aj

A-ha! Yet another answer to questions that have tormented our gentle readers until this very moment.

We could try it... I have a friend named Grace who doesn't like religious bigots and is a black belt in Tae Kwan Do.

This was a great little backstory for me, as I recently read Bryce and the villains of that piece are the same as the villains of this piece. I agree with the others, and I can explain why, despite the good plot, this wasn't a terribly successful story: telling, not showing. This felt more like a character study, or a developmental piece for the novel. cheers! AJ

I have finished the third edit on chapter 43... and changed things right up until the very last note. It's a helluva chapter: I defy anyone to read this chapter without a lump in your throat and maybe a tear in your eye. Really good stuff! AJ

I don't have children myself, but I found it enormously satisfying when I stopped being only my parent's child, and began to learn to love them as best friends as well. It opened my relationship with them into so many new dimensions, and enriched my relationship with them so much...

Well, after many years and many tears, they did it... The congress finally repealed DADT today. No longer will gays who wish to serve in the military have to lie about who they are. A good day, for gays in the military.

We have that in common, debeagle. I learned to drive in my parent's VW Superbeetle, and have loved VWs ever since...but only the really old ones. The first car I ever owned was a VW Thing... gods, I loved that car. It was just so contrary, so incredibly reverse chic. It was ugly, uncomfortable and unsafe, and I plan on buying another one as soon as I can find one at a decent price. There's a guy a few blocks from here that has a '73 parked in his driveway....*sigh* Anyway, I read 'Wayward Son' and loved it. Very much looking forward to the next chapters. cheers! AJ

I am a huge fan of Dabeagle's work. One of the early stories that I read and really got me hooked into this genre is tale about the young man and his friend working on the old volkswagen squareback...forget what they called those officially. Good memories and a lot of anticipation as I go to read this new tale. cheers! AJ

Hmm...perhaps you're right. It would be a stronger story if they did go out fighting, because it would make it less 'happy endings for all,' and we know that that kind of 'everyone survives and lives happily ever after' is not a Jamie trait. I'll have to think more about that. cheers! AJ

If I were to speculate, and it would be pure speculation because I don't read the chapters a whole lot before you lot do, and Jamie and I don't confab on IM over the plot like we used to, I'd say that we won't really know what happened to the Trio until we reach the other side of the barrier. I think there's gonna be a lot of stuff over there that's gonna surprise hell outta the churchy types... AJ

I'm really enjoying Pertinax's college dude tale... the guys are hot and fun to hang with, and there's just enough spice in the air to make it a fun ride. Cheers! AJ

I wanted to mention that I was fairly blown away by chapter 39. It was by far the most technically ambitious chapter Jamie has undertaken to date, and it was handled with precision and grace. My hat's off to him for that accomplishment. I just finished the first edit of chapter 40 and sent it off to J. It's kind of a shorty, though it has a lot of emotional impact, and my newest 'fave characters,' the Trio, has a solid presence. Like others, I have been wondering (though perhaps unlike others, I'm also worrying) about what will happen to the Trio. I guess we'll all find out together. cheers! aj

/e Boadiceas stares at you with disapproval /s "Who's life are you calling stupid, pal? You may think it's 'just a game' but it's my life. /rude Yes, I know the addiction. It's like living in an interactive novel...very, very seductive for those of us who like to make up our own worlds and characters. The only criticism I would make is a content problem, and nothing to do with grammar or first and third person or any of that. All that stuff can be fixed relatively easily. The problem that I see is that while the prose is lovely, the piece you've given us is more like an outline of a story than an actual story. There's a couple minutes of showing the scene in the beginning of the piece, and then you go to telling us about what the guy is feeling and thinking. I think there are two problems with this: one, you don't have much of anywhere left to go, since you've already explained the story. and two, we miss the 'unfolding' of the story as it is revealed by what the character does and in slow degrees we start to really get what is going on. I think you said this was chapter one of a novel, right? So you have room enough and time to really show us what kind of guy this person is by how he lives his days, where he goes and what he thinks as he's fixing his meals to eat next to his keyboard...well, you see what I mean. You have a knack for beautiful language. It's clear that you have the poet's love for the feel of good language on your tongue, so you've a whole lot of what it takes to be a writer. keep going on this - I believe it's got the bones of an excellent story. cheers! aj

Hello everyone - I feel that I owe all of you faithful readers of TSOI a bit of an apology. The holdup in the work has been exclusively my fault, as the fact is that Jamie has several chapters already written and waiting for my attention. I could tell you all about trying to get one house ready to sell and trying to buy another at the same time, about jobs gained and lost and people that i care about losing their minds - literally. It has been a hellish mess for the last 8 or 9 months, and the circumstances have left me very little time for editing. The fact is that the last many months have been a time of extreme transition for me, and I've just been trying to stay on top of the wave of change and not get buried by it. However, I am beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel. We're in the new house now - all seven of us and three dogs - and beginning to do the work that will make it a beautiful place to live. While I have not found a permanent job yet, I have a temp contract in place and the possibility of something longer term in the works, and I'm working hard on managing my friend's illness as best it can be managed. I think that there may be a little time left at the end of the days (at least some of 'em) for me to go and live in Jamie's world for a little while, and that will be a very good thing. Again, I apologize for the lengthy delays. cheers! aj

And if they're hiding under the bed, it needs a re-write? lol cheers! aj