Cole Parker

That CANNOT be real! That HAS to be farce. And can anyone tell me the difference between prancing and gallivanting? C

I've had to log in several times now where the computer should have remembered me. I will bashfullly admit to a certain degree of being unmemorable, but I'd hoped things might have been better with a computer than with people. Evidently not. Very disappointing. C

You made me laugh out loud, Trab. Thanks. I love that. C

Just proves that you artists don't know how to evaluate your own work. Art is subjective. People see and appreciate things the creators were often unaware of or that were unintended. Just be happy you wrote something that pleased others. That's a very worthwhile accomlishment. C

WBMS: Your writing is so enthralling, Wib, that any place you stop becomes an automatic cliffhanger. Now that that's settled, I've got some great penny stocks I'd like to unload, er, I mean, that are a great value that I'll sell you just because I admire your writing so much. C

Besides, it's much more important to please Cole than Trab. C

WONDERFUL! I'M WAITING. THANK YOU. C

Both are excellent stories. I have a personal fondness of British schoolboy stories, and Bruin does them so very well! I loved this one. Wish he'd write more! C

If you really don't want two points of view, and I can appreciate that, you're sort of left with writing it in thrird person. I just recently had to convert a first person chapter to third, and it was a trial, but a great learning experience, too. You probably should consider that. Many books are written in limited thrid person with the thoughts of only one of the characters specified. But many are in universal third, also, and you could try that. Or, you could extend the limited third POV from one person to two. You might try making that change for a few pages and see what it looks like. Cole

It's a good question but difficult to answer. It depends on so many things. One of the things that people seem to consider when writing a serialized novel for posting on the Internet is chapter length. Many published novels have chapters of all different lengths, sometimes only a page, sometimes thirty-five pages. The author simply ends one where it feels appropriate to do so, no matter the length. When we're writing on the Net, readers expect chapters they've been waiting for to be of a length that satisfies them till the next one comes out. I've found that if I write chapters of less than, say, 3500 words, I hear about it, sometimes nastily. I'm sure I'd make chapter breaks in much different places if I were writing for publication. But there's no real right or wrong for this. What feels right for your story probably is right. Cole

I read something a couple of messages ago and am too lazy to go back and look who wrote it, but it said or asked something about is one gay if he only loves one person, one male person? That's interesting, isn't it? Is a person heterosexual is he loves one woman and isn't attracted to others? I've always heard it said a man was heterosexual if he loved members of the other sex. If a man was attracted to women, and loved women, he was straight. Is it the same with gay men, that they are gay only if they love and are attracted to other men, not man? This whole labelling thing has always concerned me. I think many of us don't fit exactly with what the labels are supposed to tell us. It's like stereotyping. One doesn't fit all. Everyone is a unique individual with personalitiy traits that differ. It may be more convenient to say we're gay, or straight if that fits, but I think it's frequently true that the label has flaws. I think it's better to say that than to say the person has flaws if he doesn't fit the label. What an interesting and deep topic. C

When you write this story, perhaps, if you're honest, the person that represents 'you' in the story, the one who discovers someone of the same sex that attracts 'you', turns 'you' on, fulfills 'your' needs, completes 'you', will do what so many people do. He will go with the values his upbringing has inculcated him with, the values that are so strongly supported by most elements of the society he lives in, and reject that possible love and completion. He'll just move on, denying himself the chance for that once-in-a-lifetime relationship, because it's just so much easier to ingore his attraction as wrong for him. Isn't that what usually happens? I certainly accept your premise, that most anyone can be attracted to most anyone else. But after that initial attraction, that's when all the other garbage society throws at us takes over. C

Very special indeed. It's the best site of its type on the Net. I'm perfectly content to blame it all on Mike. C

Perhaps 'Bug' is his new nickname for the embattled b/f.C

Perhaps you'd have to identify the switch-hitters first. C

Jason, I for one would really miss your blog. I am entertained and educated and pissed off and made to feel wonderful by it. Your writing is illuminating. You do things I hate reading about--think drugs--and you come through them, and you do things I really like--think about how you use your intelligence to see things right, even if it's belatedly, think about your perseverance, about your sense of humor, about, no, stop, this isn't where I wanted to get bogged down--and you always manage to write about them in ways that keep me enthralled. I know more about you, and care more about you, because of your blog.You say, you wrote, that what you don't like about your blog is that it's all about you. May I suggest, then, that you continue your blog, simply change the focus? That way we wouldn't be deprived of your wit and perspective, and you'd be free from what now bothers you. Win win, it would appear.Whatever you do, you've made a supporter out of me. Thanks for what you've written. And I'll hope, even if it's a selfish hope, for more.C

Or a GSA football team. If they can play football, all of a sudden they'd be heroes, and no one in SC would even consider banning them. C

In some places, people will still fight for injustice to the bitter end. C

What I get from this isn't that computer programs built for writers are good or bad, but that different writers have their own ways of working, and that what works for them works for them and may well not be what works for someone else. And I think that sums up writing pretty well. Do what works. I think both Pec and Trab are right. For those for whom their advice works. We've got to find what works for us, and then go at it. C

I had the same experience. I got rid of Norton, something incidentally that's quite a task to do completely, and installed AVG and it found several problems that Norton hadn't and completely eliminated them. It's the same cost, or less, than Norton, and works better. That's a pretty good combination. I probably should add here that Colin recommended it, or I'll be hearing from him. C

I hate to be the one to point it out, but someone neeeds to. Creature With Fur is an anagram for, of all things--and it certainly doesn't apply here--Cute Rear With Fur. I do notice, we never actually see tha back of the beast. C

I usually write it 'coon, but got caught up in the desperate need to get this posted before anyone else did something foolish like befriending the critter or, heaven forbid, feeding it, and so carelessly forgot the '. Giving him apple cores or anything else will just encourage him. Don't do it. Ignore him, lock up all foodstuffs and small animals he might try to mate with, and hope he'll just go away. C

Give him money and he'll just ask for more, then camp out on your back porch and crap in your petunias. Stop humoring him and call the exterminator. They charge extra for coons. C

Which of course forces one to ask, is there any correlation between the absense of teeth and the over-abundance of sex? C

Can you imagine just how rich a person would become if he could invent a pill that would change your body type from having a propensity towards overweight doughiness to slim and hard? He'd have to hire a fleet of semis to haul the money to the bank, and they'd have to lease out some Self-Stor rental units to hold it while building larger vaults. Getting thin on the genetic level with no exercising, no dieting deprivations, just a pill or two and go from a Teletubby to Twiggy. The fortune to be made from would be staggering. C