The Pecman

And I'm glad to report that I know (finally) have a legit copy of XP up and running. I got tired of the incessant nagging from Windows Gen-u-whine Disadvantage, so I sprung $80 for the OEM version of XP-SP2B from TigerDirect.com. No more nasty messages, and Bill Gates can now call off his hit-men. Note that Apple is rumored to be readying a similar scheme in the next version of Mac OSX (10.5, aka "Leopard"), where users will -- for the first time -- have to pay for and register every copy of the OS that they use, on just one computer. But I'm told they'll continue their "family pack," where you can put their OS on up to five computers for about $150, which to me isn't a bad deal.

Sincere best wishes to you, Johnny. Life has a terrible habit of throwing people into the middle of calamity and tragedy, when you least expect it. It's stunning to reflect on how your whole life can change in two seconds (especially with something like a horrific car wreck, which I've been through once, about ten years ago). Hang in there, and know that you can make it through this.

God, no. I bombed out of most of those, big-time. In fact, the only way I saved my grade in chemistry was to perform 20 minutes of "Chemical magic tricks" as my final exam. (I was a part-time magician in high school, so I was able to finagle that in saving my ass from flunking.) I was able to fake my way through college-level Physics, but only just barely. My sincere apologies; I sometimes forget that The Dude's site is international, and that English is not the main language of all who post here. Trab, your command of English is good enough, as a matter of fact, you had me fooled into thinking you were an American or English (or from down under). I meant no disrespect to the original poster, but I think that anybody who sincerely wants to learn basic punctuation can either check out a book from the library on the subject, or buy a used book from Amazon like Elements of Style or one of the other classics. I think they'll learn it better from a book than on a website like this, but that's strictly my opinion.

Most of the books on writing I've read indicate that some punctuation rules are arbitrary and a judgement call (like the spelling of "judgement"). I agree with you that it's important to avoid ambiguity and go with the Oxford comma rule. I think that was in the Chicago Manual of Style, but it's been awhile since I pulled that six-pound book off my shelf and read it. To me, though, all this crap should be instinctive and obvious. I don't see the need to go into a lotta detail about it, because once you learn it, you're done. Anybody who survived through high school English should know all this already. Of course, I'm "Mr. Cool," since I exempted two years of college English (don't ask me how -- that's what they told me as a Freshman), despite having so-so grades for the two years of college I endured. But I made it through those tests by my guts and by the seat of my pants. What works, works; I don't try to over-analyze it.

You know, I think it's wrong to protest at Falwell's funeral. Even though the guy was a lying, thieving hypocrite who deserves to burn in hell for all eternity, there are doubtless people who loved him and family members who are grieving right now. I say, give 'em some peace and leave them alone. Howard Stern had a good ol' time a couple of days ago on his radio show, trumpeting Falwell's death, and playing "Happy Days Are Here Again" in the background. He reminded listeners that Falwell was one of the evangelists who claimed that 9/11 was "punishment from God because of liberals, gays, and other non-believers," as well as many, many anti-gay comments over the years. They even played a clip claiming to be a recording of Falwell in hell -- gay porno clips mixed with the sound of burning fire, with Howard commenting that the Devil was now anally violating the minister. If it were anybody else, I probably wouldn't laugh, but that one did get a chuckle out of me. Falwell was such a self-righteous, loathsome bastard.

Yeah, but remember, I have no life, my job is crushing the life out of me, and I'm moody as hell. BTW, I actually have a lot more than 4TB of music. There's 12,000 original CDs in the cabinets downstairs, and I've only digitized a fraction of them, certainly fewer than 2000. The rest of the files come from many sources on the net, plus radio programmer/friends of mine. I justify it morally by saying, "I've paid for this music many times over, so downloading additional copies is OK." Though there's a lot of stuff you can't get at all through legal downloads or CDs, because it's just not available, except through nutty music fans. My hope is do eventually have the entire music library as FLAC (or some other lossless codec), and stream it all through Apple TV at various points around the house. I only use the MP3s to entertain myself when I workout or work long hours on unsupervised projects, or for long trips. My point was: I put up with Windows when I have to, and I think this system gives you the best of all possible worlds, using whichever OS does what you want. For everyday crap -- browsing the web, getting email, writing, database work, etc. -- I prefer the Mac. For certain utilities -- particularly organizing MP3s, ripping from CDs, etc. -- the tools are better on the Windows side. It works for me. It's kind of a trip, seeing the familiar Windows XP desktop on my big desktop monitor (only the Apple 23" Cinema Display, because my partner slaps me whenever I mention the 30"). I almost feel like I'm straddling two completely different worlds, seeing two OS's on one monitor. Mentally, it's a weird feeling, but so far it's going OK. (Knock on virtual wood.)

No, if I had done that, my partner would have killed me, and buried my hacked-up remains inside the computer shipping box and tossed it in the backyard. This is just the "mere" 4-core 2.66, the mid-priced model. The 8-core would been four grand, and as I say, the loss of life and property would have been too great for mankind to bear. But we did get the 5-gigs of RAM, which helps a lot. (Can't wait to install the new Final Cut Pro Studio 2, out next week.) I use Firewire 400 when I'm on the Mac side, and USB2 when I'm on the Windows side. Can't do both at the same time, unfortunately. We are using MacDrive so that a Mac-formatted hard drive shows up OK under Windows. Without that, we'd be S.O.L. What I'm waiting for is eSATA, which is faster than both Firewire 800 and USB2. Haven't invested in that yet, but we will, eventually. Don't forget, I'm a total propeller head when it comes to this crap. My partner and I were into DOS in 1982 (I beat him, since I got an Apple II and CP/M in late 1980), then slowly switched over to the Mac around 1987 or so. We've always had PCs around the house when we had to use them, but Mac OS was always what we preferred. Hell, I used Wordstar as a word-processor for almost ten years. I grow misty and nostalgic remembering when I used to type on an amber (whoa!) monochrome DOS monitor... My point is, this is the way you can get the best out of using a computer. Run Windows when you have to, for specialized one-of-a-kind programs that won't work any other way, and run Mac OS for everything else. I'm glad I waited to jump into Parallels, because it was buggier than hell last year. It's a lot better now. I still gotta go out and buy a legit copy of XP, because I'm getting the "Microsoft Nag Screen" telling me this is a bogus version. Amazon has it for $89 ("OEM version"), and that's at least one way to get Bill Gates off my back.

I'm pleased to report that I finally scraped together the dough to buy a brand-spankin' new Apple 2.66GHz Intel Xeon Macintosh Pro computer a few days ago, with 5 gigs of RAM and 2TB of storage. (Yes, I'm completely insane, but that goes without saying.) I just finished installing Parallels and Windows XP SP2, so I can run Windows-only applications occasionally when I need them. While Apple zealots may tell you otherwise, there are still certain Windows-only programs out there for which Mac equivalents do not exist. In my case, I needed some audio utilities to help me manage my out-of-control music collection (4TB, six 60G iPods, and rising). I'm really happy with how well Windows has worked so far. There are two different modes: regular, where a large screen-within-a-screen appears, with the familiar Windows desktop inside the Mac desktop. You can also hit a button and expand this screen, so that the computer looks like it's running 100% Windows. The second mode is coherence, where if you just need to run a single Windows program, the program pops up in a self-contained window on the Mac, looking exactly like a Mac program -- except for the pull-down menus. I haven't yet installed any anti-virus or anti-spyware software, but I have some technical issues to resolve before I do so. I'm probably going to activate Windows OneCare on this machine (as I have for my partner's PC and my own separate PC). For the moment, I'm just being extremely careful which websites I get on, and I'm not downloading anything from the Windows side of the machine. Of course, even if I did, it would only corrupt the Windows side. I can fix that just by trashing the entire Windows install and doing it over, which gets rid of any viruses, but I'd rather just get an anti-virus thing. Two major drawbacks so far: 1) the Windows side only recognizes USB and USB2 external drives. This is a drag because I'm a Firewire kinda guy, but I'm slowly adapting when I need to. 2) it's a teeny bit buggy. I've had a few occasional moments of flakiness, like when the Windows cursor suddenly turns into a finger and won't go back to a cursor -- I assume this is Microsoft literally giving Mac owners 'the finger' -- but I haven't had any disastrous crashes. You gotta be careful how you sleep the computer, though, and there are a few other limitations, like how to move large files (over 10 megs) from the Mac side to teh Windows side, and vice-versa. But there's always workarounds. The good news is, both Mac and Windows run like a bat outta hell on the system. It's clearly four or five times faster than my old G5 Mac, and I think it's at least as fast (or faster) than my old 3G Pentium M Sony Vaio was at running Windows XP. I'm lovin' it so far. But I think the Sony is jealous; it's beeped angrily at me from across the room, angry with my obsession with the new machine.

I learned how to type when I was 12, so breaking the 40-year old habit of spacing twice after a period is tough. After getting beaten up by copy editors from a few magazines in the late 1980s (when we were starting to deliver text files electronically), I finally weaned it out. But it still pops up now and then. I try to do a global "replace two spaces with one space" search-and-replace whenever I finish a chapter or an article, and usually I catch them. But I agree: typographically, two spaces after a sentence looks like crap. And (as you say) it can lead to weird formatting problems with HTML, though better HTML editors and converters like Dreamweaver will automatically strip them out. You can make the argument that double spaces work OK with Courier and other monospaced fonts, but the modern scripts I read occassionally are now done with one space, all typed in Courier 12.

I hope that if Falwell winds up in heaven, he's tormented by the fact that there are gays and Jews there.

Hey, look -- I don't consider the James Bond movies to be sequels. They're each individual stories that work fine, and don't require that the viewer know what came before (or after). If your new project works as a self-contained story, then you're fine. But having read Alone By Myself the first time, I have to confess, I enjoyed reading it, but I felt the ending left too many loose ends. I agree that people split up and relationships fall apart sometimes, but I think the story could've used more finality and a cleaner break between the two characters. Otherwise, the reader thinks of them pining away from each other, worlds apart. To me, that's not satisfying. Don't get me wrong -- I think it's good writing, and I've recommended the story before to others many times. I'm also very glad to see you writing again, and I really look forward to future installments.

Little independent films like this are hard to catch, even in big cities like NY and LA. Chances are, they only get shown at smaller "art" venues, but they make their real impact (and profits) on home video. You can find out more on this title here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433350/ TLA Video seems to carry more non-X-rated gay feature films than any company I've ever seen in North America: http://www.tlavideo.com/main/main.cfm?v=2&sn=1&g=0 They also finance and produce independent gay-themed films quite often, and have carved out a successful niche for themselves. I wish them luck and hope they can continue, because it's a much-needed resource.

As far as I know, it's not on Nifty -- or if it was, I can't find it anymore, at least not under "Science Fiction/Fantasy." They only have three or four SF stories with the word "Through" in it, and this one doesn't come up in a search. If this is the case, then I would still put the story on the Best of Nifty list and just link it to "Stories on Other Sites," which I think is warranted.

I can think of a few others: 1) health problems. A good friend of mine (and contributor to AD) had some severe medical issues last year, and is basically living on disability at the moment. It's doubly tragic, because he's a good guy and is only in his early 50s. 2) work-related problems. Few of us are independently wealthy to the point where we don't have to work for a living. I had to bail on my novel over the last few weeks, simply because I was working 70 hours a week and going crazy. I'm just now getting back to it, but it'll take awhile to get back up to speed. 3) hostility from readers. Apparently this is what drove Drake Hunter off the net. For the record, he still has yet to respond to my (very kind) email from a few weeks/months ago, asking him to consider allowing AD to post his stories.

Graeme, your post should be etched in bronzed and put on the front page of this site. You summarized this entire argument quite eloquently, and I appreciate your insights. Note, by the way, that I've said all along that this is not just my opinion. Many, many books on writing -- along with other authors -- feel the same way. I'm grateful for Graeme's observation that the main reason why amateur writers use multiple 1st person POV is because they start out from one point of view, realize they need to show another person's point of view, and begin going back and forth. This was something I hadn't thought of -- why a writer goes this route -- and I'm very glad he brought it up.

Blue, you miss my point. I gave endless examples as to why I thought multiple 1st person POV's were a bad way to present stories. I presented quotes from a (very recent) writing textbook that says it better than I did, and I offered alternatives that I thought worked much better. Rustic Monk observed that he felt that current gay stories weren't willing to take chances and make a statement about society or culture. I offered my story as one example of a story that tried to do something more than just present a simple gay romantic story -- though I concede that I did use hate crimes as a story point in a couple of instances. To me, that's just a dramatic choice, and certainly isn't the only way to do it. I also have emphasized from the very beginning that all of this is just my opinion. I've also continued to say, "if a story uses multiple 1st person POV's, it's going to be nearly impossible for me to read it." I'm not the only person who thinks so (as Nick Archer said in his follow-up post). And I offered solutions as to better ways to present the same ideas. Experimentation is all well and good. But I think a lot of writers -- especially new writers who are just starting out -- make a lot of damnfool mistakes that are easily rectified if they'd try to learn about their craft before jumping into deep waters. Reading just one or two decent books about writing fiction can do a world of good. Knowing the rules before you break them is a very wise move.

Read Jagged Angel, and tell me if you think it's shallow. I deliberately wrote it as a reaction to a school shooting (sadly similar to recent happenings in the U.S.), and framed it around incidents of bullying of gay students at an LA high school. Oh, and it's all done in 3rd person. Very logical and straightforward, and I deliberately avoided changing points of view to keep certain story elements hidden until I needed to reveal them. I'm all for experimentation, but I don't think multiple 1st person point of view is appropriate except in the extreme cases mentioned above (radically different cultures and identies, etc.). I still think it's an obvious and heavy-handed way to tell a story. I think there are better ways to present stories that are more subtle and present fewer barriers for a reader.

Applause! Exactly, Mr. Coon. Bravo! You echoed much of what I said, much more succinctly. BTW, even if one does follow all the rules, it's still very hard to write a good story. But to me, this is what separates the "readable" from the "unreadable."

And I'd make castanets out of your testicles! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second timea!

BTW, Cole, I forgot to add that I strongly agree with you on this one. I think some degree of description and mood is important, but I think going on and on for paragraphs with a lot of blustery prose can get very tedious. There are writers who can pull this off -- I recall an Anne Rice vampire novel where she spent about 3 or 4 pages just describing a house as someone walked through it... how the air smelled, the dust on the furniture, the craftsmanship of the woodwork, etc. -- and I thought it was very poetic. Yet I concede that sometimes, brevity works better, and I think keeping this sort of stuff to a minimum is a wiser move, especially for amateur writers. Metaphors and similes are very tricky to handle, and I occasionally will see a story where a writer is throwing two or three in on every page, just to justify their degree in English Literature. Beyond a certain point, it gets pretty muddled, and I usually start yelling, "c'mon, c'mon... don't bore us, get to the chorus!"

At the risk of sounding like Simon Cowell: Jakob, here's the problem. There isn't anyone writing on the net who has the talent to pull off breaking these rules and still write a good story (or at least one I can read without gagging). If they exist, I have yet to see them. I have another rule to add to the ones I stated earlier: I tried to make it through a new Nifty story last night, one where the author has no clue as to how to write dialogue. In fact, almost the entire story was written without dialog, like so: I sat in my chair. I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was going to go out, and didn't care what I thought. I stopped him at the door, and he began yelling at me, telling me to stop trying to run his life. I cried, begged him not to go, but he slammed the door in my face. I slid down the wall and sobbed. Then my friend Christy came over. She saw me crying and asked what was the matter. I told her that Vince and I had a terrible fight, and that it was the end of the world. She gave me a hug and told me everything would be okay... and so on. In other words, the entire thing is told with narrative, in passive voice. No direct quotes, no actual action. I think this can be useful in some rare cases, like when you need to have a character tell a shortened version of a scene to someone else. But an entire novel? No, this isn't a creative technique. It's an excuse by somebody who doesn't know how to write to avoid writing actual dialogue. (And let me add that the little excerpt I threw together was much better than anything in the real story.) I don't care if it's the greatest story idea and coolest characters in the world, if the writer can't let them speak from time to time, it's gonna be damned hard for me to try to read it. I do admit that there are a few examples in literature of authors who've used this technique, but I can't recall them doing it for every chapter of an entire novel. A short story, maybe. But I think telling a story this passively makes it much harder for a reader to identify with the characters and understand what they're feeling.

If I called you "Coon" for short, would I wind up getting fired, like Don Imus?

Ah, now that I can read. At least it's short and to the point.

Well, our original argument was whether or not a story on the net that had 4 or 5 varying 1st-person points of view worked or not. I say it doesn't, and that this kind of technique is so blatantly stupid, my jaw drops and I get dizzy. I included one published example of a writing teacher who agrees with me, with a detailed summary of why it's generally a bad technique. Most of the other commentators agree with me. I'm not insisting that I'm necessarily right, but the evidence is largely on my side. I'm perfectly willing to listen if you want to explain specifically how and why this technique can work, especially if you can show me some examples of similar published stories. Whether or not it's a work of art is a subjective opinion. Anything created in literature, art, music, theater, or film technically qualifies as art... but that doesn't make it good art. There's a ton of crap masquerading as "art" out there. (I'm reminded of Yoko Ono's art exhibits in the 1970s: people sitting in burlap bags, blocks of wood with nails in them, broken mirrors, etc.) I readily admit there are occasionally (albeit very rare) exceptions to my short list. For example, Alice Walker's Pulitzer prize-winning 1983 novel The Color Purple has deliberately terrible grammar and spelling (which gets better as the book goes on), but that's the device of the author telling the story through a barely-literate character's diary. I had no problem reading it. I didn't love the story (or the movie), but I'd admit it's a pretty good book. Mark Twain's acclaimed novels Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn both had authentic dialog that violates every possible rule of grammar, but the stories are incredibly well-written, and the dialog captures the way people really spoke during that era. And the author's prose is a model of classic storytelling. Art was never part of my argument. Our original discussion elsewhere as well as this discussion (starting with my first message way up there) was only about whether I could stand reading a story told with the unwieldly gimmick of having 4 or 5 1st-person points of view. To me, this doesn't work -- either as art or entertainment -- and I can't make it through one chapter because it's so over-the-top lame, done by a writer who doesn't understand why it's bad. My suspicion is, the author writes this way either through ignorance, or they think the technique looks "cool" because it's so complex. Again: trying to read a story like this is like trying to watch a movie that's brilliantly written and acted, only it's completely out of focus, has a camera that violently shakes every two or three seconds, and the sets have "Raisin Bran" lighting (two scoops). Most audiences will flee for their lives after five minutes if you try to show them a movie like that. Surely you can agree with that -- Blair Witch Project notwithstanding. The excuse that "well, it's art" doesn't justify a bizarre technique that violates common sense. (I would say the same thing if the author typed every single sentence as its own paragraph, or wrote 5000 words as a single sentence without a carriage return, or if they published the thing in 128-point bright red Olde English Bold type. Any of these things would also send me screaming from the room.) Could the story be saved? Very possibly. If the author was to rewrite it in a more conventional way, told perhaps in 3rd person (or, god forbid, from just one character's point of view), then I might be able to enjoy the characters and story. But told from 4 or 5 simultaneous points of view... uh-uh. Convince me by finding me a published book by a mainstream author (not self-published), that also uses five 1st-person points of view in one chapter, and I'll fly you to LA and personally take you to dinner at Spago's, my treat.

You know, I thought about that for awhile, Cole, and finally decided that there are some "absolutes" when it comes to whether I can read a story. 1) it's gotta be in English. I only know enough Spanish to say "donde esta casa de Pepe," and enough Italian words to get a cab driver to take me to my hotel, but if it ain't in English, I'm lost. 2) it has to follow the basic rules of grammar and spelling (tenses have to agree, conventional punctuation, correct capitalization, and so on) 3) the structure needs to have a beginning, middle, and an end, at least to the point where a complete story is told (and I would lump "non-confusing point of view" in this category) 4) I need to be able to understand, if not identify with, the major characters in the story (not necessarily making them likeable, but at least making them realistic and plausible) 5) and most importantly, the story has to grab my interest and entertain me, and hopefully surprise me as it moves from chapter to chapter. There are always minor exceptions. For example, Stephen King invented quite a few non-English words in his recent novel Lisey's Story, like "Booya Moon," "blood bool," and "SOWISA" (or "strap on whenever it seems appropriate"). While that results in momentary confusion for some readers, it didn't bother me. (I'm reminded of his use of "SSDD" -- same shit, different day -- in past novels.) And the great poet e.e. cummings used unconventional spelling and capitalization for dramatic effect. I think that works in small doses, but not for a novel. To me, writing a novel is like building a house: there's a thousand different ways to do it, but some just flat-out won't work. For example, if you build a house of straw, it's bound to be rickety; even worse, try building a house out of toothpaste and cardboard. It might be artistic to try something radically new, but I don't think it's going to be satisfying for a wide audience. And using I can't think of a situation where using 4 or 5 points of view in a novel is going to be anything but cumbersome and oft-putting. Being conventional doesn't have to be boring, nor does it have to be non-artistic. I think the top 1000 best-sellers ever written, along with every Pulitzer Prize-winning book for literature, was written in a more-or-less conventional way that stays well-within the ranges of what I'm talking about. Of course, merely following all the above rules doesn't make the book good. By the same token, a movie that's well-shot, in perfect focus, with terrific sound and color and lighting, along with good acting, is not necessarily a good movie. You need a few more indefinable elements to make it work, but I'll leave that discussion for others. But if all those elements are bad at the start, it's going to be very, very hard to make me watch the movie from start to finish.