I had the courage to write mine down. Even so, my hands shook the first time I posted a story online.

Myk said: "If you have any questions or need help just ask and one of the team will come to your rescue" And C. James added: "we will be happy to help!" Oh, that's already been revealed. I hadn't been here five minutes before I started bugging Joe Smith over in tech support. He responded instantly. Matthew wrote: "The fantasy stuff sounds interesting, and I'll have to check it out." Hope you'll like what you see. Thank you for the welcome. Jack Scribe wrote: "GA needs more diversity...and after reviewing the True Tales website, I think your ideas will certainly broaden the scope of gay, erotic-themed writing for anyone who is intersted in knowing more about the BDSM/Leather culture." Thanks! True Tales is definitely leather-friendly but was never intended to be leather-only. Last year the focus was primarily on leathermen; this coming year the focus is primarily on military men, and the year after that, the theme will be businessmen. Plus, in any year, I'm happy to publish stories on other topics related to masculinity and power.

I was going to recommend "The God Eaters," but I see that's already been recommended twice over. As far as print novels are concerned, Guy Gavriel Kay usually inserts passing mentions of homoeroticism in his novels, but not enough to qualify as gay novels. Marion Zimmer Bradley's Heritage of Hastur, in the Darkover series, is another novel that springs to mind, if you can tolerate the fact that one of the gay characters is a predator. That's only the tip of the iceberg, though. There are many high fantasy novels featuring gay characters, most of which I haven't read personally, so I'll simply refer you over to the folks who have. GLBT Fantasy Fiction Resources, already mentioned, is a great source for information on gay fantasy. So is Lambda Sci-Fi's Recommended Reading List (it includes fantasy) and Alternative Sexualities in Science Fiction and Fantasy and many other sites.

I found this site - oh, ages ago, 2002 it must have been. At the time, the site's design made it a bit difficult for me to access the stories, and for various reasons I decided to give the site a pass. But when I reached the point of frustration this week over not knowing of any active forums for writers of gay fiction, I did a Web search, and lo and behold, things had changed a lot since I was here last. (Pauses to plug in information from my profile, just to save you all the trouble of clicking on my name.) I write mainstream fantasy, homoerotic historical fantasy, and contemporary gay leather fiction. I also edit online resources on genre fiction, gay history and literature, and leather history and literature. I'm editor of True Tales: An Erotic E-zine of Masculinity and Power.