TheZot

For whatever it's worth, poly arrangements do work for some people, as do open relationships in various forms. (Where one partner or the other, or both, is free to have sex with someone outside their primary relationship) I can't say I quite understand, since it doesn't work for me on a pretty deep level, but I know of people for whom it does work, and who are getting along just fine. I figure as long as everyone involved is a consenting competent adult then I don't much care -- whatever does it for you is fine, I've got plenty of more important things to worry about. Monogamy does exist. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I have been for what's nearly been 18 years. (21 if you count when I started dating) And hell, I've been married all that time, so if I can manage, I fully expect people in a relationship with a member of the appropriate sex could if they chose. (On the other hand, an awful lot of people do manage monogamy just fine, it's that you don't notice, since it's unexceptional and thus not likely to catch your attention) The "gay community" has a different view of monogamy (and, honestly, a poorer self-image on average) and ranges between being forgiving of and encouraging infidelity in a lot of places, which can be a problem, but these days it's not like the straight community's much better, unfortunately. People seem to have lower standards overall, which is kind of sad.

You're young -- don't worry, there's plenty of time to come across the screamingly insane. (Though, honestly, they're easier to deal with than the freaky stalkers, self-righteous lunatics, and sociopaths. I'll take a good screamer every time, they're usually harmless) It's best to assume that every creepy nutjob on the planet has an internet connection. It's not true, of course, but that may only be because much of China's still unwired.

Hrm. Well, I can see Ann's point and Greg's as well. I think I'm going to end up bouncing around some. I'm going to have to take the large stories in order, since there's some continuity with them, but the shorts can get scattered around time. Guess this means I'd better start in on the first story in the series...

Fan response (to the point of threats against his family as I understand it) also drove Driver off the 'net for a while , and though he's sort of back he's sort of not, and he's apparently not re-releasing the parts of his stories that caused all the furor. As a long time 'net denizen (before the web, back in the "we sling Usenet news articles around via UUCP" days) it doesn't surprise me. Take a random sampling of people and you'll come across the Net K00ks who aren't on nearly enough medication, the self-absorbed assholes who're convinced the world revolves around themselves, and the cluelessly enthusiastic who get so wrapped up in something that when it goes in ways they can't accept or understand they freak out. The social distance the internet gives you, where you're not dealing face to face with someone, also tends to dampen the social reflexes that tend to keep people from being too much of an ass. It's a lot easier to get worked up when writing email or a forum post than when you're talking directly to someone -- you're more likely to do it when you're impaired (upset, tired, hungry, whatever) and you don't get the feedback from the person you're talking to that keeps bad behaviour in check. There's not a huge amount that can be done about it. Accepting that it'll happen does help, as does having the community try and head off bad behavior before it gets out of hand, but neither does much for the lone fan with a grudge, or the raving loon on the message boards. Keeping some amount of distance and anonymity (as an author or artist or whatever) helps -- makes the cranks hurt a bit less, and makes it more difficult for people to f**k you over at work or home. Just life, unfortunately. Some people need to be hit repeatedly with the clue stick, occasionally to the point of unconsciousness. Knowing this does, oddly, help.

Which is fair enough, though in this case if I waited until I got to the end of where I'm working on right now it'd be more like 70 chapters all at once, give or take a little -- one of the troubles of working on the fifth story first. (I really need to prod Dio into action. Or maybe not, he's a good excuse to not actually finish anything ) Ah, well, it keeps me out of trouble. Maybe I'll get things back into sequence again -- I've managed to plot out the second story in the series well enough to start working on it instead. Less of a wait for that one. -Dan

These darned characters need to leave me alone, they really do. I think. (I'm not sure, it is fun being able to sit down and bang out a lot of text) Anyway, I think I can ignore this story for right now and work on the things that come earlier. Since that means this'll likely get ignored for a year or two I'm splatting it out here, well, just because. Probably splat out the beginning of the third chapter soon as well, since that's close to being set-aside-able. This is uneditited, even by me, just a rough first draft, so don't be surprised if the punctuation's odd or parts read a little funny. I tend to bounce around and sometimes reuse phrasing inadvertently. Wedding Bells, part .5 The Crown and Stone respectfully require, on this the one year anniversary of your betrothal, the presence of you and your intended, for the recognition of your union, in the presence of the symbols and kingdom of Ventania. William looked with bemusement at the parchment in his hand, before he burst out laughing, tears streaming down his face. The messenger looked on with bemusement, wondering if perhaps he'd delivered to someone who'd gone mad. William? What's so funny? William could feel Ben's puzzlement in his head. We've just received an invitation to a wedding, William replied, wiping the tears from his eyes. Whose? Ours, love. "What?" Ben's voice rang out from behind William. He turned and saw Ben, standing midway down the stairs, looking surprised. The long leather apron he was wearing showed signs of recent scorching, the goggles dangling from around his neck had spatters of orange glowing goo on them. His face was spattered with goo as well, leaving him looking owlish, the tan skin around his eyes showing in dark contrast to the fluorescent orange on the rest of his face. Strands of long black hair escaped from the braid he wore and arched forward, a few of them stuck to his cheeks by the slime he was wearing. "We just got our wedding invitation," William said with a grin, waving the paper at Ben. He'd managed to stop laughing, but just barely. "I like the orange," he added. "It suits you." Ben scowled in response. "It suits you better," said Ben, reaching down and leaving a smear on each cheek and across his forehead. Ben was right, the glowing orange streaks setting off the lavender of William's eyes and the white of his hair, pulled back like Ben's, though held together by a strip of leather rather than a braid. William caught the scent of citrus and sniffed. "What were you brewing back in the workshop?" He frowned suddenly. The orange slime bore a striking resemblance to fire daemon ichor, and Ben had been working on bottles to hold reactive potions in stasis. "This stuff won't burst into flames or explode, will it?" "No, it's

The problem with having a good setting and characters you like is that they tend to get out of hand. You think that you've got things under control and pretty much ready to go and... ha! Surprises happen and it turns out that you don't. I've a pair of characters, Ben and William, I very much like. They're sweet and sappy, and when circumstances call for it can kick much ass and wreak massive amounts of mayhem, which is always good for some fun. (They're the two in the Wedding Bells snippet I posted a while back) They first got worked out a year and a half ago according to Word's timestamp on the file -- nothing fancy, just two guys who start out not liking each other trapped in a cabin for a couple of weeks and ultimately get together. More a character piece than a plot one, but it was nice if unexciting, and I kind of liked it, and the characters. I never got very far on them, since the story was a pain to work on, and I had other things I was concentrating on (like Yankee, which I'm having a heck of a time finishing up, but that's neither here nor there) so they were tabled along with a lot of other pieces. They had a lot more potential, though. Then a few months ago (Well, OK, six months ago) Myr was complaining a bit about the lack of good fantasy pieces, and I had an idea that worked out well with Ben and William, so I sat down and plotted it out. That story, it turned out, introduced a pair of other characters, so over the next few months I ended up with three more stories -- one each where the two characters get introduced, and a third where they have a fairly harrowing adventure of their own. (Those are only partially plotted, I'm trying not to think about them) Well, fast forward to thanksgiving, when Yankee looked like it was going to wrap up soon (ha!) and I was trying to work out what to do next. I'd been fiddling with the fantasy piece, and ended up sending what I'd gotten done on it and the background material off to Dio for poking at. He promptly went missing for a few weeks, but when he got back he tore the plot synopsis apart -- which it deserved -- and made a bunch of suggestions and asked a lot of questions. All that was good, since the plot really was pretty nonexistent. Rewrote the synopsis and sent it off for a second look-see (at which point he got sick. I think I may stop sending him things before his fans hunt me down and hurt me) and put it aside. This is where the characters taking over comes in. I wanted to wait but they don't -- I ended up burning most of a day banging out a few thousand words of plot synopsis (which doesn't bode well for the thing's length, given that it's not in much detail) and since then another 3500 words of the first three chapters (none of which are anywhere near done). That made me think that maybe I ought to wait a bit -- writing the fourth novel in the series first seems a bit ill-advised, though I'm doing it anyway since the words are flowing. Unfortunately all that putting it aside has done is bring out another 1300 words worth of summary on yet another story, though at least this one should be shorter and the second in order. I swear, I think I need to drug these guys up -- they're getting too damn busy. At least the action flows pretty fast as do the words when they get going. That's something, I guess...

I like: Age and guile beat youth and skill This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force. --Dorothy Parker I'd never join any club that would have the likes of me as a member. -- Groucho Marx I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. -- Groucho Marx You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. -- Groucho Marx There is one way to find out if a man is honest -- ask him. If he says "Yes" you know he is crooked. -- Groucho Marx And all sorts of short poetry by Dorothy Parker, one of the most amusingly vicious poets I've ever come across.

Hey, I do focus. It's just that I can't manage to decide what I'm focusing on. At least I'm not taking the opportunity to poke you about those edits to that summary I sent so I can get to work on the first story in the series... -Dan

Okay, here's a good general question for everyone. I've got, like it or not, a series of stories I'm working on. That's not a problem in itself -- I like the characters and setting, and there's an enourmous potential there for them getting into mischief, which makes for good plots, and good plots make for good neighbors. Or maybe that's fences, but regardless, stuff happens. What's happening though is that while stuff is working well and flowing, the stories that I'm finding interesting (or are finding me interesting, I'm not always sure who's running the show) aren't happening in chronological order. That is, while I've now got seven bloody stories in the series with plots, and in enough detail that I can refer backwards to stories that have yet to be written, I'm working on the last and one of the middle stories, and I'm likely going to finish them before I get the rest of them done. What I'm not sure of is whether I should start releasing these things once they're done, even if they're not taken in order. On the one hand I know editing them'll be a bitch for whoever's stuck doing it, not having continuity to refer to, but on the other I'm not sure I want to have 100K words or more sitting on the hard drive waiting on other things to get written before they can get released. (Though it'd mean a pretty snapppy release schedule once I get to them, so that's something ) How do people feel about that? Does the pleasure you get out of reading stories you like make up for the annoyance that temporal discontinuity causes? (I probably ought to start a poll on this or something)

Cool, thanks for the lead -- guess I get to put the XP box to good use after all!

That's usually a font issue. If the document you're reading uses smart quotes or other fancy characters (elipses, em-dashes, and the like) but they're not in the font your browser's using then you'll get that. It also happens if the document's text encoding's incorrect (if it's Latin-1 text but the webserver says it's UTF-8, say) so the browser legitimately confused about some of the characters so throws up its hands and puts out a question mark. I'd check the font you're using by default wiith firefox and make sure it's the same as the one you're using in IE.

Absolutely -- they can't fight back, and the nasal slime guysers are so much fun... Yep, same guy. This story takes place about a year later. The whole "What happens when they meet William's father" idea was kicking around, in part because of that first batch of comments you'd made, and I got to thinking, and well... here we are. I think I PM'd you a synopsis of this before you started your Exorcist impersonation, FWIW. I definitely like this one. It's fun, and flows better than I'd expected.

First things first, though not necessarily in that order, right? This is part of a piece I shouldn't be working on, since it's the fourth (or fifth? Sixth, maybe, with the side-stories, I'm not quite sure) sequel to a piece I should be working on. Personally I blame Dio, since he's sick and can't defend himself. (and has the summary of that piece, waiting for a second read-over -- the first time he read it he was altogether too kind and I ended up savaging the plot. It's much better now, but that's neither here nor there. Mostly) This is, though you'd probably not be able to tell immediately, a fantasy piece. It's the start of either the second or third chapter, so some of the stuff that might otherwise be in here, like physical descriptions and such, aren't, since we've already gotten those bits. If you need a visual, Ben looks very much like the avatar picture I use. (Only dressed) William's similar, only with slightly finer features, lavendar eyes, and white hair. (And dressed) Yes, I do need better names for the two supporting cast members that show up partway through. Still working on that. I've got a little while, though I'd be thrilled with some suggestions. (Place names are all fake fantasy, people names are potentially mildly exotic western european) Wedding Bells "Are you sure we can't just take the horses," asked Ben for the fourth time, as he and William tried to finish packing the last of the two trunks William insisted they take with them. Ben had been growing steadily more antsy as the packing had continued. "Yes, Ben, I'm sure," William replied with a sigh. "I don't like it any more than you do," he said as he put one last outfit into the trunk. That was a lie, of course, and they both knew it. The arrival of their wedding outfits had sent William on a packing spree, digging through all the closets and cabinets in their bedroom, pulling out things that had lain undisturbed since they had moved into the townhouse a year prior. The room was a disaster, the bed and chairs covered in discarded clothing and accessories. The prospect of returning home for his wedding had, as far as Ben could tell, driven his love mad. Knowing it was hopeless to try and stop William when he was like this, Ben swept some discarded tunics off of the chair in the corner and sat down. On the floor next to him were two backpacks, filled with normal clothing and traveling supplies. Sadly Ben regarded them

Wow. High praise indeed. Now you've got me all embarrassed.

I dunno about anyone else who writes, but I find that ideas tend to hit me as scenes entire scenes or chapters. Not necessarily complete ones -- they're often incomplete, with bits and pieces missing -- but scenes or chapters. When that happens I open up a new doc in the word processor, bang out as much of the thing as I can before I lose it, and save the thing. If I have some clue as to what's going on I'll have a separate file with notes, character sketches, plot points, and suchlike things, as much of the story as I can think of so I don't lose it. Unfortunately this leaves me with a bunch of partially done things that I may never get to, or that aren't even really stories. (Since a story needs characters, settings, and plot, as well as a beginning, middle, and end) Some of them may become stories some day, but a lot of them probably won't. Orphaned little things, forever destined to languish on my hard drive unseen. (Not that this is always a bad idea) Also unfortunately, since I don't do this for a living I've far more of these partial stories than I'll ever have time to finish. Writing a full story takes a lot of work, and I'm not the fastest writer on the planet even at the best of times. That means that even if I keep banging away at Word, these things accumulate faster than they get depleted, and always will. Anyway, with Yankee coming to an end I went and trolled through my scrap folder, and came across this thing. It was inspired by Kit's "Tapping", which I rather liked, but like a lot of the things that're half-started it came from me reading the story and going "Oh, yeah? What if he said 'I don't think so?'" It's not the same story as Tapping, nor even the same start going in a different direction, but that's the inspiration. If someone wants to adopt this poor thing, have at it and good luck. As is my standard habit (as my editors occasionally find) there are extra blank lines scattered in this. Those are the spots where the story skips ahead a bit. There should be transition text, but there isn't, either because I don't know what it should be, or my brain's running ahead of my fingers enough that it's better to skip ahead than to lose the thread I'm following. Time to go "What are your plans for vacation?" This question caught me off-guard. Dad never talked about plans. Hell, since Mom died he rarely talked to me at all. "Um, we have a few practices scheduled next week, then the band's playing at Beth Tisdale's party Friday night." Beth's family always threw a big end-of-school bash with live music and everything. This year Bobby convinced her to let us play. "Oh." He sat and thought for a moment. "Well, they'll have to get along without you this time." "What? I play guitar and sing lead on half the stuff we do. I can't just skip it." "You're going to have to." No explanation, of course. "Why? We planned this out last month. I told you almost six weeks ago. I can't skip on it now, it's too late to get someone else." "Well, you're going to have to. We're going to Phoenix to go house-hunting." "We're going... where? Why?" "Phoenix. One of the jobs I interviewed for back in March has come through, so we're moving." "Wait, March? It's June." "These things take time. One of them was going to go through, I just wasn't sure which one." "Or when?" "No, this is the time. We were going somewhere right after school ended to house-hunt, I just didn't know where." Bastard. I glared at him. This was so like him -- just up and do something without so much as a by-your-leave or any notice. What's worse is that he knew -- he knew -- weeks before I told him about the gig that we were going and he didn't say anything. He hung me and my friends out to dry on purpose. Utter f**king bastard. "So you knew about this more than two months ago and you're only just telling me now?" "You have plenty of time to pack, we don't leave until next Thursday. I don't see the problem." That was the last straw. He's been doing this since mom died -- making decisions that affect me without asking me, consulting me, or even telling me he'd made the decision. Just dropping the f**king bomb. 'Oh, yeah, by the way, I decided to completely screw with your life and I let you think you could do stuff I knew you couldn't.' If I stayed any longer I was going to go ballistic, and there just wasn't any point. I don't see the problem. Total, utter, complete f**king bastard. Dad stuck his head into my room as he was getting set to go. "We're not leaving for a week," he said. I don't know if he meant it as an explanation or an apology, but it sucked either way. "You have time to get ready, I don't see what the problem is." I just looked at him. I was furious and he had no clue. "When you see the problem, we'll talk. Until then, go away." He handed me the airline ticket, and I looked at it. Nonrefundable paper ticket. How... luddite. "Do you see the problem?" I asked him. I'd only said these five words to him over the last week. He was obviously tired of them, and the irritation in his voice was shading over to anger. "This is a good move for my career. I've told you that. More responsibility, more money, more prestige. It will set us up..." I ignored him and walked out the front door. When I was outside I ripped the ticket into shreds and set the pieces on fire on the cement front step. Dad made it to the doorway just in time to see things catch properly. He was probably going to blow up, but I didn't care. I just walked away. Dad was furious. "Dammit, Oliver, it's time you grew up!" Grew up? f**K him grow up. I've known I was attracted to guys since I was thirteen. That scared the shit out of me, since I knew what happened to guys who liked guys. I hoped, desperately hoped, that liking girls would come, but it hasn't, and if it hasn't by now it isn't going to. I was never sure exactly how Dad'd react to it, and I never had any way to bring it up in conversation, so I did the only thing I could think of. I kept my mouth shut and made plans to leave in a hurry if I had to. Too many kids got beaten up and tossed out, left to fend or die. That could be me, and there was no way in hell I was going to just die. Dad had left the household finances to me since I was fourteen, and most of the household errands since I turned sixteen. I didn't even need his signature on things, what with electronic bill pay and debit cards and all. I've been sweeping money aside and saving most of what I was making from my job, and over the past three years I'd managed nearly eight thousand dollars. The bills and statements I didn't want him to know about went to a post office box he didn't know of, and my car was, while a total piece of crap, paid off and I had the title. I've been on my own since Mom died, and I'd done more growing up than I ever wanted to. I had cash. I had a car. I had a very good fake ID, good enough to get me work. I'd taken enough shop classes to give dad fits, and I'd helped out two neighbors when they put additions on their houses. I could fix a car, lay piping, string wiring, handle myself with woodshop and machine shop tools, and help put on a roof. I wasn't an expert, but I wasn't useless, and I could do more than most of the idiots I'd seen working construction. Time to grow up my ass. Wednesday was the last day of school, and I'd still not said anything but my five words to Dad. He'd replaced the plane ticket, but I didn

I think what I'd do would be: 1) Talk to your cousins and get them on your side 2) Talk to your aunt and uncle and get them as allies (assuming your cousins say it's a good idea) 3) With your aunt and/or uncle helping mediate, talk to your parents You don't want to gang up on your parents, that doesn't help. (Ganging up on people in general just makes them defensive) But having people around to mediate, especially people who've been through it before, can help take the sting out of it some, which is a good thing. Your parents may or may not understand -- can't tell you that. But they may well accept at least. Some external resources (like PFLAG) may help ease things along. While I can't tell you what it's like to have a kid come out to you (I've already told mine I expect they should date at least one guy and one girl before they decide which works better ) I can tell you that most parents want what's best for their kids, want it pretty intensely even if you don't realize it. When that clashes with other intense feelings (like, unfortunately, the stupid "homosexuality is bad") you can get some unpleasantly spectacular results. Other people can speak to what it's like to come out to your parents when you're in high school, which I can't, but from what I've seen with other people you're probably in for a period of adjustment even once they accept that you like girls and guys, so don't be surprised. It's definitely tough when you find out your kids aren't what you thought they were and it will send 'em reeling for a bit, no matter how much you want them to not. This isn't to excuse anything bad they might do -- you'll have to decide whether you'll let things go or not. (I've found that in life It's usually best to let things slide if you can. Being bitter doesn't help anything) I hope for you that things go well.

Mmm, software as politics. So very much fun, if you're into that sort of thing. You can't imagine how glad I am I don't have to get involved with that any more. Writing Word Internet Camino Safari Firefox (Yes, all three, though mainly camino) Operating System OS X Other stuff iTunes gcc perl emacs 'Course, there is a linux box in the house (the house server), a WinXP box, and a few more Macs. Plus a VAX in the basement, but I don't think it works any more. Yeah, I do use Word to write with. Word on OS X fails to suck rather badly. (Much less so than Word on Windows, which I've always found kind of funny) Change tracking and embedded comments are definitely a nice thing for editing -- beats diff and patch with a big stick.

Yep, and the cool thing is you even get used to the weird looks people give you when you tell them you write because you can't not. -Dan

The sad thing is that I completely understand. (The sadder thing is that I'm finding device drivers are more interesting than the computer games...) Regardless, it's something to embrace when you can. Follow that voice and you may find you can do some pretty damn amazing things. -Dan

Oh, absolutely. The problem is I have no idea what happens, and that's pretty much required for a story. That's why it's in the category it's in -- I need to know what happens to write a story. Horribly pedestrian, but there you go, so am I. It's here because I'd be thrilled if someone took this and ran with it. It wants to be written, so maybe someone will.

Part of it's because guys are generally more visually oriented than women, so tend to get into photo porn rather than written erotica. Part of it's because women are encouraged to be more romantic than guys and an awful lot of male erotic fiction's really a variant on the romance novel. And part of it's because, let's face it, just like straight guys get hot watching (granted, nearly entirely fake) lesbians go at it, an awful lot of straight women get off on the thought of two guys getting it on. It is kind of funny, though. And interestingly universal. Japanese manga has a pretty gay men genre (yay for yaoi! ) and it's nearly all done by women. Not all, but most of it, and it's pretty easy to tell which things are done by women and which by men.

This piece started with a gag. Well, two of them, actually -- it does really start out: It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in Massachusetts that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness Though I know the original takes place in London, rather than Massachusetts. The other gag's the last line, and yeah I know, one should leave the gag for the very end of the story, rather than middle. Anyway, as you'll gather from this snippet the two guys are in the middle of something that may involve nasty evil creatures or sick and twisted people. That's never resolved by the end of the story, and I'm not sure myself which way it goes. The story's littered with clues that could go either way. Our two characters here are Dennis, who's a civil engineer and very much a realist, and Michael, who's a salesman andfan of the occult. They're stranded together in the wilds of Massachusetts (yay, Lovecraft country!) by a wild summer storm. The phones are out, their cells don't work for some reason, there are trees down all over, and Dennis' car has been trashed. They spend the night together (no, not like that you pervs. That comes later) at a ramshackle motel, and segue into a horror movie. To their credit they're both aware that they're potentially in one, and since the plot of most horror movies can be summed up as "smart people do stupid things and get killed" they try hard to not be stupid, even when they each think the other's nuts about the true cause of what's going on. Shared danger has heightened the attraction they feel for each other, and assuming they make it out alive they're going to be together for a very long time, which is cool. (And a big assumption, but that's part of the fun) In the chapter immediately before this one, Michael's stumbled across the body of a shopkeeper they'd met earlier. The body was pretty badly torn up, but when checked out later it was gone. They're holed up in a room in one of the old houses in town hiding out. They'd slept together and had some reasonably wild "we're gonna die soon" sex, and this chapter starts out trying to deal with what they've seen so far and how they're going to deal with it. (They do decide to assume the other could be very right, which is what'll get them out of the whole predicament alive, but I felt like ending this bit where I did for the fun of the punchline. Bad author, no cookie for me! ) It was a dark and stormy night "You didn't see it," Michael said, throwing his hands up. His voice had a warbly edge to it, like he was on the edge of hysterics, his eyes wide and wild with the fear the memory brought with it. "He was dead, Dennis! I saw him." Michael shuddered. "Slumped over the counter. There was blood everywhere. The smell, the slime

Heh. The question, though, is does it work? Because, bizarrely, I'm not exactly in a position to tell. It seems OK, though it definitely needs some editing (there's a lot of repetitive phrasing in there, and while some of it's on purpose, more of it's accidental). Like I said, I've never written a sex scene before, nor have I ever trashed a kitchen having sex (nor any other room, for that matter. My life, alas, lacks enthusiastic sex) so I'm just not sure it works. There's also the issue of whether everything made it down onto paper right. I know the characters, their motivations, what the room looks like, and the dance they do, and I can see it as I write it out, but I'm not sure I wrote enough out, or the right things out, that other people can see it too.

Well, it looks like I'm going to be using this blog for more than I planned, so I went and tweaked things a bit. Added in some categories, changed the titles of some of the entries already posted (made 'em the names of the stories), categorized the things I've posted, and limited the size of what's shown, since the main display page is damned big what with these 1-2K word story pieces stuck in them. Yay for excuses to avoid real work!