The worm is turning...

[Guest]

Hey Carson, you know I love you.......but yes, it is real because behind these facades and personas are real breathing humans with thoughts and emotions and feelings that need to be with other people.
I've never thought of anyone here as not real but someone who is just like me, someone with thoughts and emotions and a need to find others like them, to validate them and to make the world seem less bigger than what it really is.

and yes Lou, I voted that you are getting old, but I am older than you but not neccessarily wiser.

Fuck it, I'm not even supposed to be here right now, but I am and it feels right to me.

This stupid forum and this stupid site has given me more of a chance to be who I am then anywhere else I've ever been, whether online or in 'real' life.
I've found out more about my self and the world around me in the time that I've been here and I relish every moment, good and bad.

There will always be nonsense and there will always be disagreements, but that's the beauty of being here, in this community.

Whether you choose to like me or not is up to you, frankly I feel you maybe missing out on a lot as I would do the same if I hadn't taken the time to get to know so many of you.

So ramble on, post the nonsense , the politics , the religions, the bad jokes.....just be part of the bigger picture.

Okay, time for Abs to say farewell.....once again. My "real" life is calling and as much as it sucks right now, it is mine and I have to go there.

Play nice kids, you might be surprised at what you learn here.

Why did you have to go and do that, eh? Bitch.

You got it all spot on, babe. I'm just in a feisty mood, is all, and pretty sure that it's just that I am seeing things differently. Perhaps more detached.

This place has enriched my life so much, and not only online. It's got a lot to answer for, but it's given me the time of my life (I know you know what I mean by that, as do you, Lew).

Okie, back to whatever I was doing...



Lou

 

[BlackShanglan]

I tend to side with Carson on this one, Abs - with all due deference, as I quite enjoy talking with you. Yes, real people need real contact with other real people. But I think the best way to achieve that is to turn off the computer. I do enjoy meeting others online, and some things - like exchanging drafts and serious criticism - I actually find easier. And yes, I can have real feelings and real affection for people I meet online.

However, it is "virtual" reality. It's not the real world. Otherwise, I'd have to sulk about no one caring about the real horses with real hoof issues in need of care out here. (Not, of course, that I am suggesting that I am anything but a real and extremely dashing equine.) While I think it pleasant to meet others online, and while there is, now and then, a rare and deep connection forged, on the whole it's no substitute for a real social life that involves people one can actually meet. Interactions online have many limitations that real life doesn't have, and I think it's unwise, on the whole, to look to them for validation and personal growth. They can be part of the package, agreed - but I think need to be put in perspective.

If nothing else, for one's own sanity one must remember that a great many people online - not all, I will agree, but enough to represent a substantial percentage - feel as Carson does. Online interactions will always carry with them that knowledge that they can be ended with the simplest of gestures - powering down - and with no baggage or fallout at all. I'm not saying that this is ideal, although it does have its interesting aspects. But my chief point is that it's not like "real life," and it's not surprising that most people act differently than they would in person. Some of this is good; people can exchange intimate information and ideas that are difficult to share with "real life" friends. But there is a counter-balance to that, and we would all do well to remember this.

That said, I hope that we can all enjoy the venue for itself, and not allow that tempting anonymity to lure us into cruelty, snobbery, backbiting or vindictiveness. It's a good thing, if a thing admittedly with its own rules and culture.

Shanglan

 

[neonlyte]

I'm not here often these days. I perceive a change in the style of posts. It doesn't bother me as much as it appears to bother some others.

I joined up (as Wills) eighteen months ago. He was a quite different character from neonlyte, trying to find his way, testing himself against posters and writers. Many regular posters accompanied my journey - and guess what, we've all grown. I'm talking writing skills.

Look back at your early stories, you ought be able to measure your growth. For some, me included, writing has opened a new force, creative, strong, energising. My perspective has changed. I value my time more highly than ever before. It means I don't go where I'll be offended, or disappointed, or frustrated by unwilting opinion. Life's too short.

Lit, and through Lit, Nano, showed that I have an ability to tell a story. It's helped me to speak with different voices. It's given me fun, pleasure, anger, opinion, arguement, justification, support, value and, a readership.

I've met sincere people willing to offer advice, guidance and encouragement. I've met people who've helped me through difficult periods. I can live with Lit being less than it might have once appeared - then again, I might be looking at it differently.

I'll will probably fade away from AH, I want to spend more time at SDC - once I get this damn Valentines story finished - but will continue to look in from time to time. Offering support where needed, I'd like to give back some of what I received.

nl

PS I didn't vote - too many fucking polls on this site

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

My turn?

Being older than dirt, and having been around for a few years, I have seen these discussions come up every so often. IMHO, that's a good thing; kind of clears the air.

The AH is more than a gossip/flirt club. For me, at least, it's an electronic version of the famous Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel in NYC, where Parker, Benchley, Thurber and others talked shop, gossiped, and traded insults.

Whenever I stumble across someone I consider a good writer or who might have the potential to become one, I invite them to come in and take a look. For me, this is home base, but not a be-all, end-all. Those serious about their writing, and I sense most of us are, can ask questions here or check out Lit's writers resources. The SDC and StoryFeedback forums give us a chance to have our work critiqued and to help others by returning the favor.

Group projects such as the contests and last summers Lit Olympics can be a boot in the butt. They also encourage sharing of ideas and helping one another. All this is free; although I do feel an obligation to provide Manu and Laurel with a new story every now and then as partial compensation.

Bottom line, the AH ain't perfect, but it ain't chopped liver, either. There's no other place like it on the 'net. I'm a better writer today because of y'all (I am a southerner, remember?) and this site. I'll keep hanging around; if for no other reason than to see what the hell happens next.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Guest]

My turn?

Being older than dirt, and having been around for a few years, I have seen these discussions come up every so often. IMHO, that's a good thing; kind of clears the air.

The AH is more than a gossip/flirt club. For me, at least, it's an electronic version of the famous Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel in NYC, where Parker, Benchley, Thurber and others talked shop, gossiped, and traded insults.

Whenever I stumble across someone I consider a good writer or who might have the potential to become one, I invite them to come in and take a look. For me, this is home base, but not a be-all, end-all. Those serious about their writing, and I sense most of us are, can ask questions here or check out Lit's writers resources. The SDC and StoryFeedback forums give us a chance to have our work critiqued and to help others by returning the favor.

Group projects such as the contests and last summers Lit Olympics can be a boot in the butt. They also encourage sharing of ideas and helping one another. All this is free; although I do feel an obligation to provide Manu and Laurel with a new story every now and then as partial compensation.

Bottom line, the AH ain't perfect, but it ain't chopped liver, either. There's no other place like it on the 'net. I'm a better writer today because of y'all (I am a southerner, remember?) and this site. I'll keep hanging around; if for no other reason than to see what the hell happens next.

Rumple Foreskin

Rumpy,
honestly, i believe you've echoed my sentiments, exactly. i am not a serious writer, though i love it dearly, i know i will never go anywhere with it. however, through the ideas, help, suggestions of others here, i have grown as a writer.
my spelling still sucks...grammar is poor and i tend to use my own language, but, people here tend to understand me. for that, i am grateful.
so, whats the next chapter?

 

[carsonshepherd]

personally I just come to see vella's and Lucky's latest avs.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

personally I just come to see vella's and Lucky's latest avs.

Yeah, that too, and those two, among others.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Usually, I like creative threads, but lately I've been too tired or too stressed or too uninspired to participate in them. Once things settle down in RL, I'll probably be more active in the forum again.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I voted worse, but I also think Colly is right. Still, I rarely feel inspired to participate in a writing exercise thread. Mostly I just write, I don't like exercises.

Yeah. Personally, I never saw the purpose of most writing exercises. Some of them can be educational, but most of them are just screwing around. They're what your creative writing teacher gives you to do when he has a hangover.

So I rarely participate. I just don't see the value in writing something contrived when you could be working on a story or something. I also don't usually take part in challenges either, unless it's something I'm interested in, because then it's like writing for someone else and not for yourself. It's more a social exercise than it is an educational one.

That's just me though. If other people enjoy them, I certainly have no problem with that. But don't tell me I don't care about writing issues just because I don't write what someone suggests that I write about.

---dr.M.

 

[yui]

Disclaimer: This is my rant and it is not directed at anyone in particular who has posted on this thread. I seem to like sticking my foot in it, lately, so here goes.

In my opinion (and god knows I seem to be getting one lately), it reeks of monumental pomposity for anyone to say that this or that doesn't have anything to do with writing. Maybe not for this person or that person, but who is to say what someone else is taking away from a discussion?

I have questions, rhetorical I guess, but how many writers on this board have had a story, or a spike in their creativity, born in the middle of playful banter?

How many sci-fi stories have been born out of a science article that had nothing to do with the craft of writing?

How many people have learned a new way to communicate arousal by hearing someone say, "I love the smell of her pillow"; or that chlorine reminds me of my first real kiss, in the shallow end of the Morgan's pool, when the sun was high and hot and all I could smell was chlorine, cement, and his skin?

It's all part of writing because writing comes from life and that’s part of what we do here. We share a little bits and pieces of life, of ourselves – the frivolous, the scientific, the shallow, the deep, the boring, the upsetting, the interesting, etc.

It feels like there is this idea permeating the AH that everything worth saying, doing, thinking, or writing, has already been done by people who are much cleverer than most of the current group. Again, this is just my opinion, but that kind of attitude, weaned on disenchantment and suckled by arrogance, is just imbecility.

In my opinion, like any "relationship," you take from the AH what you give to it.

Okay, end rant. Sorry. Two rants in two days. I'll go back to lurking for awhile…

Luck to all,

Yui

 

[BlackShanglan]

Just thought I would point out that Op_Cit has very kindly taken us quite seriously at our words on the topic of posting "writerly" threads.

I'll step out of the way of the stampede to contribute.

Shanglan

 

[Kassiana]

everything worth saying, doing, thinking, or writing, has already been done by people who are much cleverer than most of the current group.

In a sense, yes. In a sense, no.

There are only a few plots out there. Watch movies for a while. Every love story follows the same basic kind of structure.

Why, then, do people keep writing and wanting to read new ones?

I think it's because we want to see how well someone else does it.

E.g., Brian De Palma remade a movie by Antonioni, Blow-Up, as Blow Out. Why would anyone want to see it?

Because De Palma did a good job with the formula. He made a good movie.

Was Antonioni's movie bad? No.

Kurosawa's Seven Samurai wasn't bad either, but the remake, Magnificent Seven, was good, too.

Maybe someone "better" has written what I have before. That doesn't mean that I can't do it now and do a pretty damned good job. Most Harry Potter fanfiction is utter shit. There are a few authors, though, who add something rather nice to the HP universe.

There's nothing wrong with not being the best author in your country, or in any country. Write what interests you and damn history if it points out you took bits from other stories out there.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Yui & Kassiana

Good points, both of you, and well-put. You two must be writers.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[shereads]

1) It's January. Time to seek a place to dump the emotional nuclear waste left over from all the stress of the holidays. This is as harmless a place to vent as any.

2) Those of us who were interested in the political threads are posting sillier stuff because the election is over, and because we get the hint.

3) Of the Top 10 Weeks of Total Social Meltdown, the recent confluence of events and personalities and tempers and stock market fluctuations had to be Number One. Other than a mass-suicide pact and fifty servings of purple Koolaid, I can't imagine it getting wierder.

4) Writers: write about writing all you want. Nobody's stopping you. I've enjoyed Abs' challenge threads enormously, to the point where I almost felt tempted to post a story. But that would take time away from my "What's Your Favorite Color" thread, which will be the basis of my masters' thesis.

 

[carsonshepherd]

Okay, end rant. Sorry. Two rants in two days. I'll go back to lurking for awhile…

Luck to all,

Yui

Please don't Yui. I love your wit and wisdom, as well as your well-thought-out rants.

 

[impressive]

In my opinion, like any "relationship," you take from the AH what you give to it.

*standing ovation*

Imp Yui

 

[minsue]

Disclaimer: This is my rant and it is not directed at anyone in particular who has posted on this thread. I seem to like sticking my foot in it, lately, so here goes.

In my opinion (and god knows I seem to be getting one lately), it reeks of monumental pomposity for anyone to say that this or that doesn't have anything to do with writing. Maybe not for this person or that person, but who is to say what someone else is taking away from a discussion?

I have questions, rhetorical I guess, but how many writers on this board have had a story, or a spike in their creativity, born in the middle of playful banter?

How many sci-fi stories have been born out of a science article that had nothing to do with the craft of writing?

How many people have learned a new way to communicate arousal by hearing someone say, "I love the smell of her pillow"; or that chlorine reminds me of my first real kiss, in the shallow end of the Morgan's pool, when the sun was high and hot and all I could smell was chlorine, cement, and his skin?

It's all part of writing because writing comes from life and that’s part of what we do here. We share a little bits and pieces of life, of ourselves – the frivolous, the scientific, the shallow, the deep, the boring, the upsetting, the interesting, etc.

It feels like there is this idea permeating the AH that everything worth saying, doing, thinking, or writing, has already been done by people who are much cleverer than most of the current group. Again, this is just my opinion, but that kind of attitude, weaned on disenchantment and suckled by arrogance, is just imbecility.

In my opinion, like any "relationship," you take from the AH what you give to it.

Okay, end rant. Sorry. Two rants in two days. I'll go back to lurking for awhile…

Luck to all,

Yui

*applauding*

 

[shereads]

How many people have learned a new way to communicate arousal by hearing someone say, "I love the smell of her pillow"; or that chlorine reminds me of my first real kiss, in the shallow end of the Morgan's pool, when the sun was high and hot and all I could smell was chlorine, cement, and his skin?

It's all part of writing because writing comes from life and that’s part of what we do here. We share a little bits and pieces of life, of ourselves – the frivolous, the scientific, the shallow, the deep, the boring, the upsetting, the interesting, etc.

Exactly. Hanging out among people who are literate and have ideas, and whose range of experience crosses continents, is a creative exercise.

Having worked as a copywriter in office environments, for managers who invariably questioned why the writers weren't typing all the time, I gave up trying to explain to the suits that this is what creativity looks like.

I've had my share of times when I felt like an uninvited guest at the Authors' party. I don't really give a rat's udder anymore if they like my polls, which I post with all the reverence they deserve, or my politics, which are as intrinsic to my life as my house, my work, my choice of friends. But I do feel badly when I realize I've hurt someone's feelings, and if it's over politics I lose my enthusiasm for the topic, usually briefly, and try to atone by changing the mood a bit. I feel even worse when someone hurts my feelings; my reaction is usually to pretend it didn't bother me at all.

For every person in the AH that I'd begun to think of as a friend, until one or both of us figured out we weren't speaking the same language, I've learned to respect and admire someone I hadn't taken seriously before. Appearances are deceiving when we're face to face; here, appearances shift and change every hour on the hour.

The Hangout seems to work like a beach: it moves and changes because every piece of sand is moving without regard to any of the others, yet can't help but be affected by the movement of the others. If a beach erodes and loses ground at one end of the shoreline, it's about to get better someplace down-current. You can't make it stand still, no matter how much you've invested in the property.

I don't much care for change, so I understand the sense of loss that you feel when one of you old-timers expresses nostalgia for a time when the Hangout was better in any one of a dozen ways. Having been here for well over a year myself now, I appreciate the sorrow more than when I was new, and felt like the target of everyone's longing for the good old days.

It's mine now, as much as it is any of yours. I don't have to submit a story to belong here; I belong because I enjoy your company, some of you more than others. I've learned to stay out of some peoples' way and I've grown confident enough that I don't need every person's approval.

I've certainly had my money's worth. Who hasn't?

Like yui, I've found characters and tales from the Author's Hangout creeping into my writing assignments, just as real life does. If anything, this is a lot of life and a whole lot of the planet compressed into pill form. Where else would I have learned what someone in Portugal or Germany thinks of my world? How long might it have been before I found out how little I really understood theirs?

I've learned one thing that I'm 98% sure will never change: Nobody leaves for good following a public announcement. Not even me.



As long as we care enough to say we're taking our ball and glove and going home, we must care enough to peek over the fence and see how the game is going.

When it's really over for someone in the AH, we either learn it in PM or realize one day that something essential is missing:

Gary Chambers.

Pops.

That bald-headed baby squirrel whose owner's name I can't remember. (I was knew here. I'm bad with names, but I never forget a bald-headed squirrel.)

Just when I think the AH has lost what made it worthwhile, somebody new comes along who seems worth knowing, and whose absence will be felt just as much. When that happens, there's nothing to do but post a poll and see who salutes it.

 

[shereads]

I almost forgot!

I hesitate to point this out...

No, I don't. I'm just savoring the moment and wondering why I didn't think of this earlier.

I used to lurk a bit, while I debated whether a non-author would be welcome here. A few weeks before I came out from behind the curtain and dared to post, the hot topic of converstation in the Authors Hangout wasn't Proust. It was Blacksnake's dick.

Some of you were quite irate about Blacksnake's dick; others liked having it around, and took exception with those who seemed to favor censorship of AVs at a porn site.

Those were the good old days. How I wish I could have been part of it!

 

[fiery_jack]

And I'm not even sure why. Do you know?

Ok, it's finally come around to my turn to do this...

Either, I'm getting old.

I've been here too long.

I'm seeing things differently.

I'm taking my writing more seriously.

I'm just a bloody hypocrite.

Or, it really does seem to have got worse.

It's all subjective, I know, but what the fuck has happened to this place recently?

Thread Nazis, take it away...

Lou

P.S. I reserve the right to flirt at any given opportunity, but writing is important in my life, too.

P.P.S. I decided to turn this into a fun-for-all poll (pole), please vote.

I chose D - You are taking your writing more seriously.

It happens, especially since this place has turned into the AH Cafe.

*shrugs*

 

[BlackShanglan]

Re: I almost forgot!

Oops. Double.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Re: I almost forgot!

A few weeks before I came out from behind the curtain and dared to post, the hot topic of converstation in the Authors Hangout wasn't Proust. It was Blacksnake's dick.

And yet I'm still waiting for the conversation on Proust's dick.

Damnit.

 

[carsonshepherd]

Re: Re: I almost forgot!

And yet I'm still waiting for the conversation on Proust's dick.

Damnit.

I hear Proust was a bit of a dick.

 

[shereads]

Above, we have an appropriate literary response, courtesy of Shanglan, and ruthless attempted theadjacking by Carson.

Shanglan, do post a thread regarding anything of interest you might know about Proust's male organ.

Carson, don't make me call Homeland Security again. They'll get the Justice Department involved, then Blacksnake's dick will show up, and we'll all end up in prison.

[/threadjack]

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

This place draws a strong contrast to me that while I really like being here, it isn't compatible for me.