awnlee jawking: Blog

In the initial version of 'Shoe Girl', I unthinkingly wrote "rat's nest". Then, overthinking the situation, I decided a nest was likely to house multiple rats and therefore should be a "rats' nest". Belatedly I remembered Joe Internet and discovered that the colloquialism for a 'messy disorder' is ubiquitously spelt "rat's nest". So I'm in the process of changing it back again.

Although no longer relevant, I checked a 'nest made by feathery dinosaurs' for comparison purposes. The winner was "bird's nest", but "birds nest" is rapidly gaining in popularity.

And just to prove you can be wrong all the time, the Google summary of the Wikipedia (spit!) entry reads: "Bird's nest. A bird nest is a place where birds lay and hatch eggs."

For those who are downloading the story, when the next new chapter goes up, hopefully this afternoon UK time, you might like to refresh your copies of the earlier chapters.

AJ

The good news is I've started writing again. The bad news is I've started writing again!

Slowly and painfully, I've drafted the scene-setting for a new story. It uses a plane crash as a device to set the characters up together. Okay, it's a hoary old chestnut but not quite as overused as the thunderstorm causing a girl to jump into bed with her brother.

I'm not going to post it to SOL, at least not yet, because I don't know when or if the story will ever been continued, and now that I've done the scene setting I intend to return to polishing off the sadly becalmed 'Gay!'. I'm not an expert on planes so I've written what I hope is entertaining rather than what might be accurate. I'd appreciate feedback from plane-junkies on just how unrealistically I've portrayed things, and whether any simple changes would be worthwhile. I'm NOT looking for editorial scrutiny.

If you're an altruistic plane-junkie who can spare a few minutes to cast your peelers over some very rough copy, please send me your e-mail address via the SOL messaging system.

Thanks, AJ

I haven't repeated any serials I've mentioned before, and I've been slightly more liberal in how recently the stories have been updated. But here, in no particular order, is a list of the recently updated ongoing serials which are giving me the most enjoyment.

Of Dancers and Doves by Lord Van Leak

Pantheon 2 by PuffDragon

Penumbrials by SciFurz

The Runaway by Geek of Ages

Artifact by blackrandl1958

The Wrong Girl by Lumpy

AJ

In no particular order, this is a list of the recently updated ongoing serials which have given me the most enjoyment in the past couple of weeks or so.

Retribution by Thornfoote
False Signs by Lumpy
What Lies Ahead by Lumpy
Chances Are... by Stultus
Dragons of the Night by Stultus
Convergence by MisguidedChild
Mayhem in a Pill by Shinerdrinker

AJ

When you're in a hole, continuing to dig doesn't usually work. However Admin came to the rescue, renaming this story's upload units from 'Chapter' to 'Part'. The structure of 'Shaggy Dog' actually looks reasonably sensible now. Thank you, Admin!

There's a woman of a certain age who is an enthusiastic visitor to the writers' group I belong to, although distance makes her attendance irregular. She enjoys the wide range of genres we cover. She's also a member of her village's writing group, although she's frustrated because the stories her peers like to write and critique are typically about a girl and her little dog. I'd love to see the look on her face if she ever found out that someone she knows as a SciFi author was writing this story about a girl and her not-so-little dog!

AJ