JamesSavik

This originally started in a Discussion thread on Dom's The Ordinary Us but it really bears discussion here. ____________________________________________________________ Dom is one of the very best of the net authors out there. He and a very few others are really excellent at their craft. If you read and pay attention to what they are doing you will find that the best of the breed are geniuses at characterization. They create characters that are so real in your mind that you can see them, care about them, cheer for them and cry when they hurt. I'm not sure exactly how they do it anywhere short of witch craft. The very best of the authors on the net are like this. They know how to create characters that in the readers mind are thinking, breathing and very, very real. Any time I coach a young writer (or a new one- they aren't always young) I say go read these guys and pay close attention to what they are doing. How they create a setting, set a mood, present characters and reveal them to you the reader. This is where the magic is guys. If you want to write something that makes peoples hair stand up, it is your characters that will do it. The best are a pretty short list. They are Dom Luka, Comicality, Freethinker, Dewey and Driver 9. Dom and Comsie are hosted here and both are treasures- Comsie even more so because he's still churning out stories and he's a great guy. I'll give you links to the others. FreeThinker (Also at the same site look for Cole Parker and the EggMan) Driver 9 Dewey They aren't the only ones of course. The list could go on for days. Our own Graeme is pretty good at it. When you see the magic, you'll know.

Stay a kid, at least inside. Don't forget to play a little every day. That way you never really get old. It helps!

Fashionably late but here with cookies. Thanks to Myr and company for a great site. I know y'all do it just for me.

Dom is one of the very best of the net authors out there. He and a very few others are really excellent at their craft. If you read and pay attention to what they are doing you will find that the best of the breed are geniuses at characterization. They create characters that are so real in your mind that you can see them, care about them, cheer for them and cry when they hurt. I'm not sure exactly how they do it anywhere short of witch craft. The very best of the authors on the net are like this. They know how to create characters that in the readers mind are thinking, breathing and very, very real. Any time I coach a young writer (or a new one- they aren't always young) I say go read these guys and pay close attention to what they are doing. How they create a setting, set a mood, present characters and reveal them to you the reader. This is where the magic is guys. If you want to write something that makes peoples hair stand up, it is your characters that will do it. The best are a pretty short list. They are Dom Luka, Comicality, Freethinker, Dewey and Driver 9. Dom and Comsie are hosted here and both are treasures- Comsie even more so because he's still churning out stories and he's a great guy. I'll give you links to the others. FreeThinker (Also at the same site look for Cole Parker and the EggMan) Driver 9 Dewey They aren't the only ones of course. The list could go on for days. Our own Graeme is pretty good at it. When you see the magic, you'll know.

I've always loved this story. Not everyone is cut out to be a good big brother but, when they are good, they're great. Every kid should have one.

My mom was a little girl during the Great Depression. In addition to all that, she grew up in a tiny town in the Mississippi Delta. If the rest of the country was broke, the Delta was like Oh my God, how could they get any poorer poor. They lived on what they could grow on their farm and had precious little extra. One of my mom's best pal's was a big black cat named Kitty Kay-O. Back in those days cats weren't that common in those parts. Kay-o was a prized mouser and her kittens were big, good natured cats. Everyone wanted one of her kittens to keep the mice and rats out of their barns. One of their neighbors asked my grandmother if she could have one of Kay-O's latest litter. My grandmother, everyone called her Joie (pronounced Joey- for Johanna), told her neighbor, "We need to wait until they are big enough to eat." She left off a key clause: on their own. If you know kittens, they aren't ready to leave their mama cats until they can eat on their own- usually 6-8 weeks. If you don't know cats, and that clause is missing, you could draw some rather awkward conclusions. Some time later Joie was mortified to learn that the talk of the town was that cats were on her menu! Joie was an extraordinary woman. So Gallic, she would have fit right in on a Parisian Avenue right down to her shrug. She was short, dark and with a command presence that any Admiral or General could envy. She was born in the late 1880s and passed away in 1984. She was the glue and bone that kept the family together and thriving regardless of poverty, disease, tragedy and triumph. She was Cajun- and knew her family history all the way back to her ancestor that came to New Orleans as a Casquett girl. In her living memory she heard the old ones tell about the day that half the family died at Shiloh in a place called the Hornet's Nest. She remembered Yellow Fever wiping out whole villages. She saw the World Wars and the Moon Landings. I interviewed her many times as a living witness to the history I was learning in school. What we grandchildren only discovered years after her passing, she told us all: you are my favorite- don't tell the others. It worked. She made us all feel pretty special.

Rush - Nobody's Hero I knew he was different in his sexuality I went to his parties as a straight minority It never seemed a threat to my masculinity He only introduced me to a wider reality As the years went by, we drifted apart When I heard that he was gone I felt a shadow cross my heart But he's nobody's hero Saves a drowning child Cures a wasting disease Hero...lands the crippled airplane Solves great mysteries Hero...not the handsome actor Who plays a hero's role Hero...not the glamour girl Who'd love to sell her soul If anybody's buying Nobody's hero I didn't know the girl, but I knew her family All their lives were shattered in a nightmare of brutality They try to carry on, try to bear the agony Try to hold some faith in the goodness of humanity As the years went by, we drifted apart When I heard that she was gone I felt a shadow cross my heart But she's nobody's hero Is the voice of reason against the howling mob Hero...is the pride of purpose In the unrewarding job Hero...not the champion player Who plays the perfect game Hero...not the glamour boy Who loves to sell his name Everybody's buying Nobody's hero As the years went by, we drifted apart When I heard that you were gone I felt a shadow cross my heart But he's nobody's hero Saves a drowning child Cures a wasting disease Hero...lands the crippled airplane Solves great mysteries Hero...not the handsome actor Who plays a hero's role Hero...not the glamour girl Who'd love to sell her soul If anybody's buying Nobody's hero Hero

[sharedmedia=stories:stories:4541] A neat little Christmas story that I hope might make you smile.

There are three stories in a trilogy. The 1st is: the Place in Between The 2nd is: Getting to the Happily Ever After The 3rd will be Nightfall I've started it but I'm not sure when it's going to post. Most probably in the Spring Anthology. I have several things going on at once. Well- screw it. I produce better under pressure. Nightfall is about the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Back when AIDS was mysterious and we didn't know much about it. It's about the fear, the panic, the shattering loss that so many of us went through. I've been wanting to, no NEEDING to write about this. Most of you are quite sure that I'm a lunatic and I have more issues than Scientific American. This period of time is when I picked up a number of those issues. I'm going to tell the story and try to show the emotional impact and how devastating it was. Don't think it all darkness and gloom. There's much more to it than despair. There will also be love, loyalty, courage, faith and hope. Light always flees the darkness. You just have to make it through the night. I will do my best with it. ____________________________________________________________________________ Nightfall July 1982 The phone was ringing in my apartment when I got home from work but I missed it. I got out of my clothes and hit the showers. Construction work was fun and it paid well but, it was hot, dirty and dangerous. It didn’t take too much of it for me to figure out that I didn’t want to do it for a career. For now it was paying the bills. The phone rang again and interrupted a perfectly wonderful dream as I was napping on the couch. “Hello.” “Jimmy. Thank God I got you.” I recognized the voice immediately and he didn’t sound good. “Hi Lee, how are you?” Lee sighed and said, “Randy had been bugging me to get some moles on my back checked on. I went to one of the docs here at UT and he sent me to the UT Medical Center to see a specialist. They took one off to do a biopsy. Jimmy, have you heard of GRID?” My stomach lurched: Gay Immune Related Deficiency. I had. It was all over PRM and it was scaring the shit out of the folk all over the country. All I could think to say was, “Jesus Lee.” “Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. They said I might have it and they’ll know with that biopsy.” Lee’s voice cracked as he said, “I’m a basket case and Randy is— he needs you guys. “ There was nothing else he had to say. “I can guess how Randy is. Look I’m going to call Alec and Travis right now. Clay is off shore. Hang in there. We’re coming.”

My editor. My literary agent.

You too bro.

LMAO! That's priceless!' I'm the same way. I don't have the fashion gene. Old jeans and a polo are my formal attire.

Mike: 1- Where am I supposed to go, Detroit??? 2- That Mustang is same make and model as Scott's. It's just a lot nicer and someone spent about $50K restoring it.

Sly- Nothing to be sorry about. It's all old news and it something that a lot of us have to live with. Thankfully there is less and less shame and blatant ignorance out there. I had to understand that was how the generation of men of which my father was a part handled things. Homosexuality was a word that they wouldn't even say in polite company. Remember Reagan didn't say the word AIDS in public until 1988. He was a little older than my dad but the mindset was similar. They were completely unprepared to deal with the situation. It was and is a cultural thing and those change only very slowly. Mann- You are right. This sort of thing was pretty common in the South and you'll hear stories out of Texas that'll make any sane person ask WTF? Irritable- Scotty passed away some years ago in a car accident in 2007 or 8 I think. We hadn't been close for a very long time. It's not easy to discuss but when I started it came out in a rush. I had been at a 12 step meeting earlier last night and the topic got me... in the state of mind I didn't want to stay in.

Scotty gets a Mustang I'm fifteen. It's summer and in July in Mississippi, it's hot as hell. Things haven't been awesome at home for some time. Not since my asshole scoutmaster told my parents that homosexuals weren't welcome in scouting. He threw that little bomb into our home and walked his self righteous ass away. I hated him. I really wanted to kill him because nothing was ever the same after. My dad never hit me before. I was always afraid. They told me that you can't be a faggot and live in this house. I didn't understand. I didn't know how to be anyone else. I wasn't really sure what a faggot was. My best friend from diapers was the kid across the road. He was so cute I couldn't help but love him. He was little compared to me but I wouldn't let anybody pick on him. Kissing him was so wrong? My dad would just hit me. My mom was worse in a way. She would go with the bible verses and that scared the shit out of me. Things were so inconsistent it drove me crazy. Sometimes they were really strict and others, it was like they didn't give a damn. I got out of the house as much as I could. I never knew when dad would go off or mom would start with the bible shit. For a long time I was forbidden to see Scotty- like that would ever work. We didn't see each other for a while and when we did we both cried like babies we were so happy to see each other. That wasn't the only reason. For a long time we didn't understand why everybody was so mad at us for. Then, when they told us, we were shocked. We hadn't done any of that sex stuff yet. I had just kissed him. Then I thought it would be OK. I told them that and my dad yelled, liar and slapped me so hard I hit the floor and rolled. I lived in fear. Fear that my parents would- I didn't even know. I had always loved my Dad. He was a bone fide war-hero with medals and ribbons prove it. I was in awe of him. I wanted him to be proud of me and now it seemed like he hated me. I knew where the guns were. I got my Dad's Colt out, worked the action and put the barrel under my chin. It could all be over but I couldn't do it. There was someone else I wanted to live long enough to shoot. Maybe my hate for that bastard scoutmaster saved my life. I hated myself even worse because I couldn't pull the trigger. That was OK. I knew where it was. If things got too bad, I knew I could always check out. That was always in the back of my mind. Things went on like this for a couple of years. I was in hell at home and school wasn't much better. At least I could punch back there. I put all of the anger and hate into football. I worked out with weights. I got in so many fights it was ridiculous. The messed up thing about it was that my Dad sort of encouraged it. He loved the football part. The fighting didn't bother him. I started getting a reputation as crazy because when I fought, I was all in. It was assholes and elbows and even if I didn't kick your ass, you would leave having had a completely miserable experience. I started getting high when I was thirteen soon after the incident which ruined my family. I could be at peace for a while. All the anger ebbed and I wasn't on edge all the time. What was really messed up was that my parents liked me better when I was high. They didn't know of course. When I was high I was more compliant and didn't fight with them. Getting high soon turned into an every day thing. It's not like the nice kids wanted anything to do with me. It was a win-win. I wasn't angry and scared all the time and I didn't fight with my parents. That didn't stop my dad from going off and hitting me if he saw something he didn't like. Yes was one of my favorite music groups. I put a poster on the wall of my room. He saw it and went ape shit. He ripped it down and cussed me out. What the fuck? Rush didn't seem to bother him. Summer time was my great escape when my parents were at work. I could have some peace and not worry about getting hit or eternal damnation. Out of the blue, Scotty drives up with an old Mustang! We were so excited. It needed some work so we had a project. During the days we worked on that old car. We did everything we could to it: points, plugs, rebuilt the carb. It was fun. We had a Chilton's for the 1970 Mustang Fastback and were having a ball playing with it. Of course- I would always go home before the parents got home. It was blazing hot and we were in gym shorts. We were both covered in grease. We were shirtless because who wants to ruin a shirt? Dad comes home early from work, looks over, sees us and just explodes. We didn't even notice he had arrived. He came up from behind, grabbed me by the hair (I HATE THAT). I fell on the concrete and he kicked me growling, "Get in the house faggot, I'm not going to have you out like this disgracing the family". I would try to get up and he would kick me again. I was finally able to get up and run to the house. Somebody called the cops and they showed up. It was just the Colonel teaching his 15 year old faggot son to be a man. They left without saying a word to me. That's just a LITTLE sample of life with the Colonel. Great guy the Colonel. Killed more gooks than cancer but a little- uhh... lacking on the social graces. Thank God he took the job with FEMA and went to Washington or we WOULD have killed each other. No one in his social circles would have ever believed that he hit his son- regularly and hard.

That kid is amazing. He's got a lot more depth and substance than most of the contestants on the Got (dubious) Talent shows.

A Tekkies Christmas Every Christmas it seems the weather is dreary, And I gets calls from my friends, their minds bleary, They buy laptops and games and PCs for their young, But getting it all going can be a bit high strung. So I go about town in the dead of night, With my shiny tools and flashlight so bright, To help those poor souls to get things working Since with Santa's elves, there can be no shirking. Off to see Bill and Cheryl to get a lap top loaded, Off to see Kim and Doug to get a playstation playing, Off to see Tam and Jim to make Barbie's Dreamhouse live, Off to make Sarah and Kit's PC work- I can't be staying. Tekkies you see we live by a code On Christmas Eve night, our phones explode, On pain of making the naughty list, In Santa's army we all enlist, With batteries in pockets and screwdrivers galore, We make the technology work that you adore. On this one night we work for free. We don't charge by the hour or take a flat fee. On this one night, we just do it for fun, With a labor of love, some Christmas magic is spun.

It hasn't been 24 hours since I posted Christmas at the Gym and it has 25 likes and 500 hits. Might just be my biggest hit ever. *Blushes furiously* Something that stuck me hard some time ago is the heat and anger in the generation gap of the gay community. I won't blame anybody for it. I think we should do better. I have tried to be that guy whenever I can.