I Just wanted to ask...

Mike, I've read a good deal of your stuff and I enjoy it. You are a prolific writer and you have a very terse "Hemmingway" type of style that I think is ideally suited for this type of site. (Edgy and raw sort of stuff that might not have a commercial market, but which is fun to read. Sort of a cross between "Hemmingway" and "Vonnegut" maybe?) Specifically, I don't see anything wrong with your stories, ideas, grammar, and sentence structure. It's not 100% perfect, but I don't think perfection is necessary for this site. (Take a look around. That statement should be obvious :-) # During the last few weeks (and now I'm getting more addicted to this site each day!) I've noticed an explosion of submissions. It's very difficult to keep up with what's going on--what's serious stuff that's worth reading--what isn't. It's truly a deluge, and I bet gets much worse. I'm guessing its because of the "Ads by Google", or what ever is responsible for placing this site near the top of the Google search engine. All of this is not very conducive to getting noticed. The "Cherrypicked" area helps, but there is a lot of stuff that is meritorious, and yet is being skipped over. I'm sympathetic to the editing staff--it's a lot of work to review all this stuff. The reality of this world is that most people don't read much, that story telling is being done by movies and television (I mean--you opened that forum yourself, so you know what I'm talking about!) The good thing is that writing is still a very sound art with a substantial following, and this type of talent is something that will always be of value. In the case of this website, it looks like more people are interested in being read than doing the reading. Hence the lack of reviews and comments. There must be a lot of people, such as myself, who aren't planning to contribute much, and are here to look at other peoples ideas and expressions. I'm a bit surprised that there aren't more reviews and analysis, given all the people at this site. However, it could be worse. This link might be interesting (but a bit depressing.) http://www.abctales.com/forum/2005/12/20/some-interesting-statistics-0 If you persist, I'm sure you will be successful beyond this particular realm, and achieve a wide audience. If your ambition is to be able to support your self with your writing, that will be difficult. Maybe you should study journalism as a serious way of making money, and continue writing as an outlet for your creativity?

Some wise words there cc-charles and some good advice for you Mike. I've been a member of this site for quite a long time now and I've never had a submission of mine flagged up in this forum, despite the first three being cherry picked. I submitted a piece yesterday that is quietly disappearing down the the Recently Added lists un-cherried even though in my opinion it is the best piece I have submitted so far... go figure. I have read some of your work Mike and you definitely have talent and you are so young! You lucky person you :) Just keep on writing

Foxy - with the new editors we are attempting to flag up more cherry picked stories on here than in the past. It was I who chose not to cherry your latest piece. I must confess that I didn't enjoy it as much as your other material. I felt that it was a bit predictable and over-long. I try to judge people in terms of their other work - and I didn't think Lost Cause was one of your best - but I'm a democrat at heart - let's see what others think: http://www.abctales.com/story/foxy/lost-cause

Hi Tony, Lost Cause started off as an exercise in show, don't tell then It developed into a short story but it just kind of grew. What is posted on here is now the first two chapters of a new novel. Maybe I should have put a note in the description box or at the end of the piece explaining this. Anyway, thanks for flagging it...

And as it's been the holiday season and all that, some of us haven't been able to get on and read as much as we'd like. We're trying to catch up! Promise!

well, it might be easier to comment if you could have a comment box that follows the work... and gets posted here... if you see what i mean... my account tells me i have been a member here for 6 years n 1 week but i have only just posted this week... due in part to an email sent by this site recently, when i was feeling a little down... lol sorry what an excuse... anyway, at the mo, i read work and then get cross, because i cant write a quick impression... straight away... by the time you may have read another story/poem .. you might have lost that first grab at something.. you had... another nice touch would be to show the date that the work was published here.. i have just been reading a random story or two or three... and ended up wondering if a comment would be too late? any chance the links to comments could be improved? I think it wuld be good to read others reactions after you post your own.. interesting :) anyway to see if you agree... : ) btw mikepyro.. you write remarkably well for a high school student.. i had no idea.. your work is well rounded, except for where you began to tell not see.. ... so that the readers could visualise for themselves... :)

Maisie - we've long resisted having comment boxes at the end of stories and poems because they so often get filled up with useless comments like - great, wonderful or even abusive remarks from idiots. By keeping the discussion here on the forum, everyone can see what is popular at the moment and can then go to the story and comment further upon it. The date is clearly marked on all stories - but anything that came before the great switchover to this new site is unfortunately marked as one date. There was nothing we could do about it. We are always delighted when someone finds something from the past and flags it up - it's never too late!

Tony, I can't see a date on any stories other than those in recently added. When I used random story or indeed click on a username and read their work I can't see any dates at all. Are they there and my pc just doesn't list them or do you see them because you are an editor?

I am so glad its not just me! i take your point tcook, but it does make the whole process of commenting very convulted.. i spose i shall have open two windows at once...lol any thoughts bout having spoken word options? or is that too open to abuse too?

Spoken word option? I'd love to do that - but finances do not permit it at the moment. You are right - the date only apears on a list. If you go to Public Gallery and click through the genres then they appear but they don't when they come up individually. I'll see if we can remedy that without too much trouble. As for the comments thing at the end of pages, I am absolutely convinced that this is the best way. Just copy the url at the top of the page of the piece on which you wish to comment and put it into your comments. Then you can flip backwards and forwards easily - or open two windows - it's not too difficult !

when you can afford it, perhaps uploading already homemade mp3's might be the way, there is a free download, for 'Audacity' an audio recording programme.. from www.download.com ( just put audacity into the search ) and although you have to hunt around for another file from somewhere else, its very useable once you have it. just a thought!

without going into the tech of it, there's quite a difference between hosting text and mp3s.