[Sunburnt Aussies]

BTW, Mad Dogs and Englishmen is the title of a famous song by Noel Coward, satirising the unwillingness of English people to adopt the custom of taking a siesta during the heat of the day in tropical climates.

Hmm.. haven't heard it. Will look it up.

LOL, yeah. At least the Spanish knew the value of resting at midday, and extending the waking hours deep into the evening. It is simply impossible to think straight when the tropical sun is at its zenith. To describe midday heat here as stifling is an understatement. :P Every living thing takes shelter somewhere and sleep it off until the sun drifts lower.

Tourists who schedule outings at high noon soon discover it isn't such a good idea after all.

[First try...]

Yes, personally I've used italics to show characters' thoughts. A lot of stories use single quotes, bu I don't like them because they are oh so easily mistaken for actual dialogue.

P.S. My story posted here in AD, Downpour, has bold fonts used for thoughts. Not my original intention. It was actually a mistake on my part when I failed to edit the RTF file I sent to the dude. Hehe. I used bold fonts so I could easily identify which sentences have to be italicized when I'm actually posting it in BBCode. *sigh*

[First try...]

Actually, "said" is quite okay. Just don't use it a lot. Intersperse it with 'replied', 'smiled', 'laughed', 'yelled', 'whispered', 'uttered', etc..

Personally, I've learned to ignore 'said Mr.X' in stories. Except when two dialogues follow each other with the same precedent.

'He said'

'She said'

Now that's irritating. :P

[Sunburnt Aussies]

He still manages to look HOT!

And though I'm brown, I also get sunburns. :P We're near the equator though, so no ozone holes like down under. ;)

[Critisism badly needed]

That's what first struck me too. Describing the sun as "our main source of energy", is out of the context. I suggest finding other, more poetic means of describing it. :P

[Untitled Poem as of Right Now]

Is there some other way out of here

Other than driven by our own fear

Maybe appeal, of those we hold dear

Self reliance abandoned, that much is clear

that sentence... shouldn't it be:

Maybe appeal, to those we hold dear?

[Ideas]

Mostly from past experiences, daydreams, stuff :P

but I write in western settings tho I've never been out of my country so I borrow a lot from my stock knowledge gained through being a eating books. :P Chomp Chomp. I've eaten almost three libraries growing up! (Godzilla was my grandfather) Also from teevee, the net, and most importantly movies, so I can make the settings actually feel genuine.

Hmmm... I also write with some music in the background. I've got some story ideas from songs, dunno If I'll ever get to write them. Sometimes I wish the reader could read the story with the same songs I've been listening to playing at the same time. LOL. So they could appreciate the mood better. ;P

For personalities I sometimes take it from real people I know. Sometimes from books. Sometimes from movies. etc.

Last saturday I just finished another story. The inspiration came from waking up to heavy rain outside my window. Heh. :P

[Australian Federal Election]

hmm...

also i would like to add:

Kevin Rudd (Quoted from wiki):

On the issue of same-sex marriage, Kevin Rudd is firmly opposed:

"I have a pretty basic view on this, as reflected in the position adopted by our party, and that is, that marriage is between a man and a woman."

[Days of Silence]

I think the story is certainly plausible. Especially the way the other guy (sorry, I forget characters' names quickly, and it was months since I read it :P) keeps changing his looks partly for the main character to notice him and partly to mirror his own thoughts. The other guy could only guess why he was being ignored by his bestfriend and his compensations for it were believable as well as heartbreaking.

It's like at first it was: "Hey, talk to me", then "Notice me, I exist", then finally "I give up, go play with your cool friends" :P

Ignoring someone is kinda self-reinforcing. First you ignore him for several days. Then you feel uneasy talking to him again, so you go on not talking to him for weeks. Then you realize how awkward it would be to talk to him again after weeks of silence, so it goes on for months. Then, finally, both of you wouldn't even know when to start, so definitely years.

I know six girls in high school who made their own clique. Then it fell apart rather messily (I think it was about boys LOL). And they only spoke the barest civil words to each other for 1 and a half year. LOL. Then at our senior year, they had a heart to heart talk and they ended up crying and saying sorry and stuff. Corny, yeah. :P But... y'know... they're girls LOL. Their ignoring each other wasn't even that noticeable to us and even the teachers, but sometimes you get this undercurrent of coldness when you hear them talking to each other. So, see... it does happen in real life.

And, last but not the least, the main character was not only avoiding the other guy, but also HIMSELF. He was still in denial to the fact that he might be gay, that's why he avoided the object of his (umm... waxing poetic here LOL) 'illicit desires'. In those circumstances, ignoring would not only be to avoid the other person but also a sort of self-defense. I would say, the story is both believable and well written.

[Days of Silence]

I first read it at GA. It's one of my absolute favorite Short stories, along with DomLuka's Under The Mistletoe.

I have a similar experience with my best friend all throughout elementary and kindergarten. We grew apart in high school after he converted to a more rigorous christian group... while i gradually became atheistic :P Anyway, I found another best friend while he became somewhat a loner among males because all my classmates found his newfound religious fervor a bit weird (as I did), but he did start girlchasing then , so I won;t bet he was really THAT lonely, LOL. I kinda feel guilty about it now. But still I didn't actually IGNORE him. I just hanged out less and less, and anyway, he prolly understood why, but we never talked ab out it seriously. I'm still friends with him now, but not as close as before.

[Dictionary or Fictionary?]

ugh. 9/10 was incorrect at abstruse, the only word which i had to take a guess.

The correct answer:

D The salesman began his pitch with a lot of abstruse technical jargon that his customers would never understand.

Your answer:

A I think you're being deliberately abstruse when you refuse to answer my questions.

Abstruse means difficult to understand.

But it rhymes with obtuse, which means dull-witted or slow to perceive something, so people sometimes mix them up.

I avoided D since I thought "obscure" was the correct word in the sentence, but meh.