sumbloke

Er...Sophocles?

- Newspapers: Daily: The Guardian and then at lunch The Independant. Weekly The Jewish Chronicle (so I can say something sensible to my grandparents...oh look - the Chief Rabbi has a new yamulka!). Sundays: The Observer. -The Internet: Accesstoinsight - constant reference for Buddhist stuff. Google usenet groups: logic, philosophy, soc.support.youth.lesbigay, uk.gay, alt.religion.buddhism, alt.activism and a few rec. writing groups. deweywriter, gayauthors, awesomedude and stormnation - always check the forums and look out for new stories. - Science Fiction: Iain M Banks, Ken McLeod I track for anything new. Have given up reading random scifi I just wait for recommendations. - General Print Fiction: gay stuff - Blair Mastbaum, Mark Roeder, David Levithan have all featured this year. Decent historical fiction (reading Q which is about the reformation at the moment). Obligatory French and English classic lit just so I feel adequately literate: Camus, Amis, Forster, Zola etc. - Non Fiction - I try to keep up with popular physics and life sciences coz I don't study them anymore. Really enjoy Dawkins and other demystifying stuff about science. History - I force myself to be informed about all the depressing stuff: the middle east, burma, I just finished Avi Schlaim's book on the history of Israeli policy and John Pilger's essays New Agendas. -Fantasy: I can't. As soon as an elf appears on the scene I see red. And I read comics/strips especially graphic novels. Seb and I are reading the Sandman series together to improve his English ;-).

Thank you all who've shown your care and concern. I'm in central london having come into work without knowing what was happening and on the route where a bus had earlier been destroyed. Our transport system is shut down. There are so far 20 fatalities and 90 seriously injured. It could, chas v'shalom, have been very much worse but the grief and shock is overwhelming. Our Prime Minister is abandoning the G8 summit to come to London. We've all been asked not to travel if we can avoid it so I'm staying here. There isn't much any of us can do but I've stuck my name the list for volunteer interpreters in case there's any need. We haven't been asked to give blood - the numbers of injured are thankfully too small. My little brother is out with friends and can't be contacted but we know that he has gone to south London and left before the attacks started so we are fully confident that he's safe. peace and loving kindness, J

I'm slightly in shock as I write. At least 6 bombs have exploded in various parts of London. I took the bus in to town to my new job this morning unaware that a bus had been destroyed on the route earlier. We don't yet have figures for fatalities but our underground railway is shut down and no trains on the mainlines are coming into or leaving London. As yet no one has claimed responsibility. I'm going to see if there's anything useful to be done. peace and loving kindness,

Pot, health care, and gay marriage. Conner, I'm envious Vic <{POST_SNAPBACK}> <PARODY> Pot? Healthcare? Gay marriage? It's godless communism I tell you! It's time we saw regime change in the Socialist Republic of Canadastan. *sound of blood vessel in head bursting* </PARODY>

From the EU website. Some people are essentially federalists and envisage the EU becoming a United States of Europe, others are anti-federalists and want it reduced to a more or less limited free trade agreement.

Hmm interesting! If I have time I am going to try to pull the information in these responses (and those from other boards where I posted the same questions) into a summary. It's maybe time to add my tuppence. I get basically three kinds of response. The first are the one-liner 'congratulatory' e-mails. I'm getting an average of 3 a day. They don't tell me anything beyond that someone is enjoying the story. They do encourage me though and I have started to try to always send a thank you. The next are the 'itsux' e-mails. I've had an average of 3 a week all making the same point: the story is too slow and the plot : detail : character-development ratio is wrong. Sometimes these also complain that the Buddhist stuff makes the story to unfamiliar to read easily. I don't mind these - different people like different things and I try to reply civilly unless people have been rude about Buddhism when I just trash the message. The last lot are the 'tellmeaboutbuddhism' e-mails. This is the largest I get an average of 5 a day and they started the day the first installment of my story was posted. These are people who are complimentary about the story but are more interested in finding out about Buddhism. I reply to these as best I can and I always point out to people that the story isnt' supposed to teach people about Buddhism. To be honest, it doesn't sound like a lot but it takes up so much time responding! I am so pleased that people write to say they've enjoyed the story that it would be really impolite not to respond but I am thinking that I might have to send standard responses to types one and three - 'thank you and if you are interested in Buddhism please visit...'. What I don't get is feedback about the writing. Because I don't have anyone else edit it, I frequently find glaring errors of plotting, continuity, grammar, punctuation, spelling: you name it, I've got it wrong somewhere. Nobody ever comments on these. Maybe they are too polite! I haven't had suggestions either about what should/might happen in the story except the general suggestion from people who want more drama. To be honest, suggestive feedback can't really have any effect because the story is essentially complete. There are a few tactical decisions to be made about how to achieve certain things but nothing a reader could know about or comment on. Thanks to everyone who's responded! Now, back to school work...

<immaturejoke>Sorry, but what is this "cleaning" and "laundry" you speak of?</immaturejoke> I think my role in my relationship is "surly teenager number two".

OK. I had been wondering about authors getting feedback. How much? How important is it to them? and so on. Recently at least one author offered the lack of feedback about their work as part of their (very understandable and convincing) explanation for giving up writing. So I wanted to know a few things: how much feedback do authors get, ie max, min, average how important is it to authors how seriously do authors take readers' suggestions who does it come from (ie, reader demographics but also where readers find the fiction what prompts readers to write to authors Now, this would be way beyond me to actually do as it's set out there (thought it would finally be a use for all the stats and methodology I've been cramming) so instead I wondered if any of the authors who read this board would like to comment on these questions - maybe giving 'indicative' answers to the questions. I'm happy to do so but since my very first story has only been out there four weeks I don't know how useful that would be. What do people think? If yes, then which forum? sumbloke PS - I've also posted this at crvboy and deweywriter

Hmm. Well. We talked about this in a philosophy class. The most interesting idea I thought was that it's about gaze: pornography has either the gaze perspective of an outside voyeur - ie someone who is not a participant and is getting off without being really involved or acting on either participant - or the gaze perspective of one participant only, so that the other participant is only ever an object and never a subject. You have to love French philosophy dontcha? My personal feeling: it's pornographic when it seems to me that writer cares more about themself or their readers cranking one off than they do about the characters having a good time.

Why pay for a good WP? Go to OpenOffice and you can download a fully featured, standards compliant, OPEN SOURCE suite - including word processing, html editing, spreadsheet, database, presentation, text...you get the idea. Of course it's a big download but it often appears on magazine coverdisks for those on dial-up. I use it and unlike MS-Word it produces really clean HTML for posting to sites like nifty that will only take standards-compliant HTML . It even produces RTF and Word format files if you want them. Of course, you want to be sure that you have the right version, ie, windoze or linux but it's easy to check that out.

The hard bit is not wanting to leave anything out. A few stories stand out tho. First the one that got me involved to the point of anxiety was Carrots and Celery by Karla Schulz. The series that probably kept me up most late nights - in fact often early mornings - was Brew Maxwell's Foley-Mashburn saga. To be honest there's a major difference between those two authors already. Karla's story is a definite literary effort where the major triumph is the perfect command of voice for her characters and the knowing but short of cynical delivery. Brew's story is a glorious emotional roller coster that is as much about showing that gay men can lead 'the good life' (I mean morally!) and that gay teens can have teenage years that aren't blighted by homophobia (and of course to celebrating gravy). Then there's EleCivil whose telling of his story Leaves and Lunatics - and I hope he won't mind the comparison - reminds me of Carrots and Celery but remains its own compelling story. And...well the Eggman A New Life and it's sequels. And finally (good lord can I ever stop) Ty's Storm Front - the story that spawned a nation. Oh oh oh! And erm Dom Luka and well just about everyone else. J