sumbloke

This little paperback arrived through the post yesterday with paw prints all over it. Thank you Nono. Totally Joe is just a sweet little book. Howe pitches his narration somewhere between the unalloyed naivete of Alex Sanchez in So Hard to Say and the raucous, in-your-face buzz of Kirk Read's How I learned to Snap. I won't allow myself any more comparisons except to say that the spirit of David Levithan is hanging around too. Joe (recently and sometimes JoDan) is 12 and is writing an alphabiography for English homework. He takes us one letter at a time through his life; his family; his friends; his first boyfriend. The format allows Howe to ignore strict narrative demands and gives him room to let Joe speak in his own voice and to comment on his own text. What emerges is one of the funniest and most sympathetic books I've seen since Boy Meets Boy. Joe is just a bit of a flamer, but he's secure in his own person and finds any support he needs from his friends and family. As the book goes on, Joe becomes more comfortable and easy with his identity and he comes out to his immediate and then extended families. Above all this book is funny. It's clearly aimed at early teens but I chortled out loud all the way through. There's no outstanding heroics; no gripping drama; no heart rending tragedy. But there's a very sweet and human story told in a novel and interesting format. If you get the chance read it.

Delete moronic double post. Sorry

Yeah and I didn't gush about my wedding frock once! (There is a limp joke in there: I'm 6'2" and I'm a tight-end prop). Thank you Des, we're working on it. I think we need to approach this carefully. There's a much more realistic case that raises this issue. Parents of deaf/Deaf children can in some cases "fix" their children - by cochlear implant. Some people see deafness as a disability and they want children "fixed". Some people don't see it that way and they don't want their children "fixed". Most professionals involved believe that it's ultimately up to parents to determine whether or not to go ahead with medical intervention. So should society force cochlear implants on all children who are born Deaf? Forbid cochlear implantation for any child? Allow parents or others to determine case by case? All you have to do is substitute a genetic strategy for cochlear implantatioi and there you go - this problem already exists and needs answers. They're going to find genes for all sorts of things - inlcuding somethings people would like to eliminate. The best strategy is to win the argument now for equal rights. Jakob

I tried to read the article but after one too many of Benjamin and Joshua's "So I'm like..."s I just couldn't take any more of the Stepford Gays. I realise this is harsh, cruel, unjustified and judgmental. I'll chant later. Sebastian and I got married because we wanted to give effect to our commitment to each other for ourselves, our families and to the wider world. It was in some ways a difficult decision because of our age - 19 at the time. We had already discussed how we would make a lifetime commitment but in the past we had seemed to agree to holding that off until after University. Then Sebastian asked me to marry him before University and I said yes. The whole idea of waiting just seemed futile. Anyway. We got married quite young. None of our parents raised any objection to that. A few of our friends did, in the nicest way. More for our families' sakes than anything else we had a big family wedding which was nice. But it wasn't the point. The point for both of us was making a publicly recognisable commitment. We very specifically chose to get married in Spain (which was complicated) rather than to have a civil union or a pacs in France because we wanted to be married. We would have liked the legal protection (which we don't at the moment get because we live in France where our marriage isn't recognised) but being married was more important. I want to stress that we thought this through very carefully. We forewent the legal protection of a pacs/civil union because we are in a position to. We can afford and have the resources to protect ourselves in most important ways. Yes we're monogomous. It's never been an issue between us - we had one discussion about it very early on and we were pretty much of one mind. So no playing away. I think there are generational/historical issues involved definitely. Some significantly older people I know spent a lot of time and energy making lives for themselves in a world where marriage was perhaps not even a remote possibility for lesbian and gay people. Why should they now that they've made that home (metaphorically) for themselves rush to consider marriage? Marriage isn't better than what you can have otherwise - hell it may not even be that different. Marriage is just what I want because I want equality recognition for my family - even if it's only two of us. There may be issues of marrying for social conformity for some people. I don't really know. I'm inclined to think that unless you are good enough friends, good enough to live in each other's pockets (if not hearts) for the rest of your lives, then it won't work. But I don't actually know anyone who's got married for this reason. I don't want to bring up distasteful comparisons but looking at the concerns of gay men in the past and people my age, genuine progress in the defence of gay rights (which is not the same as gay liberation - a different matter and one that I approve of too!) produces different attitudes. I have some older friends who regarded cottaging (cruising public toilets) as not just a necessity imposed by a repressive society but an act of defiance against heterosexual conformity. If you ask people my age and younger I just don't think you'll get that response. I think a lot of us regard it as faintly distasteful at least (and maybe outrageous) and certainly nothing we could bother to pick a fight over or defend. Peter Tatchell whom I greatly admire tried in vain to convince younger gay men to fight back against crackdowns on cottaging - younger people just found the idea absurd. OK, the same with gay marriage. I don't see my marriage as a matter of conformity or even striving after normality. I see it as just normal. I'm in love and cmmitted to my mate and marriage is still one of the normal ways of expressing that. So, we got married. I'm glad we could on an individual level because it meant a lot to us. I'm glad we could on a social level because it's indicative of a less repressive social climate. I don't think it's gay liberation and it's not the end of fighting for gay rights - look for us to have a fight over adoption. Young gay people are getting married because they can and where they currently can't they can see the possibility. At one stage people thought that an equal age of consent was impossible and framed both their politics and their social lives partly around that belief. Now it seems quite ordinary to demand an equal age of consent. OK, maybe I could wish for a bit more of a "smash the nuclear family" attitude from some of my peers but, just a bit: I like some bits of my petit bourgeois conformism! Peace and loving kindness, Jakob

It surprises me a little that one thing hasn't been shouted loud in response to this: WELL DONE YOU MATE. This guy deserves mega props for wanting to stand by his friend. I don't like to be dramatic about this but I think kids like this are our equivalent of the Righteous among the Nations. Give this guy an award. Part of me also thinks that however bigotted the father's response, somewhere along the line his parents and/or others around him did something very right: this guy has learned to stand firm against bigotry. So, if I could, what would I advise? Ask your dad if he would prefer that you not stand by your friend and join in the bigotry Ask your dad if he would have the same attitude if it were a matter of race or religion Go on strike Go on strike? Yes, it's a respectful way of protesting. Tell your parents that you will not cooperate in some way. You have to choose it right. We (my brothers and me) did it only once and we refused pocket money, new clothes and gifts. The issue was different but it was for us a matter of principle. After a couple of weeks we reached an agreement. Parents earn a duty of respect but it's not unconditional. Tell your dad "You taught me better than that" - it may sound a little manipulative but it can work. But, really, if I knew this boy, mostly I would want to tell him "well done you - you're the greatest". Yak

The keyboard is tiny. I've got pretty big hands and it took a few days to get used to and it still feels cramped using but it's doable. Of course, a lot of the time I don't touch type on the Asus. I "hunt and peck" unless I'm the job really requires extended typing. I would recommend spending a while (and I think half an hour rather than five minutes) using one before you buy. The screen size is small but I have no trouble using it. I've been reading stories on it fine and watching the odd youtube vid. Given that I was considering a Palm PDA, the screen isn't an issue. The Mac is nice but the Asus wins on price hands down. In terms of fucntionality, what could I do on the Mac that I want to do and can't do on the Asus? Nothing in my case. No contest. Yak

WARNING: not really about web wizardry - only maginally on-topic! I was wondering if anyone else bought an eeepc? I've had mine now for a few weeks and I really love it. It's brilliantly portable (just under a kilo); the keyboard is (just) touchtypable; the display is more than acceptable; battery life is bearable; the software (system and applications) is great. I carry it just about everywhere and I've stopped lugging my tosh around altogether. It's true that the asus has got limited diskspace but then I have my data on a 4Gb usb drive anyway. I am happy with OpenOffice and haven't had any interoperability problems at all and I use the whole suite: Writer, Draw, Calc, Impress (OK so I don't use Base!). The wireless works fine and connects immediately to most hotspots. The only difficult one to configure has been the campus wireless network. That one took some delving into the linux config files but I got there. I used to mess around synchronising my calendar between my 'puter and my phone but now I don't bother. It's simple enough to pull the eeepc out and check what's going on when I need to. I've shocked myself by even doing some programming work on it when I've been out and about and had a spare, unproductive moment. No problem at all developing C++ programs. I am thinking about installing Apache so that I can do my PHP development when I'm mobile. Overall I'm impressed with it. It doesn't have quite the slick design of an Apple appliance, but it more than does the job for me. It nicely combines powerful PDA-style functions with pretty good basic applications and networking. I looked at the Mac Air when it was announced and just thought...hmmm not really.

Dan is one of my very favouritest writers. It helps that I find myself in sympathy with him morally and in that respect he's like Dewey: a man I would be proud to know and fight my way out of a bar with (note to self: you just ended a sentence with a preposition!) But now, off topic, the whole reincarnation thing. I don't have a problem with it in fiction but it comes up in my life because I'm Buddhist. I apologise in advance for ranting but <rant>BUDDHISTS DON'T BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION</RANT>. Since we don't believe in eternal souls or essences or whatever, how could we? Buddhists believe in a different (and in my view rational) doctrine that's called karma and translated sometimes as re-birth which is a better equivalent. Sorry guys, I realise this is off-topic here but just recently it has been coming up in my other life. Normal transmission will be resumed soon.

In what follows I am snipping for brevity with no intended slight to Pecman. I'm not making this contribution to snipe but to contribute to the complicated consensus that's developing. but there but for the grace of dog goes ee cummings (who didn't I read spell his name that way). I read the enormous room at 13 and was as confused as hell. Mr Joyce! To the back of the class. While your recent contribution on Stephen Dedalus might pass muster, the nonsense about Molly big-with-seed Bloom falls at this hurdle. But is this a failing in an author, or in ourselves that we are underlings? I don't understand the protagonist of Hamsun's Hunger at all but he got a Nobel prize. I was forced to read far too many dreary books I had no interest in at school to disagree with this one! I got ahead of myself - you trump me with cummings. But he did write a novel and in its own way it's as idiosyncratic as his poetry. I don't disagree with the points that have been made as such but I do think that the history of literature shows that for any rule there is potentially a good reason to break it. Of course, it's one thing for James Joyce to break the rules and quite another for Jakob to break them, but I would still admire a young amateur writer who tried too hard and got it wrong. It's a mistake to run before you can walk in general, but in art it may be the opposite. Jakob

Must resist uncharitable urge to make irrelevant pedantic correction....argh...not strong enough! That's fewer problems - problem is a countable noun. OK I apologise for this but sometimes one just can't help oneself. Jakob

I read the story and I agree that it desperately needs editing but I'd also definitely say it deserves editing. Despite some writing problems and some narrative flaws it's a very morally complex story. Some people have found aspects implausible and all I can do is say I disagree - I had no trouble reading about the underage sex, drugs and drinking in a small town. There have been plenty of outrage stories about the dissolute lives of rural youth in the press that I've seen. The equivocation about the underage sex and the agonistic account of the central relationship the intimations of quasi-incest all made for very uncomfortable reading. But I don't read stories to confirm my moral intuitions but - if I'm interested in the morality at all - to test them. In this case I found the conflicted psychology of the protagonist well worth putting up with the flaws and I thought that the disturbing moral questions contributed to that. Jakob

Now, usually I'm a Guardian Reader but while back in the UK for the last couple of weeks I bought the Independant Saturday and Sunday because of the free gifts. The Indy gave away two miniguides from Oxford University Press - you can read about them here. I read them both cover to cover over the weekend and I'm very impressed. I often find the semi-formal prescriptive grammar guides that are published irritating - I'm training as a linguist after all - but these booklets are way above any others I've seen. They combine a good deal of precision and accuracy with clear explanations that don't fall into idiocy (of the "a sentence is a complete idea sort") and can easily be understood by people with no training in grammar. The coverage is admirable given that they are so short. The spelling booklet has good sections on general issues; guides to morphological questions ("endings" for the uninitiated); advice on differences between British and American usage and a good list of troublesome words with very clear explanations. If you need a quick reference guide to grammar, spelling or punctuation, then until now I'd have said that you were out of luck because aside from the University reference Grammars like Quirk and Greenbaum most of what is available is just rubbish. I've changed my mind. These two books should be issued free to every school kid (G-d knows the standard of grammar teaching in schools is hopeless) and any aspiring writer should look them over. They don't talk nonsense about adjectives and adverbs "weakening" sentences or chide you for ending a sentence with a preposition but they will teach you to reliable recognise an adverb or a preposition when you see one - a far more important piece of knowledge. Jakob

Not necessary to declare anything in this case. This usage of their that you suggest is as old and as well represented as the apparently correct use with his/her/its. Declaring it incorrect is an innovation that seems to date from the late 18th century and is based (as is often the case) on a misunderstanding of Latin Grammar. Dr Johnson used their in this way and if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. Jakob

Here you chose a modal verb must which happens to be invarient in singular and plural forms. The second example sentence only visibly differs from the first in the number of the posesssive pronoun their. You could rephrase these to illustrate the point you want to make: Incorrect: Either the tenant or the owner have the right to present their grievances. Correct: Either the tenant or the owner has the right to present his grievances. Here you can see the difference between the third person singular and third person plural verb forms. Jakob

Well, they aren't reflexive pronouns on any account so the publisher is negligent. sumbloke

And its. The caution with its is that as a possessive pronoun there is no apostrophe. These two aren't reflexive. I think this is a typo. Great post - explaining English grammar is no easy task but this is a nice clear grammar snippit. Thanks.

Unless for effect. (And that's a sentence fragment.) I would caution that it is possible to produce stilted prose by always following some of the "rules" of writing. There are at least three elements to prose fiction?that?I'll?use?as?examples. Exposition Dialogue Introspective I use exposition to mean the narrative voice?(whichever?point?of?view?is?chosen) unfolding the plot. ?If the narrative is first person then I think that the writer should aim for a degree of naturalness which may involve a relaxation of certain of the rules. When the narrative is cast in third person, on the other hand, I think a greater attention to grammatical detail is important as it contributes to the neutrality of the diction. In first person narrative the reader can expect to have the voice coloured by the character. In third person the narrative should lean to characterlessness. But (a word with which one should never begin a sentence) there are times when passive voice is of course the best choice, often because it allows us to avoid naming the agent of some action: we can avoid apportioning responsibility or blame. Passive voice sentences are on average shorter (this was tested by the London-Lund Corpus Linguistics Project). I'm pretty sure you didn't mean this. Puttin the or pronoun at the end would produce: Are you going to lunchwith who? and Should the report go to who? I think that the rule in this case is to move the pronoun with the preposition to the front giving With whom are you going to lunch? and To whom should the report go? I don't think you can say With who are you going to lunch or To who should the report go. In this case I think the rule should be abandoned and the dangling prepositions allowed simply because the correct forms are now recognisably archaic. It would only be in the most formal circumstances that I would use the "correct" forms. I think it was Orwell who said something about breaking any of the rules to avoid saying anything barbarous and I'd agree with him. I'd also strongly recommend that writers allow characters in dialogue to speak naturally. Speech isn't writing and dialogue should reflect that properly rather than forcing characters to address each other as though in a public meeting reading from a prepared text. The last case is introspection. If the narrator or any character introspects in first person then I would be inclined to aim for a naturalness approaching the standard used for that character in dialogue - reproduce the voice.

It's already been pointed out that MS Word produced horrible html if you use it to create a web page. And, it's true that Dreamweaver is expensive and you need to learn how to use it (it's not a hugely steep learning curve for straightforward tasks but it's still a curve). A very viable alternative is to install OpenOffice - or just OpenOffice writer which is the WordProcessing package. OOWriter is easy to use, very similar in operation to Word. It produces nice clean HTML without the bloat of Word produced files. It also has the added bonus that it creates Adobe PDF files. AND IT'S FREE! I like the whole package including the database program which now has native support for MySQL and Access file formats. The equation editor is also better than the Microsoft equivalent, IMHO. You can find out about it and download here Jakob

All you need to foster is room in your home and room in your heart. All I can tell you is that it's so rewarding that I feel selfish and greedy having had the joy of so many foster brothers over the years. It's not hard but it is a life sentence usually - thank G-d. As soon as Sebastian and I are finished uni we're going to start paying back the joy we have by making a home for kids that need it. My family all do it. I have an adopted brother - remember adoption is an option too for lots of us. I know it seems impossible to lots of people but remember, people form biological families at the drop of a hat - having a planned family whether you foster or adopt is not nearly as difficult as you think. At least go and look at the fostering and adoption website for your local area and think about it. Kids need families and especially older kids and gay kids are way down the list when it comes to placements. Remember that if you foster you'll get financial aid to help you out. What would Jesus do? (OK so that was below the belt but I'm not gonna pull any punches when it comes to kids who need families.) Jakob

This is a great story. It's great by usual net.fiction standards but it's also emotionally and morally more sophisticated than most and the writing carries it well into the category of "literature" if you'll pardon the expression.

I definitely second this nomination. I have on occasion poked gentle fun at aspects of this story (Brew has a serious food obsession and Kyle Goodson gives alpha-male a whole new meaning....) but it's a very fine story, compelling, readable and well written. It would be a shame if it weren't included. Sumbloke.

I didn't see this when you posted it - I hope you're tracking this thread! I don't know what proportion of recent gay writing is young adult/teen oriented but a lot of stuff is. Stuff I've liked recently Brian Molloy _The Year of Ice_. A serious literary novel - but not at all pompous - story of a working class boy (17 or so) dealing with coming out and a difficult home life. I loved it. David Levithan _Boy Meets Boy_. Brilliantly funny, touching, joyful and above all totally original and different every gay boy should read this - and every straight boy too. Patricia Nell Warren _Billy's Boy_. Really good read - very different from a lot of other gay teen stuff and moving. Alex Sanchez _Rainbow Boys_, _Rainbow High_. I like these even tho the writing is sometimes stilted because of Sanchez mission to preach his truth to gay youth. It's a good truth (mostly) and these books will no doubt help some people feel positive but - that just ain't the job of literature. Kirk Read _How I Learned to Snap_. Great fun. Well written. Those are the ones that stand out for me as being good reads and being particularly aimed at young gay guys. I've read other novels with a gay theme that would appeal to a wider audience and I've left out some of the not very good stuff.

It's fiction - what is wierd about a girl writing about boys or a straight person writing about gay people? I write about Americans (or rather USAeans) despite being European. My problem is the writing is pretty bad - bad enough that it's a great effort to wade through. The darkness of the stories might be interesting and interracial themes would be welcome if it weren't for the issues of literacy and a misunderstanding of staging and sequencing! sumbloke

The sentence doesn't have to be "lacking" if it works in context with the paragraphs that came before it. Almost every writing book I've ever read has stressed the importance of avoiding adverbs and adjectives except when absolutely necessary. I believe it's only correct to use an adverb (like "nonchalantly") if for some reason the reader can't understand the real meaning of the dialog in context. A good example of that would be if the person speaking is being ironic or sarcastic. Take this one: "Hey, nice dress." In that case, we don't necessarily know what the person speaking really means. Is it really a nice dress? Is he cracking a joke? Is he insulting the dress? I think it's better to let the actions dictate the sentence's meaning. For example, in this case, we could have the person pause, then burst out laughing. Now we know what he or she meant, without any adjectives. I think action is stronger than an adverb. You're confusing categories. An adverb is a category of speech or grammar, action isn't. You can't compare apples and oranges like this. I don't see any reason not to qualify verbs with adverbs. The objection to adjectives and adverbs seems without foundation to me. Excess is excess whether it's in the use of specific parts of speech or in anything else. I agree that context is all but even relying on context can be clumsy - if we use context cleverly then then we don't have to have people even pause or burst out laughing. What readers know of the characters and the story can be relied upon to cue them to irony or sarcasm. The only convincing examples of eliminating adverbs (other than obvious purple excess) I've seen have been of expository prose not narrative. In expository prose the aim is to be explicit and in some cases adverbs undermine this - albeit indirectly. In narrative the writing - the words can themselves be part of the point. Prose narrative may not be poetry but it can still legitimately aim for effect and "wordiness" is not of itself a failing. Lean, mean, spare Hemmingwayesque (except he wasn't) narrative style isn't the only writing worth reading. You can't use an action as a verb. An action is not a part of speech and a verb is. Verbs often denote actions (as in your example - the act of "sighing" is an action and to sigh is a verb, each and every time it's used). I don't understand the animus here either. In the first example it seems to me that the use of sigh in this way conveys something about the expression, the tone of voice used to deliver the line of dialogue. In the second example one action - speaking a sentence - is followed by another: sighing. These sentences don't convey the same thing. Oddly, if we were to obey the implicit stricture here we'd probably end up using a lot more adverbs! Instead of "I love you!" he sang out. We'd have "I love you!" he said liltingly (or musically or whatever). I just don't buy the idea that you can't sigh dialogue - creative writing is partly about using language in other than ordinary ways. This restriction you propose would damn half the published authors in print to retrospective editing out of all those "...he sighed...he laughed...he crieds. I don't see much evidence of excess as a problem. There are much more prevalent writing flaws. Two have been on my mind recently because they littered almost every page of an on-line story I was enjoying. 1 The use of past tense modals (could, should, would) with of instead of have. I should of warned him for I should have warned him makes my teeth ache. It's a back formation and I can see why it happens but it has to stop. The phrase should of just doesn't mean anything. 2 The inability to render dialogue convincingly. The story I have in mind is peopled by otherwise quite ordinary characters who are incapable of negative contraction. Thus they never say don't want to go to the mall, Bro but much more properly (and much less credibly (oh Lord, two adverbs so close together!)) they declare (or maybe declaim) do not want to go to the mall, Bro. Needless to say they don't indulge in wanna, gonna, shoulda or anyother quite ordinary contraction either. Nobody speaks like this. It's not proper it's unbelievable - especially when your characters are marijuana smoking, skateboarding, teenage sex fiends. Do not fuck me without a condom, dude. I don't think so. Long live adverbs! Up with sighing and warbling! Down with the tyrrany of style manuals!

However, it's just like him to get the site up and not post a damned thing by way of explanation. ::mutter:: Hey come on...I like him that way. If Ty wasn't Ty then Storm wouldn't be Storm and his stormy free spirit character is part of why we love him so much :). Never apologise! Never explain!