Graeme

LOL -- thanks, but I want to work on a sequel, and I want to give myself time to have a decent start before Leopard Skin Cover finishes posting. This will be my first sequel and I don't want to be rushed I will say that Leopard Skin Cover is 15 chapters in length, so you won't have to wait overly long before it's finished.

Unfortunately, it's in the exact same place and most of the characters will be the same. But I think I'm on the right track. Thank you!

Thank you, both! That's what I had planned, but given how much happens in the first book, I only wanted to cover the highpoints and to not have to go into too much detail about the characters.

When writing a sequel, how much knowledge from the previous novel is it acceptable to assume? In the example I'm thinking of, the second novel continues immediately after the first novel, but I really don't want to spend pages repeating the current story situation, or explaining who all the characters are. Some repetition I think is reasonable, but how much should I be doing? While the sequel has a different story line from the original novel, there are story threads planted in the first novel that will come to fruition in the second. Indeed, from one point of view, the first novel constitutes the background for the second. Is it acceptable to assume that the reader has read the first novel when they start the second? After all, you wouldn't start Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series in the middle -- you'd start from the beginning (not that what I've got planned is by any means comparable to the WoT series, apart from both being fiction).

I was curious, so I searched out the text of the house bill: http://legiscan.com/AZ/text/HB2153/2014 Interestingly, all it requires is for someone to have a sincere religious belief. For example, all that's required to refuse service to someone is to have a religious objection to something about them... even if that something is not true. For example, if someone believes that a person is gay, and they feel homosexuality is against their religious beliefs, then they can refuse to serve that person. They are, as far as I can tell, not required to have proof that the person is gay -- they just have to believe it. More interestingly, the same would apply to things like Muslims and anything to do with alcohol. A Muslim taxi-driver, for example, could refuse to take a passenger to a bar, or even a hotel that serves alcohol. Hmm... I presume that alcohol will be available at the Superbowl, so how about taxi drivers refusing to take people there? What about a devout Jewish male refusing to serve women, just on the off chance that they're in the wrong portion of their menstrual cycle and anything she touches will be defined (Leviticus 15:19-33)? Will women be required to provide evidence as to where they are in their menstrual cycle before they can check into a hotel, get into a taxi, sit down at a restaurant...? Oh, the fun you can have with this legislation if you really want to. What if you had a religious belief against paying interest (a generous interpretation of Leviticus 25:36)? Does that mean you can refuse to pay banks interest on loans?

I've just come off a three year hiatus from writing. The first part of that time I spent on a new novel, but I never finished it. I may go back to it one day, but for now it's sitting unfinished. Part of the reason for stopping was because of some real-life events. In particular, the horrendous Black Saturday bushfires here in Victoria. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but that's about the time when I stopped writing. I lacked both motivation and inspiration, and I didn't regain them for a long time. Merkin's comment about about the problem with starting with chapter 1, paragraph 1 is interesting, because I started my writing career with a single scene; a scene that ended up not appearing until chapter 8 of that novel. I don't know how many times I've written future scenes that I then incorporate into the story when appropriate. I'm doing that at the moment. I've got a block on how to start the sequel to Leopard Skin Cover, but I've got some scenes I want to include in that opening chapter, so I've started writing those, and I'll go back to the start at a later date. On perfection vs crap, I've had that problem, too. Well... I don't think I've ever aimed for perfection, just something decent. However, sometimes I'll write something and it just doesn't work out. It happens, and I'll go back to delete it eventually. I remember a couple of scenes I wanted to put into Heart of The Tree that never made it in because they just weren't working. The solution I came up with was to put those two scenes off-camera, and show the aftermath, rather than the scene itself. So... my suggestion for when a block happens is to write something else and come back to it later. That could be writing something completely different, or write a scene that appears elsewhere in the story. If nothing at all is working, go for a walk, see a movie, make love to your partner... whatever you like as long as it's completely different and will take your mind off writing. Sometimes we all just need a break

If you edit the first post, then click to use the full editor, you can edit the title of the post.

The double post has been removed Another review of the decision at ScotusBlog: http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/02/kentucky-ruling-on-same-sex-marriages/

That's in the article I linked Andrey Ozerny wrote a letter to the Mayor to inform him otherwise...

Sochi's gays wary of world's attention

Thank you! I didn't like having a hiatus of almost five years, but I'm happy to be writing again :) For the readers who don't like starting a story that may not get completed, I finished the first draft of the final chapter on the weekend, so I can guarantee that the story will be completed.

Spellchecking is usually a feature of the browser you're using, not the forums. I'm using Firefox with the Australian dictionary and it highlights the words I misspell and a right click gives me suggestions. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for most purposes.

Ditto It really is appreciated that you've taken the time to ask. There may be some authors who won't want you to do what you've said, but I think most authors won't mind someone downloading a story for personal use only. I remember asking once if I could print off a story to take on a long-distance plane trip and the author was fine with that Happily, I didn't have to explain the story to the customs officers at the end of the flight....

Very much just getting started I'm not really expecting much in the way of comments on the story until a few chapters in when the situation develops more.

I don't believe this is unique to the gay press. Body image has been an ongoing issue with teenagers for at least ten, if not twenty, years to my knowledge. I can appreciate that it might have more impact on gay teenagers, but it's not unique to them and I'm not even sure it's really impacting them more than the general teenage population. It's not just our stories. Consider the teenage soaps -- how many people are in those TV shows that don't have a great body image? How many males, gay and straight, admire athletes, who, again, almost always have great bodies? Today's society is still very much focused on body image. There was a lot of emphasis a number of years ago on dietary problems that this caused, especially in young women. The use of steroids by young men appears to be the next evolution in an ongoing issue.

Uganda leader blocks anti-gay law How much of what he's said as to the reasons is real and how much is just public rationalisation? I suspect he's under so much international pressure he had to back down and this is his way of saving face. Despite that, it's still the right thing to do, even if the reasons are warped and may not hold up in the future.

On a personal note, we took both of our boys out of school a few years ago to go on a holiday. We had the support of the school, as they saw the experiences of an overseas trip being educational in its own right. Both of our boys were primary school kids at the time, and we were going for a four week holiday in the USA, visiting lots of educational places like Disney World in Florida. We did take some time out for the non-educational places, like the Johnson Space Centre, Kennedy Space Centre, and a couple of the Smithsonian museums in DC, but they were a minor part of the trip....

Er... did you miss the bit about it being worse in 1908? It wasn't due to global warming then.... However, your comment did remind me of a short story by a friend of mine that I read once regarding congressional fact-finding trips: First to the Sun I'm sure you'll agree it's an excellent idea where real-life should be made to mimic fiction

Actually, some places do play aussie rules football in that sort of weather Mainly in Darwin, the capital city closest to the equator, but it happens. I've spending most of this week inside airconditioned buildings, not even going outside for lunch. I'm working from home today, and the fans/airconditioners are already flat out (and it's only 7am!). It's been an odd week. On one particular day, Darwin was forecast to be the coolest capital city in the country! Melbourne hasn't had a heatwave of this duration since 1908, though there have been heatwaves close to this recently (one had a day in the middle of a long run that only reached 39C, and so didn't meet the 'consecutive days of 40+C' criteria being used by the news reports). The scary thing for us at the moment isn't the temperature, but the fire risk. We evacuated during the Black Saturday bushfires, and my wife spend most of yesterday monitoring the Internet, keeping track of fires in our area to determine if we needed to evacuate again. So far, there's been no major fires near us, but we have to keep watching....

Gay sex was decriminalised here in Victoria in 1980, but it's taken until 2014 for convictions from before 1980 to be removed from the records of the people involved. Victorian men convicted of gay sex to get convictions removed

As a father, I'd like to believe there's still hope that a child of mine in that situation could recover. It may not be rational, but it's very, very human. How long it would be before I gave up that hope...? I hope I never have to find out.

I seem to remember a case a few years ago, where something like this happened. There was a law at the time that treated oral sex differently to vaginal sex. A girl performed oral sex on her boyfriend, and her parents got him charged with child molestation because of that. There was an huge outcry, which is how I managed to hear about it all the way over here in Australia. The story is on Wikipedia: Wilson v. State of Georgia

Won't happen The timing of Easter is defined by the historical events. That is, the crucifixion is documented as occuring on a Friday, and the resurrection occurs on a Sunday, so the days of the week are fixed. I'm not aware of why it's fixed as the occurring after a full moon, but I'm sure there are historical reasons for that. For Christmas, you're talking about two distinct groups that would oppose doing what you're suggesting. The first are the Christians who will point out that a birth occurs on a single day of the year, and what day of the week that is will vary from year to year. After all, everyone else's birthday is fixed to a day of the year, why are you proposing that this particular one be different? The other group that would be opposed are those that want the holiday. Putting Christmas on a Sunday will remove a public holiday from all those people who want that extra day off. That's a huge challenge to overcome. Minor groups that would be opposed would be those that make movies and books regarding Christmas, with all of those becoming out-dated if the event no longer occurred on Dec 25th. Not a big deal, but every opinion counts.... Now, there are still possibilities here. For example, here in Victoria, we celebrate the Queen's birthday on the second Monday in June, regardless of the actual date of her birthday. If you did similar for Christmas -- that is, make it a celebration of the event, rather than a celebration of the day, and put it on a Monday or Friday -- you might have a chance of swinging it. It probably still wouldn't happen, but it's a better chance than if you try to make it a Sunday.

Taking a slightly different tack, this isn't unique to America. I, personally, was disappointed on the commercialism side with Christmas this year. Yes, our boys iPad's didn't arrive in time, even though we ordered them mid November. The supplier had problems getting them from Apple, apparently. Also, the turkey we got turned out to be pre-stuffed, something we didn't want since we have a family member with dietary constraints and that meant they couldn't have any turkey because of the risk of cross-contamination. So, I whined for a bit... and then moved on. It was more a disappointment than anything else. The boys will still get their iPads (needed for school next year) and we were having roast beef as well as roast turkey, so the family member still had food to eat. It wasn't the end of the world.

Ohio ban on gay marriage ruled unconstitional This only applies to whether a marriage outside of the state is recognised within the state when it comes to death certificates, so it doesn't legalise same-sex marriage within Ohio, but it's another logical consequence of the Supreme Court's Windsor decision. As the article says, it is expected to fuel more court cases challenging the ban on same-sex marriage.