8March2018

Wow, go away for a few years... several years, actually, and now nobody leaves reviews anymore. I see the view counts going up every day - but no one has anything to say. I think it's a symptom of the rise of smart-phones, which happened at EXACTLY the same time, although I can't really imagine the connection.

And I hate it when people beg for reviews, or more infamously, demand them in order to continue the story, as Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven-Way (aka "enoby") is famous for doing. Look it up if you don't know who she is. I even get pissed at youTube videos urging us to "Hit that Like Button!". I'll hit the damn Like button if I feel like it, and you telling me to MAKES me not feel like it.

Ahem. Bit of a rant... But seriously, we're not professional writers here, and a beta-reader is not an Editor - we need to know what we got right and wrong. Too much description? Can't keep track of who's speaking in dialogue? Using "it's" where it should be "its" (I'm often guilty of that...)? So if you read fics here - whether mine or someone else's - please just say SOMETHING. Throw us a bone. You think it took too long to read? Imagine how long it took to write. And if it was good writing - that takes even longer, talent or not. So just say something, even if you're just a "guest" (we can't respond to "guests", but it's better than nothing).

Anyway, thanks to the folks who're reading my fics. I know you're there, I just wish I knew who you were.

1/31/2018

Let me think of a line from a more current movie... Well, I haven't actually seen any current movies for the last year, so I guess that's a fail. So I'm still here anyway.

You'll see a huge hiatus between ... whatever my last fic was before the one you can't see because I deleted it, finally. The one I deleted was "Last Fighter, Last Heart", and it's the cause of my hiatus. I just couldn't finish it. Because I couldn't bear to re-read it to remember what was going on. It just made me cringe, and I'm not sure why. I may try it again someday - I still love the premise and characters and setting - but SOMEthing will be different. I'm not even going to try to "re-write" it - I'll just start from scratch. For, what, four, five years? I just couldn't bring myself to delete it off of here. Some people even seemed to like it! Now that I have, the machinery seems to be working again, starting with "Southern Comfort".

Anyhow, drop me a PM, leave a review, whatever. I'm a lonely old man, but I'm fascinating and adorable! Swear!

7/18/2015

Still alive! - The Croods (a movie. Watch it!)

So some of the problems with FP that I mention below are fixed now - repeating characters seem to be showing up now, and the section-break fiasco has calmed down. It still doesn't like some symbols though: = for sure, probably $, I haven't checked lately.

Still not writing but still thinking about it. I feel bad about leaving my last fic "Last Fighter, Last Heart" unfinished. In fact, I have a good part of the next chapter written - and has been that way for years. Maybe this weekend. But probably not. :(

Elsewise, in my life, nothing has changed. That's how it gets when you get older. Same job (when you find one you like, KEEP IT!), samo-sameo as far as everything else, so nothing to really report. I'm kind of amazed that the stories I wrote in 2006 are still getting read. Imagine if I'd kept writing stories all the years between then and now... Ohwell, ya do what ya can.

Oh, and a reader informs me that there's a word for "yaoi fanboy": fudanshi. Japanese (of course!) for "rotton boy". Not sure I approve of that, but whatever. Not my language anyway.. Note that "fudanshi" does not mention the "straight" part of "straight yaoi fanboy", but it's close enough. Seems there's more of us all the time. Or more likely, simply more of us who aren't ashamed to admit it. Me, I'm PROUD to call myself a "straight fudanshi" and otaku. Both Japanese words. Sigh. Figures, though.

Here's my theory (obviously I have time on my hands this morning...): The Japanese know the difference between "things you like in fantasy" and "things you like in reality". In reality they're a very up-tight people (in general - not TRYING to sound racist, honest. Someone disagree with me!). Americans are conditioned to think that we all WANT reality to be like fantasy (thanks, Disney!). And for some reason, as long as our fantasies are ultra-violent, that's fine. But any sexual kinks are to be despised (thanks Puritans!). It's a weird world.

6/3/11

Yup, still here. I was just reading my own story as displayed by FP and thought I should say a few things:

FP actually kind of sucks for us authors because it CHANGES WHAT YOU WRITE and doesn't tell you about it ahead of time!

Section-breaks are a particular problem. You can't use ANY repeating characters - FP will either remove it completely or shorten it. So a line of "=" or "-" or whatever just gets cut right out. The only thing it likes is MSWord's (or OpenOffice's) "horizontal line" - it'll leave that in. So sometimes it looks like the author (e.g., me) is kind of skipping around between paragraphs, but that's because FP has helpfully removed my section-break indicators.

It does the same thing with ANY repeating character! You can't type in "Mmmmm" (I don't know if it's going to do it here, there should be 5 m's) - it gets shortened to just "Mm". Which can rather change the meaning. It also doesn't like dollar-signs, percents, math symbols... it just takes them right out.

In short, FP kind of sucks - but for a long time, it was the best site around, and by far the most popular, which is why we're all here. There may well be better sites now, I don't know. If you do, please let me know where it is.

Speaking of Math - apparently I suck at it. Because NOW I'm finally 50. It's just not something I calculate out very often. I've been thinking that I was 50 for the past two years... *embarrassed*

And I still haven't written anything new since my last profile update. But I still THINK about it... Sigh.

Oh - and NOW there seem to be lots of hits when googling for "straight yaoi fanboy" - but that wasn't the case when I first looked in '08. Apparently even boys can evolve. Who knew? :)

5/20/09

BTW, I turned the big five-oh a week ago. Yeah. Apparently I can no longer think of myself as a "guy". I'm totally a "man" now. Weird. I mean, I knew it had to happen SOMEDAY, I guess, but... weird.

What else. Oh - yeah, sorry about not updating or writing or anything. It's one of those things. I gotta make it a HABIT, supplanting other, less productive "habits", y'know. The thing is (I think), that I know I CAN do it now, I don't need to prove it anymore. So it's like, since I don't have to PROVE I can do it... I'll get around to the writing later. And the writing is fearsome, because I KNOW the story could be SO good... but I'm not so sure I can pull it off. It's hard to 'splain. Or maybe it's just general ennui, and not so hard after all. :)

Anyway, I'm-a keep trying. I still THINK about it every day. I just have a hard time DOING it, is all.

Of course, what I'm thinking about is the NEXT story, not the current one ("Last Fighter, Last Heart" as I write this). But I'll try! I'LL TRY!

5/23/08

Thought it was time to update my profile, again.

Just had a birthday - I'm 48 now. No, that's not a typo. Forty-eight. That's right, kiddies, probably older than your dad... I hear that a lot, like it's somehow surprising. I swear to god, the median age around here must be about 17, and I've gotten faves from girls as young as 12. TWELVE! lol. Twelve year old girls are reading my homosexual male romance stories. I just can't get over that... It feels a little weird, in fact. One of my greatest fears is that some little fan-girl will come up to me on the street someday and say "Failte! When are you going to update your fic?! When's Bob gonna get it on with John?" I'd probably have a heart-attack. Life is funny.

And it's almost all girls, too. I think I can probably count on one hand how many guys I know (all on-line, of course) who like m/m slash. It's funny - when I was into femmslash, most of that fandom was lesbians (and girls who just didn't know they were lesbians yet - it's so cute to watch them turn). I wasn't expecting that. I figured it'd be full of other dirty old men like me. Quite the shocker.

Now I write m/m slash romance. I used to write fanfics ( http://www.fanfiction.net/~failte200 ), and when I did, they were mostly femmslash (Kigo - Kim Possible/Shego. It's a long story, and I'm actually not overly fond of the cartoon - just the characters) - with a little m/m on the side. Then I switched to original fics (I'll never go back to fanfics), and since then it's been all m/m slash all the time. I think it may be wearing off a little now, though. I'm getting new plot-bunnies that aren't CENTERED around the characters being gay (although they still are).

Unfortunately, most readers here don't really care about plot all that much. They mostly want fluffy man-sex. eyeroll Girls... And I'm writing at them. How the hell did this happen to me?

And the weird thing is: I'm not even gay. I'm a straight(ish) yaoi fan-boy.

Yeah yeah, I know what you're thinking. "Suuuure you're not dude... I've read your stories, you like the boys... just admit it!"

The deal is that I like femininity - but I don't care if it shows up in boys or girls. As a result, I'm most turned-on by girly-boys, JUST LIKE the yaoi fan-girls are. Which kind of troubles me. But what the heck. I know what I like. Although I DO try as hard as I can to keep my fictional boys acting like boys, just because girls writing "boys" who are basically girls is such a stereotype in the slash world. There ARE differences between boys and girls, besides just between the legs.

I usually reply to reviews (if they're better than "Kawaii! Update soon!"), and I hang out on two forums: (edit - well, one now) at http://www.fictionpress.com/forum/Slash_Fiction_Forum/64/

Funny who all m/m slash appeals to, ain't it? Straight girls, gay girls, gay guys, emo-boys... and even one, lone, straight(ish) middle-aged man. Seriously - try googling for "straight yaoi fan-boy" sometime. Nothing. Yeesh.

Anyway, if you are (or know) a straight(ish) slash fanboy, please let me know, just so I don't feel so alone, eh?

I wish I could figure out why gay (lesbian including) romance is so much more interesting that straight. I'm still kinna working on that. It's a mystery. I've been like this for three years now. Femmslash corrupted me, got me thinking about gay romance, whereas before, I was just a typical "lesbians are hawt" type of guy and now... sigh. Now I own the ENTIRE Queer as Folk series. And I write gay romances.

Me.

Romances.

Never mind that they're gay romances, they're still Romances.

I mean, come ON!... WTF, y'know?

I just get the feeling that God is laughing his ass off at me. "Ha! Deal with THAT, sucker!" Even though I always wanted to write, I never in my life had anything I really wanted to write ABOUT until this happened. :shakes head: I dunno, man. I just do not know.

One more thing: if you'd like one of my stories - in chapters or all in one big file, your choice of format - just e-mail me and ask for it. So you can read it on your iPod or whatever. FictionPress doesn't make it easy for you to do that, so I will.

See ya 'round the 'Net, And ONLY the 'Net, I hope to god...

Failte