Graeme

There are some things that it's perfectly acceptable to be overly cautious about. Brain function is definitely one of them. When I detected a lump in my calf muscle last year I went to the effort of getting it checked out thoroughly (including x-rays, ultrasound and MRI scan). It was highly unlikely to be cancer, but it's one of those things that it's better to be safe than sorry (and no, it wasn't cancer).

I've read that one before, but it's still funny. It's also been a long time since anything was posted here, so thanks TR!

Just to prove that we don't agree completely, I have to mildly disagree with a couple of things you said. I think it's more natural to write about what they are familiar with. That does vary from rural to urban, but there are certainly types of conflict that span both environments -- people are still people, after all. My roots are urban, though I now live in a semi-rural area. Despite, or because, of that, all three of my novels are set outside of cities. I've done that partially because there are so many stories set in cities that I wanted to be different, plus there are only a handful of stories set in the Australian countryside, but I also find it fascinating. The way of life in a rural setting can be quite different to an urban setting and that offers up some interesting possibililties. Speak for yourself! :D Of course, it depends on your definition of old. However, I have to concede that I find it hard for me to write characters that don't act logically. In New Brother, I wanted to David and Adam to maintain their conflict, but I had a lot of trouble with David keeping his attitude to gays -- I just considered him too sensible to disbelieve the evidence in front of his eyes. I therefore had to find another reason for conflict. Okay, I'll agree with this one. Tragedy also moves the heart strongly. It reminds the readers that "And they lived happily ever after" isn't universal. PS: I was thinking of moving this thread to the Writers Workshop forum. What do people think?

I voted for memory, because that's what I use more than anything else. I usually concentrate on one book at a time, so the issue that TR mentioned doesn't apply. However, I also use an improvised bookmark a lot. The most common one used to be airline boarding passes as I like to read when I'm on a plane, and the boarding pass is just there.... At one point I used to get new boarding passes every couple of weeks, so it wasn't a big deal if I lost one.

~hugs~

And just adding to Blue's last post, I was a new writer two years ago, and I remember how nervous I was when I started posting my first story. I was lucky in that I didn't get any real negative feedback, but I didn't start by posting at Nifty. I also had a couple of people mentor me and make suggestions on how to improve as I went along -- something I found immeasurably helpful.

Story/scene concepts that are fairly generic I would not consider to be plagarism. This then scales down to specifics which would be plagarism. So, if you wrote a scene that involved a situation on a train, that, by itself, wouldn't be plagarism as this is a common situation in real-life and couldn't be considered to be copying an idea from another author. Even if there were elements of similarities with another story, if you wrote it independently I wouldn't consider it to be plagarism, though it's getting greyer (consider recent court cases where elements of similarities have been made between old stories and new, popular stories. The issue has been partially if there is SUFFICIENT similarity to be able to reasonably claim that the story has been copied). However, if the actual words are identical, or very, very similar, or if the situation is so unusual that it can't be reasonably expected to independently derived, then that is likely to be plagarism. From what you describe, you are more concerned about being accused of plagarism, rather than whether you have plagarised. Use the above guidelines to decide for yourself if you could be realistically accused. Just because there are a few points of similarity, that doesn't make it plagarism. The differences are equally important. As an example, in my stories there are situation where a character is bashed. This obviously has similarities with lots of other stories where characters are bashed, especially gay-bashings, but I don't consider that to be plagarism because: a) It's a logical consequence of prior events in the story. b) It's not an uncommon occurence and can be realistically expected to occur, given the right situation. c) There are unique features that distinguish them from scenes of gay-bashings in other stories. On the other hand, if I wrote a story that involved someone travelling on the London Underground, and who boarded the third carriage of the third train that had arrived, and then got off at a station that had been closed many years before, I suspect WBMS would be sending me nasty emails about copying ideas from his stories, as the situation is too specific for it to be considered to be anything other than plagarism. Just my opinion. Graeme

There are different genre's in writing simply because different people like to read about different things. The romance story is for those that like emotions, and falling in and out of love. The action story is for those that like quick moving plots. I'm being simplistic, but the first is generally character driven after the initial scene is set, while the later is often driven along by a series of events that appear in sequence (and hopefully a believeable sequence). I'm using these two genres because they tend to be at opposite ends of the spectrum, and I'm well aware there are many other genre's reflected in gay writing. There is conflict in both types, but it is of a very different nature, and, as The Pecman said, this is what keeps the reader reading. The romance reader keeps going to see if there is a happy couple at the end or not. The action reader reads to find what is going to happen next and is the hero(ine) going to survive or not (and will they "win"). By its nature, the gay genre tends to have more in common with the romantic/erotic genre, but there are some quite good action stories out there as well. As for the amount of conflict, that's a judgement call, and it's a very subjective one. If I'm reading a story that is being driven largely by the characters, then I generally only tolerate a small number of "outside" events driving the plot along. A personal dislike is when someone is killed, such as a parent, just to drive the plot along, especially road accidents. Yes, it does happen, but not that often. If it is going to happen, I would prefer it to be near the start of the story, as part of the setting of the scene, rather than introduced later to help keep the story going. Too many of these "outside" events and I find it too unbelievable. It can still be a great story, but it'll be a sore point for me. On the other hand, a story that is being driven by "outside" events can have a large number of such events without bothering me, because I will be "taught" to expect that from early in the story. Most mainstream action novels are a good example. I will expect a certain degree of internal consistency (like the bad guys keep catching up the to hero and threatening his life somehow, even if he has no ideas who they are or why they are doing it), but I'm happy to accept little details that might otherwise be unbelievable (how do they keep finding him?). My personal writing tends to be on the character driven side. I'll have some "outside" events occur, but I like to keep them to a minimum.

I've said it before, but I rarely comment on poetry because I don't have the nous to fully appreciate it. That's a problem with me, not the poet. I've definitely enjoyed your prose and I hope I've commented on most of them (though I know I haven't on all).

Thanks for the comment! I have quite a few characters to introduce, and I didn't want to swamp the reader with all of them at once. You're right that all you have is a small teaser about Karen, and in hindsight that maybe wasn't enough. However, it won't be long before she makes an appearance. The story is mainly written to be read in one go, but unless everyone was willing to wait for several months, that wasn't going to happen. The downside of that is that you get these little isolated snippets that you then have to wait before you get clarification. As for Rhys's dad, I thought I was clear. Can you please PM or email me and we can discuss this offline without ruining the detail for anyone who hasn't read the chapter yet. Graeme :-)

Nice try, but I don't hand out psychic wedgies

Thanks, Blue. I have to say that I hadn't considering include vampires into the story... would a few bats be enough to keep you happy? Thanks in particular for your comments regarding the characters. I've been trying to balance character development with plot development. Graeme :)

My first reaction was to point you towards the "Best of Nifty" that's available from a link on the main site here. However, I understand your request is slightly different. What you're talking about is to try to find a "like-minded" reviewer, and read what's on their list. I'm not sure how effective this will be, as any given person is likely to have read and recommended a minor number of stories, but I think it might be worth investigating. One thing to consider would be linking it somehow to the Best of Nifty site, so not only do you have a list of the best stories, but recommendations on those stories from different reviewers. Only an idea, of course, and it may be too difficult to organise. Graeme

Thanks everyone. I'll just say that the story is only just starting, and there are a number of other characters still to be introduced. I learnt my lesson from New Brother and I'm letting the characters introduce themselves as they appear in the story, rather than hitting the reader with lots of introductions all at once.

Nice site, Paul! I'll just add a small piece of history. There has, to the best of my knowledge, been one, and only one, Rolls Royce ute ever made. The manufacturers were horrified when they found out what the owner had done to their beloved vehicle....

About half the emails I've received so far have asked that same question: What's a ute? Ute: short for Utility vehicle. Known in the USA as a pickup truck. Graeme :D

For generic feedback, a public forum is fine. For specific feedback, putting it into a public forum runs the risk of potentially spoiling the story for those who have not read up to that point yet by mentioning a key event.

My eldest boy is currently using phonics to learn to read. He's finding it quite helpful. One thing I've noticed, though, is that he continually using phonics to work out the same words, rather than remembering them. He's slowly getting past that, but I think, as a parent, it's a better way than the simple memorisation of a list of words (one of the other primary schools in our area sends it's kinder students home with lists of words to memorise each week).

I have to apologise because I still haven't gotten around to reading this story, but in comment to the above, labels are important in that they help us put a discussion in context, but they can also distort and hide information because there are always cases that don't fit those labels. Using myself as an example, I consider myself to be gay, not bi. However, I'm in a monogamous heterosexual relationship, which many people would think makes me straight....

Happy Easter, everyone!

I don't normally post newspaper article here, but I thought this one was relevant -- Graeme When an author's muse packs up and leaves By Catherine Keenan April 14, 2006 Source: The Sydney Morning Herald Some of literature's biggest names have been struck down, but writer's block is not always an angst-ridden affliction. When Gabriel Garcia Marquez recently ann-ounced that he was giving up writing, the news was reported around the world. The 78-year-old told the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia that last year was the first in his life in which he hadn't written even a line, and that his heart was not in it any more. Fans mourned news that there would be no more magical stories, while sager voices reminded us that writers, like engineers and accountants, often say they're quitting and carry on just the same. Paul Valery, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Maeve Binchy and Morris West have done it. News of Garcia Marquez's literary death may yet be an exaggeration. Yet it is an oddly troubling fact that many writers do stop writing. After In Cold Blood, Truman Capote became the most lionised writer in America - and never published another book. The film Capote suggests this was down to guilt over his duplicitous behaviour towards Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, the murderers he supported then let swing when it suited him. Gerald Clarke's biography, on which the film is based, is more nuanced, adding that Capote's tragic view of life would have tripped him up sooner or later anyway, as would the booze and pills, and that he was paralysed by ambitions that ballooned to monstrous levels. For all the adulation, In Cold Blood did not win the Pulitzer or the National Book Award, and Capote determined that the only way to avenge this terrible slight was to write something so brilliant nobody could ever say a word against it. For years, he told everyone this book was Answered Prayers, a dark comedy about the very rich, whose title derived from a quote from St Theresa of Avila about how more tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. He never finished it, but its sentiment became the coda to his life. Capote wrote, Clarke argues, as a means to an end, a way of finding fame and adulation and the love denied him as a child. When he got it, he realised, inevitably, that it was hollow. The reason for writing evaporated. Capote's childhood friend Harper Lee is often assumed to have suffered from prayers too fully answered. She made possibly the greatest literary debut of all time with To Kill a Mockingbird, winning the Pulitzer (galling to Capote) and selling more than 10 million copies. But in the 46 years since, she has produced only three magazine articles, all in the '60s. In a rare interview in 1964, she said: "I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected." In the same interview, she said she was working on another novel; we do not know what happened to it. The paradigmatic case of the dangers of early success remains F.Scott Fitzgerald, who after The Great Gatsby became an alcoholic wash-up, a perfect example of his famous dictum that "there are no second acts in American lives". (Ironically, there was for him. He died believing himself forgotten, but a posthumous re-evaluation made him over into the literary giant he remains.) J.D. Salinger is perhaps the most famous case of literary renunciation, though it is possible he has only stopped publishing, not writing. His daughter, Margaret Salinger, claims he keeps piles of unpublished novels and short stories in a vault, to be released after his death. Yet if success can paralyse, the lack of it can do the same. After the spectacular critical and commercial failure of Moby Dick, Herman Melville's despondency cut his productivity down to a trickle over the next 40 years. The indifference of the British reading public and the critical establishment saw Barbara Pym give up writing entirely, as she moved to the country with her cat. Playwrights, who need their work performed, are especially prone to fits of giving in: Somerset Maugham, Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams all went through periods of turning their backs on their art. Of the many interesting facts Zachary Leader unearths in his book Writer's Block, one of the most surprising is that the term "writer's block" dates back only to 1950, when it was used by Edmund Bergler in The Writer and Psychoanalysis. Leader claims it still has no direct translation in French or German, and is often regarded as an American affliction, indulged only by those who don't have to earn a living from their pen. Yet the concept has been around for some time. Writers, like other artists, have probably always struggled with their work, but the notion that an inability to write might be a specific affliction dates back to the romantic period when the whole notion of writing changed. Before then, it was understood to be the product of effort and discipline, much like tanning hides or embroidery. The romantics, however, recast it as a gift bestowed in moments of inspiration, which had the corollary effect of making the writer less an agent and more a receptacle of a kind of divine grace. The failure to write thus became strangely externalised and largely beyond a writer's control. Before then, he or she simply wasn't working hard enough. It fits, then, that the first great poet of writer's block was Wordsworth, whose Prelude is part of a paradoxically rich tradition of writing about the difficulty of writing. Wordsworth, like Keats, often battled with block, though neither was floored by it as spectacularly as Coleridge. The poems for which he is remembered, such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan (another classic of writing about the impossibility of writing), were all written when he was a young man. He remained a prolific letter writer and journalist for the rest of his life but he became increasingly unable to write what most mattered to him: poetry. He penned twice as many lines between the ages of 18 and 26 as in the following 36 years. It is impossible to give across-the-board explanations for why writers get blocked. There are so many reasons for writing and, presumably, just as many for giving it up. Modern theories, such as that espoused by Bergler in his book, are often psychoanalytic and tend to emphasise factors in the personal past. But Coleridge, like many writers, saw himself as crippled by the weight of the artistic past, by what critic Harold Bloom would later call the anxiety of influence. "I have too clearly before me the idea of a poet's genius to deem myself any other than a very humble poet," Coleridge lamented. As Joan Acocella argued in a marvellous essay in The New Yorker, many cases are inextricably tied to alcohol and drugs and depression, and it can be hard to tell where one ends and the other starts. Whatever its cause, the notion of block is always one of wrestling with an external condition, and to this extent it has a much mythologised heroic dimension. De Quincey recalls seeing Coleridge deliver a lecture during the height of his block, in 1808, and talks of his appearance being "generally that of a person struggling with pain and overmastering illness. His lips were baked with feverish heat, and often black in colour; and, in spite of the water which he continued drinking through the whole course of his lecture, he often seemed to labour under an almost paralytic inability to raise the upper jaw from the lower." Yet Coleridge never stopped trying to write poetry, and it is another of the great paradoxes of the condition that his inability to do so became a kind of proof of his genius - a sign that he was aiming for heights so lofty that others did not even attempt them. Perversely, those who write quickly and easily are not always considered to have the greatest natural facility. In her essay, Acocella notes that the publication of Anthony Trollope's autobiography in 1883 effectively ruined his reputation because it revealed he wrote every day from 5.30am to 8.30am, with a strict quota of 250 words every quarter of an hour. If he finished one novel before 8.30, he simply took out another piece of paper and started the next. This allowed him to produce a staggering 49 novels in 35 years, but it also relegated him to the second rank for years. There is, of course, something grandiose about this romantic idea of writing. The brutal truth is that it is an ill-regarded job, paying virtually nothing and requiring long solitary hours and isolation. Perhaps in order to keep going one must think of it as something more magnificent that one has no choice but to do. And perhaps this is why writers who choose to give up writing remain the most troubling. Undoubtedly, the greatest example - perversely, because his is such a romantic story - is the French poet Rimbaud. Still in his teens, he not only rewrote the rule book on poetry but lived a life that was the very embodiment of the romantic ideal. He was wildly rebellious, handsome and an early advocate of the "rational derangement of all the senses". He had a hugely tempestuous affair with the older, married poet Paul Verlaine, during which the latter shot him in the wrist, but after stunning the literary world with Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell) he didn't publish another thing. He didn't make a grand gesture of farewell to his art: his poems simply petered out, and his last one is a ditty in a letter to a friend about soldiers farting. He never appeared to regret leaving it behind. As Graham Robb writes in his elegant biography, Rimbaud: "There is no evidence that Rimbaud simply woke up one day and found that his muse had packed her bags." In contrast, Robb argues that such careless abandonment is part of a pattern that defined Rimbaud's life. He quit his family, his friends, his lovers, his country and his ideals. A former communard, he became a mercenary. After he deserted from the army, he became a recruiter. He begged, worked in a circus, lost a fortune in a casino, became an arms dealer and was worshipped as a kind of prophet in parts of Abyssinia. Experience was what Rimbaud hungered for. Eventually poetry, like everything andeveryone else, had to give way to that. This is not, in fact, that unusual. The English novelist E.M. Forster, for instance, wrote five great novels by the age of 35, then A Passage to India, possibly his greatest book, 10 years later. But for the next 40 years, he wrote no fiction at all, though he did become a noted biographer and journalist. People have long speculated why this was so: some say that he had simply written out his vision, exhausted the store of ideas and insights granted to him. But Nicola Beauman argues in Morgan: A biography of E.M. Forster that Forster's gradual acceptance of his homosexuality meant he was no longer interested in writing about the only subject he could treat properly - heterosexuality. As Forster gained independence from his mother and entered a long and loving relationship, the simple truth is that he became happier and didn't need to write any more. Other writers give up writing, sometimes temporarily, without regretting it. Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize with her first novel, The God of Small Things, but since then she simply seems to have found better things to do than write fiction, and has become a vociferous activist in India. In her final interview before her death at 85, Judith Wright told Ramona Koval that she stopped writing poetry at 70 because she simply lost the urge. "Sometimes you just find that something isn't there any longer that was there. It isn't sad. It's just right." Gerald Murnane has announced his exit, apparently without regret, and who knows, perhaps Harper Lee is happily sipping cocktails by a pool in Alabama, with nary a thought of another book. So perhaps we won't hear from Garcia Marquez again, and he might not regret this, either. It is hard to know which to hope for. Catherine Keenan is the Herald's new literary editor.

WARNING: There are people on this site who have threaten grevious bodily harm for those authors that provide spoilers Just warning you :D so you know what you're letting yourself in for. Cheers! Graeme :)

I also proof from a print out, though I also use the screen. The change in format helps bring the eye to what is actually written, rather than what you expect to be written. A change of font or size can do the same thing. This is also why people will sometimes spot mistakes on the final webpage that they didn't spot earlier.

I probably should let one of the editors or more technically knowledgeable authors talk about this, but the example given is what I believe to be second-person point of view, not first or third. I'm going to try write the same passage a few different ways, and I suspect I'm about to make a fool of myself with my understanding of the different terms :D Third person, past tense: First person, past tense: *about to start struggling* First person, present tense: Third person, present tense: I have to admit that I find reading and writing in past tense a lot more natural, but I know someone from a strong non-English speaking background that said they find present tense writing a lot more natural to them. I therefore suspect my preference is partially cultural.