If you’re looking to read an excellent story, you might just want to read Boys’ School by Sarah Lynn Morgan.

http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/11243/boys-school-chap...

This is a story for those who love scintillating/realistic dialogue, compelling characters, and engaging plots.

As you may have noticed — I have a tendency to complain ad nauseam about votes, comments, and hits.

When I set out to tell the story of Bob Isle and Mattie Grant in I’ll Grant You My Wish I decided to draw heavily from my youth. In my original outline, Bob’s a twelve-year old boy who is dragged into femininity by a domineering Mrs. Grant who is seriously disturbed by the loss of her own daughter. In the end, Bob decides he has to stand up to Mrs. Grant and rebels. Since he is basically a nice boy, when he puts his foot down it is done quite gently.

I've said it before, but I just have to say it again -- the new Random Solo feature is an absolute smash hit.

One of the features of BC that I absolutely love is the ability to quickly and easily edit your old stories. When I have an odd moment I often bring up one of my old stories and go through it looking for ways to improve the quality of the writing. Some I haven't read for years. It's like reading someone else's writing. I almost never change the plot, but I always find something to fix. Sometimes it's humbling to see how much needs attention.

All of us have our calling. For a while, I thought my calling was to be a monk. That passed.

Currently I feel my calling is to express a qualified opinion regarding hits, votes, and comments at least once a month.

There appears to be a number of people who think the number of votes a story or part of a story receives has a correlation with the quality of the writing. In my experience this just isn't remotely so.

In order for the law of large numbers to come into play -- which makes statistics creditable - there obviously has to be LARGE numbers.

A huge part of marketing food is obtaining shelf space. Big corporations have been known to actually pay to have their products displayed by grocers at the right height and in a large enough amount to suggest huge consumer demand. Coke and Pepsi have gone to the mattresses several times over shelf space wars.

What I'm going to suggest is only logical since we are talking about a limited resource. (I have an economic degree and will use it to justify my premise if needed. You are warned.)

Intellectually I know that the number of votes, comments, and hits have no direct correlation to the quality of the writing. Good pieces go unnoticed. Badly written pieces sometimes hit all the right buttons. But in my heart I would love to be elected homcoming queen. Caring what others think of you is called sanity.

The level of quality of the text is quite plain; stories drop like rain from a throng of gifted writers upon BC. The process is twice blessed: to those who read these gifted words and also to the keyboard pounding wretches who enrich their own lives through their hair-pulling efforts.

BC has enjoyed talented writers for as long as it has been in existence. Some who post today have been here for the duration, many others have come and gone, but never in the time that I have been part of this site have there been such a huge number of outstanding writers producing so much good literature.

Yesterday someone voted for thirty-eight of my stories. The person had (1) vote so it wasn't an author. That person didn't leave a comment on any of them so I don't know how to say thanks except in an open blog.

If this mass voting was meant to be some sort of lifetime achievement award, I accept the honor under the protest that I'm not that old.

On some of the older stories it was the first vote the story received other than sympathy votes from me. I hate to have my stories feel completely unloved so I vote for them so they don't think they were totally scorned.

Jill

If you were to believe the vocal minority who write most of the comments and probably do most of the voting for stories -- no one likes forced fem.

Their wailing and gnashing of teeth anytime a story ventures close to femdom asserts that such writing should be banned from this site as inappropriate.

Recently two very good authors suggested to me that they wanted my help to make sure their stories didn't cross the line into femdom. They were concerned about adverse reader reaction. Arrrgh!

This is the time of the year where my light-colored and white wardrobe takes a beating from my dark foundation and powder.

How do others avoid getting makeup on their collars?

Jill

Reading Jill Micayla's recent blog caused me to think. She felt badly because Terry did not include any of her stories in the contest. Jill suggested she has never been a winner.

A few days ago Sue Brown listed seven basic plots and asked if there were more. A lenghthy discussion ensued during which I mentioned non-confrontational plots. I ascerbically stated I didn't think anyone would want to read a TG story based on a non-confrontational plot.

After additional thought I decided to write U Go To Hell which I posted yesterday. It features a non-confrontational plot. It is a slice of life leading to a revelation.

You can judge for yourself if anyone would want to read that kind of story.

Dimelza Cassidy asked me to delete her stories and blogs, which I did. She told me why and it rang true. . .but I won't repeat what she said because she didn't ask me to provide an explanation.

Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason. ~ Author Unknown

For the record, I’m a fiscal conservative and a social program liberal. I voted for Bush in ‘00, but only because I despised Clinton for his China Treaty, his shell game don’t ask/don’t tell, his education policy, and his lack of ethics.