Disappointments

[nakdsub]

It's not a bad way to go...

And you don't have to put up with trolls.

After removing my stories from here, I too, have just published my first story with Smashwords and Amazon and I'm working on my second already. They are not published under the same pen name that I used here and I will not give the new name out, because I won't turn this into spam.

I see from Serenissima Sydney Blake that D_Lynn, author of the contest-winning "Tribal Unity", has turned pro and is publishing commercially. I'm glad for this talented writer, and hope she is a commercial success.

My disappointment is that Lit is becoming the farm team for the big leagues; a lot of the best players are going up to the bigs.

 

[estragon]

And you don't have to put up with trolls.

After removing my stories from here, I too, have just published my first story with Smashwords and Amazon and I'm working on my second already. They are not published under the same pen name that I used here and I will not give the new name out, because I won't turn this into spam.

Q.E.D. Proves my point. Maybe one reason for the jumping to the bigs is that the fans here in the minor leagues get on the players more than the fans do in the bigs.

 

[nakdsub]

Could very well be...

Maybe you're right, if a writer can put up with the trolls here, he can certainly put up with slumping sales.

Even though I no longer submit work here, I still love coming back and reading from a smorgasbord of stories.

Take care.

 

[PennLady]

And you don't have to put up with trolls.

After removing my stories from here, I too, have just published my first story with Smashwords and Amazon and I'm working on my second already. They are not published under the same pen name that I used here and I will not give the new name out, because I won't turn this into spam.

Trolls are everywhere. Why do you think you might escape trolls just b/c you're not on Lit? They pre-date the internet.

 

[lovecraft68]

Trolls are everywhere. Why do you think you might escape trolls just b/c you're not on Lit? They pre-date the internet.

True. However, in the paying market at least the assholes have to spend money to abuse you. Well on SW anyway Amazon someone can post a review without buying the book (pretty poor policy to me)

Which is why I currently have 2 names going on amazon and won't give out either. I don't even advertise my amazon books here only my SW works.

 

[sr71plt]

One of my best-selling e-books got a low-rated review coming out the gate. It included the sentence, "It's pillar to post porn, in case you are interested in that sort of stuff." Lots of buyers have been.

 

[lovecraft68]

One of my best-selling e-books got a low-rated review coming out the gate. It included the sentence, "It's pillar to post porn, in case you are interested in that sort of stuff." Lots of buyers have been.

Okay, I read that aloud three times. What exactly does "It's pillar to post porn" mean?

 

[sr71plt]

Okay, I read that aloud three times. What exactly does "It's pillar to post porn" mean?

same as the expression wall to wall. Do you understand that one?

 

[PennLady]

same as the expression wall to wall. Do you understand that one?

Or "wire to wire," like they sometimes say in terms of a sports team staying in first place all season?

 

[lovecraft68]

same as the expression wall to wall. Do you understand that one?

Yes I understand that, can't remember hearing the other expression before. Maybe you should put it on your phraseology thread.

so if they're saying its wall to wall porn, how is that negative? Obviously other's saw it as positive.

 

[lovecraft68]

Or "wire to wire," like they sometimes say in terms of a sports team staying in first place all season?

Well of course that one I know.

 

[sr71plt]

Yes I understand that, can't remember hearing the other expression before. Maybe you should put it on your phraseology thread.

Already did, with a hyperlink to an Internet discussion of it (which won't keep Elfin from lambasting me for making it all up, of course--even though, of course, I've clearly indicated here that it was the reviewer who used the phrase, not me).

Maybe it's a regionalism I learned on grandpappy's knee (although they were both dead before I was born).

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Or "wire to wire," like they sometimes say in terms of a sports team staying in first place all season?

I've heard them both, but I expect to see "pillar-to-post" and "wall-to-wall". They don't read properly without the hyphens.

 

[PennLady]

I've heard them both, but I expect to see "pillar-to-post" and "wall-to-wall". They don't read properly without the hyphens.

My bad -- I forgot the hyphens. And that's the expression I see more often. I see wall-to-wall but not pillar-to-post.

 

[sr71plt]

My bad -- I forgot the hyphens. And that's the expression I see more often. I see wall-to-wall but not pillar-to-post.

No. As nouns they aren't hyphenated. They are only hyphenated as adjectives.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

No. As nouns they aren't hyphenated. They are only hyphenated as adjectives.

And the use of "pillar-to-post" in the sentence "It's pillar-to-post porn" is…?

 

[nakdsub]

Again, I go with the, "different stroke for different folks...

I think writers have all kinds of ways to start, write, and finish their work. The best way to do it, is the way that works best for that writer. Who's to say one way is better than another.

One of my most popular stories, "It's the thought that counts," started out exactly like that. The slogan was my only theme. I took it and built a story around it. I have started other with the first paragraph and let the story take me from there. Other times I have most of the story in my head before typing the first letter. What ever works.

 

[sr71plt]

What part of this being a quote from something someone else wrote didn't you get, Carlus?

And, you didn't caveat your declaration of the proper rendering of the terms. I was just correcting that. It depends on where the phrase is in the sentence whether or not to hyphenate. I'm sure you understand that, though, and are giving those you "edit" for proper guidance in this regard.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

What part of this being a quote from something someone else wrote didn't you get, Carlus?

Thank you for making my point, Pilot.

And, by the way, you've suggested that it's possible, so I'd like to see you use the phrase "pillar to post" as a noun. The entire phrase, by the way---not just the word "pillar".

 

[estragon]

Do not the words "pillar to post", in the cited context, modify the noun "porn"? And thus receive adjectival treatment, as in "dawn-to-dusk", "pillar-to-post", "wire-to-wire", "end-to-end", or "fore-and-aft"?

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, in the case you cite. Carlus didn't make a differentiation.

 

[sr71plt]

Pillar to post is a phrase that can substitute for wall to wall.

Double gift. Both are noun substitutes in this sentence. Neither is hyphenated. Correctly.

A bonus:

His was a crazy route, running pillar to post.

(predicate adjective. Properly rendered without hyphens because it occurs after the verb.)

It all depends where the phrase is in the sentence. There's no blanket one-way rule. English is not a simple language.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Pillar to post is a phrase that can substitute for wall to wall.

Double gift. Both are noun substitutes in this sentence. Neither is hyphenated. Correctly.

Hardly. Both phrases belong in quotation marks in that sentence. And it is the quotations themselves that function as nouns—not the phrases in the quotations.

A bonus:

His was a crazy route, running pillar to post.

(predicate adjective. Properly rendered without hyphens because it occurs after the verb.)

Doubtful. There's another interpretation that's more likely. There is an ellipsis in this sentence; the word "from" is implied, and it takes the word "pillar" as its object—not the entire phrase.

English is not a simple language.

On this, we agree.

 

[sr71plt]

You can throw fake flak up in the air from pillar to post, but the issue remains that the term isn't always hyphenated. It depends where it is in the sentence on whether or not it's hyphenated.

The bottom line is that the term is ONLY hyphenated in the position of a combined adjective directly in front of the noun it modifies.

 

[estragon]

I'd agree as to hyphenating only the adjectival form.

IIRC, the term wire to wire started with horseracing in the UK, before there was a starting gate with individual stalls for the horses. The horses would line up behind a wire stretched across the track, which would lift and the horses would be off. And the second wire was the tripwire for the camera at the finish line, when the winning horse would snap the wire and take a picture, which the judge could use to ascertain the winner in a close finish. Now, of course, there's the photoelectric cell or the continuous digicam.

The phrase end to end I remember being used by ice hockey play-by-play announcers (adjectival form there), when there were no stoppages of play and the players literally skated at full speed up and down the ice, with shots on goal and bodies flying at both ends of the rink.