Steven Adamson

Could it be that a person might percieve there to be no sexual activity because they aren't part of it? 25 out of 50 boys might be getting it on without telling the other 25. It's like with international espionage. If you're doing your job as a spy agency really well, no one knows your country has a good spy agency. I brought Bond into this conversation, so it's fitting to acknowledge that the best spies look like boring ordinary people with no glamour. The only way to guage the extent of sex in a place like a boys school would be anonymous exit surveys to build a statistical picture. I'd be surprised if that doesn't already exist somewhere.

The title of the book is actually a play on an older, very famous, work, "At Swim-two-birds" by Flann OBrien. I tried reading At Swim-two-birds Starting in September and couldn't get into it. It's supposed to be funny, tongue in cheek stuff and I can see that, but the Irishness of it defeated me. The place names alone. But I intend to go back into it at some point (I kept it at my bedside) because I'm into things that break the narrative form and there's supposed to be a plot at some point where the novels characters start to fight with the author.

Usually the tales at notalwaysright.com are all about customer stupidity, but everynow and again a different kind of story comes along

Watched the recent Bond movie Skyfall. There's a scene where bond is tied to a chair and the villain is stroking bond's chest and making gay innuendo. Eventually he says something to Bond about this being his first time. (i.e. with a man) and Bond's reply was "What makes you think this is my first time?" In my mind, immediately, I responded to the screen, "Bond went to Eton. Of COURSE it's not his first time!" Guess I bought into the myth.

Just discovered this photostream doing a google search for moon pics. The guy seems to use props as well as photoshopping to create some surreal photos of himself. The moon pics are especially magical. http://www.flickr.co...129@N06/page11/

YES, absolutely, differentiate your names. I get so confused sometimes when there's a Ben and Bill in a story or a Mike and a Matt. I lose track of who means what to whom. (once read a story that had Mike, Mark and Matt. Damn, that pissed me off.) Also, DesDownUnder already rhymes with Chugwater, so maybe we SHOULD just change over to calling him that. :-)

I need an editor. Here's the job description: Length: 10000 words. Story type, mythological/alternate history Deadline. Dec 27th. (I only just found out about this deadline and my other source for fantasy/magic critiques seems to have fallen through) So, I'm shopping for anyone with the guts for this job. Usually I get Cole to critique, but he's said he isn't that comfortable with magic/fantasy stuff. (Of course if Cole is willing to take this one anyway, he's welcome.) :-) Reply here or message me if you're interested. Thanks. -Steven

behindthename.com gives meanings of names so you can try matching character traits to a name.

"A 14 year old boy should know beyond a doubt that it is wrong to kill another human being." See, I agree with you here, but we disagree on the next item on the chain of causality. I don't see a 14-year old as being able to fully consider the consequences of his actions or of being able to withstand the pressures to act against what he knows is right or wrong. (especially if he's told that gays are evil.) Point is, for me, that we as a society recognize the inability of kids to handle certain things, so we bar them from military service, drinking, driving etc. But the law needs to be a consistent scale. If the law says that kids are a special case, then they have to be a special case always, not just when convenient or when the politics are good for it.

"What if?" All my good stories start with me asking what if... and then you imagine all the ways that life becomes difficult if that thing happens. For instance, I have a story I plan to do based on 'what if a psychic kid knew he was going to die before he was an adult?' The key is what comes after that happens. You start wondering about the consequences of that what if: How would that kid treat his schoolwork? I mean, would you study calculus if you weren't going to use it as an adult? Would you even bother with school? How would that kid treat the idea of saving for college? How would he view drinking and driving? How would his parents deal with his insistence that he was going to die young? How would he look at friendships? What would his biggest goals be? fears? What if he's wrong about his destiny? What if he's got a plan to save the world, but he won't live long enough to enact it? Then there's step 3: deciding what problems created by the what if you want to follow and then figuring out ways the characters could deal with the problems, e.g. the psychic kid could find a way to convince his parents to donate his college fund to a worthy charity. Maybe he bribes them, or bargains with them, or even blackmails them. So, to sum up: 3 steps: 1) Imagine 'what if...?' 2) develop the interesting problems of such a thing happening 3) Find a way for a character to solve this consequence/problem. Of course, there's other stuff involved in development of the story, like plot , characterizations, descriptions etc, but that's perspiration. The inspiration is the three steps above. (And the inspiration is the comparatively easy part. And also the funnest.) In fact, it's so fun, I'm gonna throw out 5 what ifs right now in real time as I think of them: 1) What if only eunuchs could enter politics? 2) What if diamonds stop being rare because of cheap artificial diamonds that can't be told apart? 3) What if a mentally challenged kid had a great idea for his community but couldn't express his thoughts clearly? 4) What if the future of space exploration is robots with human brains? 5) What if you're an FBI agent at your class reunion and you find evidence that your 10th grade crush is a serial killer?

From oglaf.com, one of the best places for an adult perspective on fantasy, sci-fi and fairy tales. - - -

Wait, does this mean that Cole works at the seafood counter now?

I'm not getting the Barney Frank love here. He seems no better than any other politician and just as much a viper. For instance, in the last term he's accepted over half a million dollars from the financial, real estate and banking industries he's supposed to be regulating as chair of the financial services committee. http://maplight.org/us-congress/legislator/250-barney-frank Since the 2008 crisis, he's consistently pushed measures to keep housing prices inflated, to the benefit of his industry friends, and thus kept prices further out of reach of poor people while he talks about how important low-income housing is to him. On top of that, he's rumored to have gotten a job for his boyfriend at Fannie Mae while Frank was supposed to be overseeing Fannie Mae. Sure he was a gay spokesman, but we can do better than this, surely. I think we need not make him a saint. Just another politician who did business as usual.

Oooh! oooh! That sounds like it would be a cool first line for a story!

PR speak for we hammered the kid as hard as we could for the sake of the DA's political future. Sure he's probably already a completely different person from the one who committed the crime 3 years ago and sure, he's probably gonna get beat up and raped and all kinds of horrible things as a kid in the Adult penal system and sure he's probably gonna be a hardened criminal by the time he's thirty from having to fit in to prison culture, but we're trying to create a veneer of justice here, not actual justice. OHHHH, don't even get me started on how utterly ineffective these firearm 'surcharge' laws are. Dear prosecutors. Grabbing simplistically for all the time you can in slam dunk cases is not being tough on crime. More importantly, the public who votes for these boobs, needs to stop believing that. This is the most disturbing thing of all. Prosecutors threaten a defendant with inflated charges and use that to force plea bargains. There have been documented cases where innocent people have pleaded guilty just to avoid the risk of a high sentence. Radley Balko over at the Agitator has done great work for the last half decade documenting this and other patterns of Prosecutor abuse of the system. I urge you all to check it out. Then spend your time helping the legislature draft the right laws, dumbass! Using the wrong laws to try someone is just as bad as not having good laws to prosecute them under. It's injustice either way. Dude, re: what you said about the abusive dad. I had not heard that angle, but what you said makes me wish I had a like button for your post. :-)

Actually, all this talk about kids hurting each other in the name of fun reminds me of a story I wrote about ten years back that sits in the intersection of middle school, games, 'friendly violence' and fitting in. I shelved it because I couldn't decide if the ending was right or if I should continue and make a larger story of it. Think I'll dust that one off.

Actually, all this talk about kids hurting each other in the name of fun reminds me of a story I wrote about ten years back that sits in the intersection of middle school, games, 'friendly violence' and fitting in. I shelved it because I couldn't decide if the ending was right or if I should continue and make a larger story of it. Think I'll dust that one off.

And therein lies my puzzlement. There are few "YAY!"s in this thread. Did so many of us at AD have bad experiences? It bears looking into: Are writers generally dodgeball-bait?

Why the dodgeball hate? Maybe I'm a masochist, but getting tagged by a high-speed ball in any kind of sport was kind of a part of the thrill. As Alfred Hitchcock says it's about the enjoyment of fear. There's no adrenaline if they're throwing feathers. And if it left a mark that stayed all day (or sometimes even half a week), then that was a badge of honor. Of course, I went to a school without much of a bullying culture, so it was all in good fun and no one ever got picked on for being bad at things (unless they were jerks of some kind, then they were fair game.)

Not just that you could tell who reads comics. You could tell who reads good comics.

At which point we will gladly suggest places for him to buy liquor online! Right guys? Um, guys?

THE SCENE: A Scottish old timer in Scotland, in a bar, talking to a young man. Old Man: "Lad, look out there to the field. Do ya see that fence? Look how well it's built. I built that fence stone by stone with me own two hands. Piled it for months. But do they call me McGregor-the-Fence-Builder? Nooo.." Then the old man gestured at the bar. "Look here at the bar. Do ya see how smooth and just it is? I planed that surface down by me own achin' back. I carved that wood with me own hard labour, for eight days. But do they call me McGregor-the-Bar-builder? Nooo..." Then the old man points out the window. "Eh, Laddy, look out to sea. Do ya see that pier that stretches out as far as the eye can see? I built that pier with the sweat off me back. I nailed it board by board. But do they call me McGregor-the-Pier-Builder? Nooo..." Then the old man looks around nervously, trying to make sure no one is paying attention. "But ya fuck one goat . . . " ------- Man, I write ONE vampire story and show it to Cole... I don't recall reading any vampire fiction at those sites. Half the stuff there is pure sci-fi in any case. ray guns, clones and aliens. Of course, I do know of a magazine that specializes in alien vampires...

I think it came off pretty well, and dignified enough, especially since Conan seemed to stay out of it once things got started and let the principals be the focus. Video here: http://gawker.com/58...ing-on-his-show PS Only worry was that the audience did actually snicker when Conan mentioned the Universal Life Church.

I know a few places to find sci-fi & fantasy stuff: lightspeedmagazine.com fantasy-magazine.com http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/ http://www.strangehorizons.com/index.shtml http://dailysciencefiction.com/ http://www.tor.com/stories http://eschatologyjournal.org/ http://redstonesciencefiction.com/fiction/ And of course, for classics of all kinds there's Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Category:Bookshelf I also want to recommend some excellent web comics: http://www.abominable.cc/2007/06/20/episode-1/ (Amazing art and subtle, layered storytelling) http://www.goblinscomic.com/archive/ (Art takes some getting used to, but excellent, epic story) http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-06-12 (Art is isn't anatomically correct, but it tells the story well and the comic is funny.) Good luck with the kid, Richard.

behindthename.com I love this one because it gives you meanings for names. So, you can fit a name to a character. You might be the only one to know why the cutest boy in the story is named Kevin or why the one who likes to tinker with mechanical things is named Wayne, but I think the fact that you know helps to keep that character's actions in line with who you want them to be. Not that I always do this for characters. Sometimes you just like a name no matter what the meaning.