The Pecman

Definitely well-done, and makes me want to read more. I have two minor objections: 1) speaking as a former kid, I can tell you that all schools I've ever attended go out of their way to separate students by age in Phys Ed classes. They don't slam 17 year-olds in the same game as a 14 year-old; they do it generally by grade. There are exceptions, like when you have a young kid who (by bad luck) manages to get advanced into a higher grade, but that's rare. (I'd also argue that all schools today play conventional sports, track & field, wrestling, gymnastics, and so on, and not "Duck Duck Goose," but that's just me.) 2) there's a few nasty typos in there that made me wince ("had be by the balls"). I'd also say there's too much internal monologs and not enough dialog, but it's a question of balance more than anything else. But the idea is good, the set up is good, and I'd like to see where it's headed.

I recognize that the decision of whether to have sex in a gay romantic novel is totally the decision of the author. But at the same time, I think it's a tremendous mistake to pretend that sex doesn't exist as part of life, particularly for stories dealing with teenage or adult characters. To me, avoiding sex is like trying to ignore an 800-pound gorilla sitting in the middle of the room: you can pretend it's not there, but that doesn't make it go away. I believe there are authors who deliberately avoid dealing with sex in their stories because they're uncomfortable with it -- not that you necessarily fall into that category, but they do exist. Me personally, I think a degree of sexual content is necessary for stories like this, but I think there's a way to do it that's subtle, emotional, and still works for the story. And yet I agree: it's wrong to shoehorn a sex scene into a story unless it makes dramatic sense. For the coming-of-age stories that are prevalent in this genre (if it's a genre at all), I think there's a good compromise that will satisfy an author trying to write a meaningful story that has a decent plot, believable characters, and a rich setting -- but will also satisfy readers looking for emotion and physical intimicay. There have been many discussions about this in previous messages. Do a search in the Writers section and you'll find quite a few, including the heated debate on "How much sex is too much" from a couple of years ago.

Just read the first chapter, and I thought it was very well done. There's definitely a lot of potential in the story, and I congratulate the author to confront a difficult issue -- a lead character who's unable to commit -- and somehow make the character sympathetic and the story entertaining. I'd suggest it needs more dialogue, though. I think relying on too much prose and description makes the story too objective and not emotional enough. To me, the best fiction has a delicate balance between description and dialogue, but I concede it's a tough tightrope to walk.

Yeah, I confess to having written one scene in one of my novels purely for purient interests, which was the "barn orgy" scene in Groovy Kind of Love. But I did it for a couple of reasons: one, I was amused by the idea of having sex with twins (something I haven't had the pleasure of experiencing in real life), and second, from a story point of view, I wanted to show that my lead character was recovering from the grief of another character's death earlier in the story. So, yeah, it was intended to be erotic, but I also tried to inject some poignancy into it, as best I could. We've had conversations here before about "how much sex is too much" in gay fiction, and I still maintain that subtlety and keeping things non-specific -- more about feelings than body parts -- works better as writing. I've read Henry James, Edmund White, and a dozen other literary masters, and I was always impressed how they maintained a certain level in their writing. To me, that's what sets apart a piece of fiction with erotic moments, vs. pornography. I think there's a place for pornography, and I even think there's a way to do it well, but it's not something I'm interested in pursuing at the moment (and to tell you the truth, I'm not sure I find sex-specific stories that interesting as novels). But yeah, I've been emotionally affected by scenes I wrote in my own novels, and I've been turned on by most of them. My partner jokes that he can tell when I've really been writing something intense, because I'm drenched with sweat and smell to high heaven -- OK, maybe not quite that bad, but I look like I've been running for five miles in the summer. So the mental intensity has a physical effect on me.

A direct link is here: http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt....=6790&srch= This guy's pretty funny -- sorta like a one-man "The Onion."

Just installed and launched Leopard, and all is well... so far. (We always say that in the beginning, right before the nuke goes off.) It's terrific so far. Wibby, I still say you should join the 21st century and figure out a way to convert your old files. I'm positive there's a way to batch-convert them, probably on a PC. <thinking about it some more> If you know (or could learn) AppleScript, I bet you could semi-automate the task under old OSX and convert the files that way, then eventually move up to a more-modern OS. On a similar note: a close friend of mine, a struggling writer I've known for 30 years, is still using OS 8.6 and MS Word 5. About six years ago, I tried to install the then-new version of Office 2000 (or maybe it was 2001), and he totally freaked out at the idea of having to learn a whole new set of menus. He practically had a nervous breakdown. Luckily, we kept his old OS and programs on the computer, let him boot back into 8.6, and I think he's still using that today. Some people will not change. Me, I think change is part of life, and I'll go with it most of the time. But I try to do it my way, and -- in the case of operating systems -- I try to bend them to my way of thinking, rather than vice-versa. I wind up using a lot of little background programs in order to make the OS look and feel the way I want it to. Think of it as adding a fancy stereo and whitewall tires to a new car you just bought. Factory-equipped usually doesn't work for me.

Wikipedia can be your friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_receiver Note that I know next to nothing about football, but had to learn about it in order to write about a high school quarterback in Jagged Angel. In the 1970s, I occasionally worked as a TV camera operator on dozens of network football games, and had no idea what the hell was going on -- but luckily, nobody caught on.

That's very sad. I lost a very close friend last month to cancer (she was only 50), and was still reeling from that when a co-worker of mine died in a traffic accident yesterday. This has been a tough year. If Tim can give us an email address, I'd be glad to drop him a personal note. Hopefully, Codey will be in good enough shape that he can at least see the messages in the hospital.

Yeeessh! I think they haven't made that for at least 10 years, maybe 12. While I dislike Microsoft as a company, I've sworn by (and often at) Word for almost 20 years. And, like any old-time computer geek, I used WordStar for 7 years before that. (I feel pathetic.) I could've sworn that Microsoft used to have WP conversion filters for MS Word, but I'm not sure if they ever implemented them recently for Office 2004. I bet there's a way to do batch-conversion in Windows, and have a program go through and automatically convert any number of WP files at least to RTF's or some other easy-to-open format. But there's always issues with conversions like this, particularly if you have a lot of headers and footers or imbedded graphics. Gad, that's been gone for 13 years. The question would be, do you really need to see any of those 800 spreadsheets in 2007? My advice would be to convert the top 50 or so that you actually need to some kind of compatible Excel format, and then use something like Apple Numbers to read and change those docs. I know there's a free MS Excel reader out there, but I'm not sure if it exists for the Mac. I've stuck with Claris' Filemaker database for almost 15 years now, and use it under Windows and on the Mac all the time. I wonder if it's smart enough to take your old Resolve files and convert them to an FMP database? At least you could then see, access, and print the info that way; in fact, I usually prefer to use FMP instead of Excel, particularly for dealing with text-base databases. At some point, I think you have to make the decision to join the 21st Century, cut bait and move on up. Sticking with legacy programs like this just drags your whole life down after awhile. I have to admit, though, there are still some situations out there where there's no direct route to convert a file format; for example, pre-3.0 Pagemaker docs are pretty much defunct, unless you have Pagemaker 3 sitting on a computer (which was the lingua franca to PM 4, 5 and 6, as well as inDesign). Makes you wish everything could be open source and accessible to all operating systems. I've taken a serious look at Google Docs, and I bet it scares the hell outta Microsoft. I just wish they could get it to work with Safari (though it does work on Mac Firefox just fine).

Feh! Unclean! What the hell are you running under OS9 these days? About the last thing I held onto was Pagemaker, and once I switched over to inDesign, I never looked back. Maybe what you can do is find an old Mac and just run OS9 on that for the one or two things you can't do anywhere else. Heck, I may have an old G3 or something lying around, if you want a free one. We must have at least 5-6 unused computers in the house out in the garage, waiting for a good home (or the next time the Salvation Army comes around).

You type left bracket Quote (spelling out Q-U-O-T-E), right bracket, then you paste in the quoted line. When it's done, you type left bracket backslash QUOTE right bracket. You can also just click on the upper right button labeled QUOTE, right next to MULTI. A lot of these commands are basic HTML code. I did a quick google search, but couldn't find an easy chart that lists all the various attributes, like boldface, italics, indents, centered text, etc., but whatever is out there will generally work (to a degree) on the forum software. It helps when you need to say something in boldface, or iitalics, or what have you. (I draw the line at changing typefaces or screwing around too much, but I'm a conservative kinda guy on stuff like this. I say, keep it simple.)

I think for big fans of the Harry Potter series, this is a big deal. Having a major (unpublished) fact about one of the leading characters of the novels is a real surprise; it'd be the same thing if Ian Fleming had mentioned that, say, Q was gay in the James Bond books, or a similar character in any literary series. I think it's remarkable that J.K. Rowling would bother to mention this now, and yet I also understand why she chose not to include it in the books as written. I think dropping that bombshell in the last book would have been a major distraction, and I'm not sure it would've been that easy to shoehorn Dumbledore's sexual identity into the plot. (I notice the Wikipedia entry has already been updated to include this fact.) Note that Rowling went out of her way during her revelation to make a plea for tolerance, and also commented that her news about Dumbledore would probably give Christian groups yet another reason to dislike her work. It took me awhile to realize that all seven of the Harry Potter books are really about a race war and tolerance -- even more than the apparent story of the coming-of-age of a young wizard. The gay thing is just one more element that adds to the tolerance issue.

Not a bias, as so much a preference. I have a problem with reading the work of anyone who can't speak or write English fluently. I'm certain that people in other countries have similar problems with Americans or Brits who try to write in their country's languages as well. But I have read books by authors whose native language isn't English. For example, German author Curt Siodmak taught himself English after moving to the U.S. as a kid, and I found his autobiography Wolf Man's Maker to be very, very well-written. Bottom-line: I cringe at present tense and/or 2nd-person fiction regardless of the country which the writer is from. It's a problem for me with the words on the page, not the writer or his native country. As I've said before about issues like changing POV in a story, show me a major work of fiction written in 2nd person (or present tense), and I'll be very, very surprised. I think both techniques are very difficult and contrived, and 99.9% of most stories would be far more accessible to readers if they were written conventionally. I think I read an H.P. Lovecraft story that was written in present tense, but most of his work lay in short-stories, not novels. Lovecraft was also a genius (albeit twisted), and an exceptional writer, and I think none of us here qualify.

Wimp. Real men have no compunction about installing a new OS. My partner and I will have 10.5 up and running on five different Macs by Friday night, but we're crazy. Leopard has a ton of new features that are "can't miss," as far as I'm concerned. I particularly look forward to Time Machine, where the OS makes a background backup so that you can quickly get to deleted files, older copies of programs, and so on. Very handy. There's a list of features and a video demo on this page on Apple's website. The big problem with installing any dramatically new OS is when it breaks other programs. I'm fairly confident that for 90% of what I do, it'll be fine; it's the other 10% that makes you crazy. Note that I'll still have Windows XP available on at least three of the main Macs, for the stuff we have that only runs under Windows. I have no doubt there'll be a new version of Parallels that will work with Leopard, and since Leopard has been in the hands of developers for about 6 months now, I'm pretty certain that they've gotten 99% of the bugs out of it. (One hopes...)

I was shocked -- shocked, do you hear -- to read in this month's issue of Vanity Fair that Lou Pearlman, the creator of the Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, and many other 1990s pop/boy bands was not only gay, he apparently seduced at least one member of each group as the price for their fame & fortune. Perlman also managed to embezzle and swindle clients and various companies out of more than $500 million over a 20-year period, which is the major part of the story. The whole sordid tale is here: http://www.vanityfair.com/fame/features/20.../pearlman200711 One interviewee confessed to the Vanity Fair journalist that Perlman "was more into the boys than he was the music," and saw his business more as an opportunity to meet young men, rather than to be in the music business. This could make an exceptional book, if not a TV movie. It's amazing Pearlman got away with it as long as he did.

I agree 100% with Wibby's comments above. I'd also add that I almost always dislike fiction written in the present tense. Again, to me, it's showy and contrived, very much like writing in 2nd person. I'm reminded of a few movies where they tried to shoot the entire thing (or most of it) solely from the viewpoint of one character -- a continual P.O.V. shot where the camera IS a character, and people talk to it and you hear the voice of that character answers -- but that gets old real fast. While I agree with Wibby that I think a real story has got to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, along with a character you can empathize with, there are exceptions, especially in a short story -- but that's a different kettle o' fish. There are a bunch of magnificent short stories out there that have a great beginning and middle, but don't so much end as they do just come to a sudden stop. There's a few classic Twilight Zone episodes like that, too, where they present an incredible situation, and then the show ends before the story really stops. In some cases, this can be frustrating, but in others, it can be stunning, like the end of an classic O'Henry or Rudyard Kipling story. So I think there are exceptions in terms of structure. But almost always, when it comes to novels or film, I gotta have a beginning, a middle, and an end, sharply carved-out characters, and so on.

Damn! I just posted the same news item elsewhere two hours after Camy. (This is what I get for jumping in and posting a message without reading the other ones first!) Still, I'm really blown away by the news. If there's a more famous gay character in the history of fiction, I can't think of one. (Despite many rumors, I was never convinced that Sherlock Holmes or Watson was gay, two name two examples.)

This news story makes sense, at least for those who read the final Harry Potter book over the summer. There were several chapters devoted to providing a lot of backstory about Dumbledore, and the character of Grindewald was at the heart of some of them. The published book merely establishes that they had a very close friendship while both were in their last years of Howart's, but omitted the detail that Grindewald was the great love of Dumbledore's life. Dumbledore later had to kill the character in a duel, when Grindewald began to go mad with power with one of the "Deathly Hallows" (but I'll omit the details for those who have yet to read the book). I find it remarkable that Rowling chose to reveal this fact. At this point, I don't think she did it for publicity or money, because she's already got both. I think she felt in her heart it's true, and if you can't believe the author who created the characters, who can you believe? On one level, I'm completely stunned, but on another, it makes total sense when you look back over the long epic story. As they say in England, I'm gobsmacked. I only wish somebody in the audience had asked Rowling if there were any other gay characters in the books. (I had my suspicions about Colin Creevy, myself...)

I initially thought this was just an Internet Myth, but it's on the AP wire and CNN, so it appears to be real: J.K. Rowling Outs Hogwarts Character By HILLEL ITALIE NEW YORK (AP) ? Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall. After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members. She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love." "Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause. She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down." Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy." "Oh, my god," Rowling concluded with a laugh, "the fan fiction." Potter readers on fan sites and elsewhere on the Internet have speculated on the sexuality of Dumbledore, noting that he has no close relationship with women and a mysterious, troubled past. And explicit scenes with Dumbledore already have appeared in fan fiction. Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," she spotted a reference in the script to a girl who once was of interest to Dumbledore. A note was duly passed to director David Yates, revealing the truth about her character. Rowling, finishing a brief "Open Book Tour" of the United States, her first tour here since 2000, also said that she regarded her Potter books as a "prolonged argument for tolerance" and urged her fans to "question authority." Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason. http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/10/2...r.ap/index.html

I didn't think it was that bad, but I agree it could use some tightening. The biggest problem I have with it is that it doesn't progress far enough in the first three or four chapters. I think the last couple of chapters could've been combined and chopped up to make the story a lot tighter. Also, I don't think it's a "werewolf" story per se -- the impression I get is that it's more of a bizarre mystical cult with mind-control and supernatural aspects. I haven't seen anybody get hairy and run around during the full moon (except one specific character, not the lead, and it hasn't happened out in the open yet). I liked it mainly because I could see that Comicality was trying something completely different than usual, going for a fairly downbeat story, all told in flashback. I think it took some courage to do this, particularly when you take a likeable character and then watch them make a series of ghastly mistakes that cause their lives to unspool in a matter of a few days. I also disagree about the use of language. From my memory, it read pretty well, and it was a cut above what I normally see on the net. That's a judgement call (like the spelling of "judgement"). Keep in mind that when I recommend something for B.O.N., it doesn't mean I think I've discovered "the next Hemingway." It means I've seen something that I think is better than 97% of the usual amateur crap out there... something that stood out and made me think about it, and was a story that stuck in my head for a day or two afterward. I doubt that's happened even half-a-dozen times this year, and this was one of those cases. Feel free to disagree.

I hate, hate, hate stories written in the 2nd person. It's showy, obvious, and heavy-handed. Maybe if Ernest Hemingway or Edgar Allan Poe did it, but there's very, very few great writers who can pull this off. I'll try to read the first page and see how far I get. <minutes pass> Ponderous and preachy. My apologies to the author, but this is not my cup o' tea.

Naaa, you misunderstand me. I don't think anybody has a problem with music in film. If you see John Wayne and 200 cavalry riders storming out on the Arizona desert, accompanied by the 20th Century-Fox orchestra, nobody complains about that. You don't expect an orchestra to pop up in the sand (as they did, hilariously, in Blazing Saddles). But I do recall scientists at the time knocking Star Wars and Star Trek because of their use of sound effects in space, which strikes me as petty and pedantic. There are actually a few sound effects in 2001, mostly Keir Dullea's breathing inside his spacesuit (actually performed by Stanley Kubrick, BTW), along with the quiet hiss of the oxygen tanks, so the scenes aren't entirely silent. My point was, don't let absolute logic stand in the way of letting you enjoy a good story. Just because a writer chooses to use the term "multiple universes," you can't dismiss it out of hand. To me, it's a small technical point that's forgivable. Actually, no, most of the stars didn't move in 2001 because their budget was so low, and the technology was so limited, many of the spaceships and backgrounds you saw were all photographs. The stars were just pinholes in black velvet. Some of the effects techniques on the film were incredibly crude, and it's amazing they pulled it all off so well. Read these books: The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stephanie Schwam Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays by Robert Kolker The Making of Kubrick's 2001 by Jerome Agel and Stanley Kubrick, the 2001 biography by Michel Ciment, which answers a lot of questions. If you're a fan, each of these which will give you a huge amount of information. I also have a copy of the original script, with the (unfilmed) ending that revealed the aliens, if you'd ever like to read it. 2001 was a movie that changed my life, because I think it's what convinced me to go into filmmaking (even at my borderline involvement as an overpaid technician). I think Star Trek started it, but 2001 finally cemented it, 40 years ago. BTW: lotta logic problems in 2001, when you sit down and analyze them. But still a tremendously entertaining film. Ciment's book above reveals that Kubrick knew that the ending of the film would confuse people, and thought that was hilarious. He figured, "eh, we'll let the audience come up with their own explanation," and never revealed that the ending was never shot because they couldn't get their alien makeup effects to work.

Ah, that's a rare reader who remembers that one! Yeah, the story with the people stuck in a plane, and half the passengers have disappeared -- leaving only their fillings or other non-organic metal objects behind. Very scary story, very much a Twilight Zone thing. I think that was one of those ideas where they were stuck "inbetween the ticks of the second-hand of a clock" stories, which was also done on the 1980s CBS Twilight Zone referb that I worked on for awhile. Fascinating idea. Not exactly time travel per se -- more like, "a stuck in time" story.

Aaaaa, you're being an old fuddy-duddy. I bet you cringe when you hear sound effects in outer space movies, too. In cases like, I say you gotta go with your gut. If it works, it works. Sometimes, scientific accuracy has to fall by the wayside to make way for entertainment. Star Wars and Star Trek wouldn't have been 10% as exciting if all the outer-space battles had been silent -- as they would be in real life. Granted, this technique can work -- Kubrick's 2001 is a prime example -- but at some point, you have to concede that the public wants and expects "sound in space," even though it's wrong. I think the same argument can be made for using the concept of "universes within universes" for science fiction. But to placate you, I will avoid using this phrase in Pieces of Destiny, and I'll just throw out some mumbo-jumbo about "alternate worlds" or "another dimension." Do read Gerrold's book, though. As I often say around here, I will personally refund your money if you don't like it. The Man Who Folded Himself is the be-all, end-all best summation of time travel theory I've ever seen, and it holds up even 35 years after it was written.

Ah, but that's because you never read Ray Bradbury's original brilliant short story from 1950, from which that travesty motion picture was made. The story made perfect sense and worked completely well, and was beautifully, beautifully written. It's considered one of the all-time great SF classics, also titled "The Sound of Thunder." I believe they later adapted it into an EC Comic a few years later, and that wasn't bad, either. The whole point of the story is that many events of modern life can stem from one tiny incident, like a domino that cascades forwards and causes a million different things to happen. Maybe stepping on a butterfly is a stretch, but I certainly believe that if you were to shoot the "wrong" dinosaur, it might lead to trouble. The best adaptation of Bradbury's story I ever saw was one of the short pieces on The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" specials, where Homer tried to fix a toaster by jiggling with it in the garage, and managed to go back in time 100,000 years and wound up continuously changing the future, over and over again, by accidentally stepping on butterflies, coughing on T-Rex dinosaurs, etc. Absolutely hysterical from start to finish.