Bruin Fisher

Fiction doesn't get much flashier than this! Splendid tour-de-force from Maddy, brilliant. Bruin

The Card This is a light, happy short story that won't make you cry (much?) but will certainly make you smile and make your toes curl and your ears flap and your nose wiggle. It is.... sweet. Yes, that's the word. And romantic, and life-affirming, and heart-warming. And of course, being by Camy, it's well written and skillfully crafted. Strongly recommended! Bruin

Robert's Day A poignant, beautiful tale, sad enough to require hanky reserves (extra box of tissues). As always Camy writes with an authority and clarity that makes the writing transparent and takes the reader right into the story with the protagonist. It's about... well, I can't really tell you that, can I, without spoiling the story. So, Go read! It's bittersweet and you'll love it. Bruin

Woohoo! Cool poem, Rose! Very melancholy, atmospheric and pessimistic. And ecologically sound! Nice to read it, thanks for posting it! Bruin

Welcome, Rose, nice to have you with us. I'm quite new here too but it's a friendly place and like me I'm sure you'll quickly feel at home. Bruin

Yeah. I'm with Des on this. I'm ridiculously delighted when I get an e-mail from a reader. Any e-mail. That way and only that way, I know someone's read what I toiled over. I wish I didn't feel quite so strongly about this, but I NEED feedback. I have made enormous emotional investment in my stories and I want to know people read them - and what they think about them. For NaNoWriMo last November I wrote a 50,000 word novel (with a lot of encouragement from the great and very wonderful Camy) and it turned out to be entirely appropriate to show to family and friends. So I did. One friend, and his wife, and his two sons, read it and enthused with specific comments about what they liked and why. And I glowed. My immediate family? Two of them read it, commented briefly, perhaps slightly embarrassed, and that was it. My nearest and dearest hasn't even bothered to pick it up. I'm trying not to hurt too bad. When I read a story that I think is okay but nothing special, I'm trying to be consistent and send a brief thank you e-mail to the author. I won't say what was mediocre about it, but I will try to say something nice about it. There's usually something that stands out as good. The exception is when a story made me uncomfortable for some reason, such that I don't want to have anything to do with the author. Then I won't send an e-mail. It goes without saying that that doesn't apply to anyone here at AD!! Bruin

Yup. Very. Designer children, anyone? Please Mr Geneticist can I have a son bigger and stronger than any of his schoolfriends? And with a dominant personality? I know that's more than what's been done with these animals (was genetics involved at all, or just generations of breeding?) but I share Camy's worry. Bruin

My Ameter has rarely been so pent. Brilliant! Bruin

Wicked emu! Groan and squirm? The mental image is indescribable - and I've got to get up from behind my desk soon! How I gonna do that? Bruin covered in confusion

I know just how you feel, Res. I've had cause to give this subject quite a bit of thought recently. I'm reminded of when I first read The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was still alive at the time and I knew someone who'd written to him and got a reply but I would never have dared to do such a thing. Authors were remote, other-worldly inhabitants of Olympus that mere mortals like me could only support with our money. The internet has changed all that. It is truly wonderful that reading good stories can now be an interactive experience - I've written to quite a number of authors to say thanks for writing their stories, and actually made friends with these wonderful creative people. So my life has been immeasureably enriched, firstly by reading stories I've enjoyed and been influenced by, and then by correspondence with the author, broadening my horizons in the process. So if you feel reluctant to send an author feedback, just grit your teeth, grab your mouse and go for it. Trust me, an author will be delighted to get just 'Read your story, enjoyed it, thank you'. In fact many authors will be satisfied with 'Read your story, not bad but...' Judging from your excellent contributions here in the forums, you don't really find it difficult to communicate - you're eloquent! Bruin

As I said in Des' recent thread 'why I get discouraged' in Writer's Workshop: I just finished Doors of Love which is just splendid. It's great fun, and a genre I can't remember ever reading before - gay humour. I've read gay romance, gay erotica, gay mystery, gay supernatural, gay s/f, gay dark drama, gay historical, gay all sorts of stuff but gay humour is new to me. I don't mean I've never read gay jokes, of course, but a well-written story, with interesting characterisation and a real plot an humour too is a rarity. And Des, you've got it beat. The story is a real treat so thanks for writing it. Bruin

All right, Des, you asked for it: Your stuff... (No I couldn't possibly be so cruel) That's the spirit! Seriously, I just finished Doors of Love which is just splendid. It's great fun, and a genre I can't remember ever reading before - gay humour. I've read gay romance, gay erotica, gay mystery, gay supernatural, gay s/f, gay dark drama, gay historical, gay all sorts of stuff but gay humour is new to me. I don't mean I've never read gay jokes, of course, but a well-written story, with interesting characterisation and a real plot an humour too is a rarity. And Des, you've got it beat. The story is a real treat so thanks for writing it. And yes, I know, this ought to be in Readers Rule so I'll maybe post there as well. You're one of the good guys, Des, don't ever forget it. Bruin

Excellent topic, thanks WBMS. I guess 'If you want a friend you need to be a friend'. I generally drop a line off to the author of a story I've just read to say thanks, and to highlight what, particularly, I liked about it. On the other hand if I didn't enjoy the story I don't send a comment. Perhaps I should, but I know how hard I find it when I get negative criticism so I refrain. I've been advised not to write for the feedback, but to write for myself. That's all very well but there's no point uploading stories to, for instance, AD, if I'm not interested in other people reading my work. And if, as I certainly am, I want others to read it, I need feedback so I know they've read it, and what they thought. So feedback is important to me. And I'm VERY grateful to you guys who have sent me feedback, either through e-mail or by contributing to the Readers Rule forum. If as happens sometimes I'm beginning to feel neglected - my stories are out there and no-one seems to be reading them, or if they are they aren't letting me know, I pull myself together and go and read something someone else has written, and then e-mail them with a comment. I might even mention in the e-mail that I write too - and include a link. It has happened that I get a new reader that way, and he/she will return the favour by e-mailing me with comments. My two penn'orth Bruin

Interesting to be able to criticise Wikipedia (we've discussed this elsewhere in the forums). Camy's link to the John Betjeman page on Wikipedia takes you to the wikipedia page whose address (URL) ends 'john_betjamin' - spelled the same as Camy's hyperlink, although the text on the page correctly spells the poet Betjeman. Until the First World War, the family name was Betjemann but it was changed during the war to sound less Germanic. Bruin the pedant

This is the sort of thing that makes YouTube worthwhile. Great clip. Cool Kitty and his flatmate is cute. Wonder if he's.... no, erase that thought. Bruin

Not to be outdone by an emu... Trab, I'm game to do another section any time. Just let me know when! Bruin

Yesterday I thought things were looking up. I was optimistic for the future, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Today the boss switched it off - to save electricity. Sorry you're having a bad time, Kapitano, hope things get better soon. It's a great Flash Fiction story. Bruin

Be still, my heart, and do not let me know The darkest secret lurking there below. Do not describe the monster you conceal I do not wish to see my soul revealed. The day will come when life for me will end And with relief I'll clasp that day as friend. I lived without the love that others share, But I will not disgrace the name I bear. Be still, my heart, tell not my tale of woe. Do not recount the pain from long ago. I bear it still, for what else can I do - My path is plotted and lies straight and true. -by Bruin Fisher, having recently discovered the poetry of A.E.Housman. Find his complete poetry here. I have posted a bit about him in the Roamin' Reader forum.

I've recently discovered the poetry of A.E.Housman. He in turn has introduced me to the appreciation of poetry, a form I've had trouble with in the past. If you haven't come across his work before, his complete poetic works (excepting his comic verse) can be found here. Housman's poetry is accessible, powerful, and it may be that one reason it affects me so powerfully is that he writes from my perspective - thwarted homosexual in intolerant, exclusively heterosexual society. As a young student at Oxford university he met and fell in love with one Moses Jackson, who, sadly, was heterosexual. Their friendship endured and although Housman was not invited to Jackson's wedding, whatever cooling of their relationship this caused had healed by the time Housman served as godfather to Jackson's fourth son. Jackson settled his family in Karachi, India, and Housman corresponded with him until Jackson died of cancer in Canada. Housman spectacularly failed his final exams and we can only guess that the trauma of his unrequited love had something to do with it. He took up a menial job working for the patents office and adopted an austere bachelor lifestyle, continuing to develop his skills as a classics scholar in his spare time. Ten years later he was appointed classics professor at Cambridge university and was considered by his students and colleauges a dry, remote, rather daunting man. His editions of several classics are still considered authoritative. Therefore it was a big surprise to everyone when he published a collection of poems, 'A Shropshire Lad', at his own expense because it had been rejected by publishers to whom he had submitted it. It sold slowly at first but sales picked up and various musicians set some of the poems to music. With the advent of the First World War, 'A Shropshire Lad' caught the mood of the nation. It has never been out of print since May 1896. He published one further collection, 'The Last Poems' in 1922, when his friend Jackson was dying and he wanted him to see them before he died, and his brother Laurence published 'More Poems' after his death in 1936 and then 'Collected Poems' in 1939. His homosexual viewpoint is more openly expressed in these posthumous publications than in the earlier collections. The above distilled mainly from Wikipedia articles. I have found Housmans poetry inspiring and uplifting, although it deals with death, suicide, lost love, fatalism and the futility of war. I hope you like it too. Bruin

Sounds great to me too. Can't wait to see what happens next - go for it, Cole! Bruin

I did part V - I'm not doing two consecutive parts. Someone else? Bruin

A beautifully crafted cameo. Bruin

I agree with everyone else on this: 1st or 3rd are equally valid and useful tools for a writer. 1st lets you tell the reader the thoughts of your protagonist, and also to hide from the reader stuff your protagonist doesn't know. 3rd lets you tell bits of the story your main protagonist isn't involved in, but you can't tell the reader anyone's thoughts. IMHO, anyway. Also IMHO it's a no-no to use 1st and jump from one 1st person to another. Even if you flag it clearly with chapter headings or something, it jars for me. I have a vivid childhood memory that the bookworm that was my young self read everything I could get my hands on, and initially all I had read was 3rd person. When I first came across a book written in 1st person it grated, and I had a real struggle to continue reading. It didn't feel right. Clearly I got over it, and now I find that most of the stories I've written have been 1st person. I think it is easier to write in 1st person, especially if you are drawing extensively from personal experience for the story (write what you know). For that reason it's probably fair to label it the beginner's POV. Not that it's inferior, unless other readers have the same problem with it that I did as a child?? 3rd person is an extra hurdle to surmount when you're developing your story but it will give you extra tools if the story is complex. As a generality I suggest that 1st person lends itself to short stories without sub-plots, while 3rd person lends itself to longer more complex work. My two-penn'orth. Bruin

Here's where I parade my ignorance for all to laugh at. On this subject I'm the worst of forum posters: the man with little knowledge but much curiosity. I don't have a great deal of personal understanding of the workings of OS's but I've read what other cleverer people think. I can well appreciate that Windows would not be particularly secure because of the haphazard way it's developed over the years, and the emphasis on function over security. Tracing the history of Windows from v1 to Vista shows it was originally bolted on to a single-tasking text-based OS that was hopelessly inadequate for the task. And subsequent versions retained sections of code from the earlier versions.... Similarly IE is full of security holes, but other browsers such as Firefox are less insecure. I'm told Linux is a vastly more secure OS because it was developed from the ground up with 'proper' principles of security etc. And I'm told Mac OSX, like Linux, has its roots in Unix and is similarly secure. Not that either OS is proof against viruses, but that it's more difficult to write a virus that gets past the OS's defences. So I guess there are two reasons that viruses (virii?) attack Windows. One is that Windows is an easy target - insecure - and the other is that 95% of the worlds computers are running Windows so you can do more damage by spreading a Windows virus. Is it not logical, then, that both OSX and Linux need protection against viruses and other threats, just as much as Windows, on the basis that one virus can destroy your machine just as effectively as 100 virii? Bruin who one day will dump Windows and put Linux on all his machines. One day...

Darkfall Chapter 30 of Darkfall is now posted and ends with the words 'THE END' so you may draw your own conclusions (sorry, couldn't resist). So all you guys who don't like to start reading a story when it's not finished, now is the time to dive in. Darkfall is arguably the best thing I have ever read on the web. And I don't say that lightly. I admire the work of lots of writers, most of them AD denizens, and I've enjoyed Grasshopper's other stories but Darkfall is, for me, a class apart. Is it overly dark? I don't like stories that are unrelentingly gruesome or morbid or violent or depressive. Darkfall is none of these things. It deals with dark themes, mostly in the early chapters, but always with an undercurrent of hope, and with sympathetic characters you quickly grow to love. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Please read this story! Bruin P.S. I just heard from Grasshopper - there's an epilogue still to come.