Encomium

On-line writers don't get a lot of feedback on how they're doing. If you're selling stuff, you can see: last month we sold x thousand copies, say. But the best on-line writers can do is guess how popular their writings are by seeing how many 'visitors' or 'hits' there are to a site. But you don't know whether they got there by accident or are genuinely interested, or what. So it's awfully nice to get the occasional praise, like this one:

1/2 way thru reading the footy story..... loving it. loving it! teared up on the train reading it......

Oh that's balm to my soul! Inside every artist, every writer, there exists THE CRITIC. And he says: your writing's crap; jeez, call that a plot; no real person would do that, you idiot; just give up now, why doncha? And you don't know any different until someone tells you.

Anyway, thank you buddy. I appreciate your comments.


For all those who liked Footy, I remind you that I'm busy uploading chapters of I Get No Kick From Champagne, which you can read here. And, you'll be glad to hear, I'm writing up a storm.

Here's what I decided to do to solve my writer's block. I type horribly slowly, and when the muse has you in her grip, the words and ideas flow so fast you can't keep up. I make so many mistakes typing, I have to stop and correct. Net result: I lose the muse. So.... I decided to write my stories by hand in a notebook, and then type them up afterwards. So the muse flows as I write, and then when I type it up, the internal editor works (different sides of the brain are at work, I think). It's going well. This is the method Ozzie fantasy author Garth Nix uses, which is what gave me the idea. By the way, his stuff is very, very good. Try Sabriel. A very entertaining read, even if there are no gay or bi characters in it.

Moral of all this? You write encomia to me, I write racy tales--and everybody's happy.

Parhelion

Anther website I regularly visit, in the hope that there is a new story there, is Parhelion's. She writes sumptuous and polished original gay (and lesbian) fiction, but also some wonderful fanfic -- for Nero Wolfe, no less. Read this wonderful alternate version of a Nero Wolfe tale, for example:

Of course I knew right away it was Wolfe. He has a scent of salt and bay rum, and a feel of soft, yielding flesh over barrel-chested hardness that I’d never mistake for anyone else. My body knew it was Wolfe, too, but it seemed to have a different attitude about the fact than it should. When I realized that, I sucked in some air. The sound that came from him in response wasn’t words but a low, sleepy rumble.

And this, from An Angel in Hollywood:

We started out at a gin palace called the Black Cat. Bill had been there. They sent us on to a restaurant called Gino’s. Bill had been there, too. The barman moved us along to a club called The Picador. Hard though it may be to believe, it took me until The Picador to figure out what was going on. The restaurant had seemed normal enough, all red leather booths and bad Tuscan food, and there had been some good-looking dolls at the Cat. It would have taken a blind man to miss what was going on at the Picador, though.

I had insisted that we get a table in a corner, where we could take in the crowd and the floor show without making a big issue out of our presence. Sid’s pictures had been doing well the past couple of years and I knew the studio would not be pleased if he fell into whatever ditch he was trying to pull Bill out of. Sid sprawled out in his chair, smiling at the chanteuse singing “The Sum of You.”

“Sid?” I said. To me, my tone was pensive.

“Yes?”

“That singer is not a Jane, is he?”

“While performing, it is considered courteous to refer to her as ‘her’.”

I spent a minute juggling pronouns in my head before I gave it up. “Okay, that is what I thought.” I checked the crowd. There were lots of regular fellas, but there were lots of Ethels present, too. It was a pansy club, all right. “So, I am slow this evening. Explain to me again why Bill is over on this side of town?”

“As I said, he and Betty have had a battle over her nice, new rattle. This is his way of demonstrating his annoyance with what he assumes her after hours activities to be without his involving another woman. That would be viewed by both of them as a serious and irrevocable step.”

Knowing both the people involved, it almost made sense to me, which I found to be annoying. “Hooey. Stepping out is stepping out, no matter what the plumbing is.”

Sid let out a deep sigh and looked a little sad. “I would agree with you, but many would not. What is illegitimate and illegal is widely believed not to be subject to the same standards as the normal and expected.”

I gave Sid the face. “Do not ever tell Frankie that. He expects our family accountants to be four-square and on the level always. Unless they are showing the books to the government, that is.” I thought some more. “You can not tell me that you treat your candy any different than you would treat dolls.”

He laughed. It started real deep and moved up to his face, before it shook his whole huge body. It was a noise that made you want to look, like the sound of a good jazz band opening up. People at the neighboring tables turned to see. “It pleases me, as ever, not to be mistaken about you, my Angelo.”

Oh man! I wish with all my heart I wrote that well. She is utterly convincing in her portrayal of the 1930s. She's also pretty good with the 1880s or so too. Read her superb love story Dry Bones in Cowboy Up.

Here's to you, Parhelion. May your writing muse never fail!