Forum: Story Recommendations

I know people love that story but I thought it was amazingly boring and probably the author's least interesting.

Assuming you're talking about https://zbookstore.com/s/675/a-charmed-life-knox-1 I suggest you rewrite the blurb, right now it looks like the most generic coming of age sports hero story possible

It probably is... I'll try redoing the blurb, but since my muse has run away, screaming, it might be a bit...

EDIT: Upon reflection, the blurb has been the same for almost a decade, a published, dead-tree author has positively commented on it, and this is the first "complaint" I have received about it.

I will NOT be changing the blurb. You can read something else if you don't like it, or write your own story...

EDIT 2: @Unicornzvi's quote: "Assuming you're talking about https://zbookstore.com/s/675/a-charmed-life-knox-1 I suggest you rewrite the blurb, right now it looks like the most generic coming of age sports hero story possible..." @Unicornzvi has been blocked. I don't care...

I ain't changing S__T...

EDIT 3: I need to stop WASTING my time with this BS, but NOT ONCE does the ACL blurb mention sports. NOT ONCE. @Unicornzvi, you messed with the wrong person. EAT S__T! Thirty years of 911 EMS has left me with next to NO patience for stupid people (like the people who called 911 for an ambulance because they thought they'd get seen faster in the ER - Hint: you WON'T. You'll go to the back of the line faster, that's it. You better be the sickest person there if you want to be seen first...)

So, @Unicornzvi, don't read another one of my stories. Don't COMMENT on another one of my stories. Shut your F-ING pie hole, you ignorant piece of trash. Again, @Unicornzvi, you don't like it? You want to "suggest" changes without providing coherent suggestions? Get bent, a--hole!

To the rest of the folks here, I apologize for my attitude, but I have no time (or, maybe TOO MUCH time) for BS like this.

Didn't expect you to take it like that. My point was your description of the story here makes we want to read the story, and the sample you have on zbookstore looks interesting. The blurb you have? Doesn't.

Metal playground slides under a blazing sun, launching yourself off of swings at their highest point, cap guns, riding bikes without helmets... I'm surprised we made it out of preschool, honestly...

Metal playground slides under a blazing sun, launching yourself off of swings at their highest point, cap guns, riding bikes without helmets... I'm surprised we made it out of preschool, honestly...

You forgot the best of all, metal tipped lawn darts.

You forgot the best of all, metal tipped lawn darts.

was a great game til idiocy took over...stupid people ruin many a good thing!

SunSeeker

How I miss Jarts! My cousins and I used to have so much fun playing that!

Thank you for your words; I've always enjoyed reading your intelligent views on the various subjects here in the forums.

I blocked that other person immediately upon reading his "response," but didn't stop thinking about it, or sleeping well, until I wrote MY answer. (Yeah, I think Tommy Shaw and Styx sang "Angry Young Man" about me... I've always had a bit of a temper issue...)

My emotions (especially my anger) are simmering just under the surface these days. It's getting harder to bite my tongue... (Maybe I need a heavy bag?)

Again, thank you.

I do that all the time. I'e always eaten fast (a family of four with three brothers, one sister and two dogs served on a Lazy Susan, as the youngest, I was lucky to get much of anything. So when I bite myself, it get quite the welt (infection city when in your mouth), so afterwards, I'm even more likely to bite myself, often several times over several days, as the welt keep growing.

Eating slower would help, yet the oldest habits are often the hardest to break (i.e. they're deeply ingrained).

My freshman year at college, the guys on my hall joked about walking somewhere with me. They said I used to "blue shift…"

Hey, when you're as tall as me and have long legs, you tend to have a long stride…

Thanks, as I've never heard that particular usage before. I'll have to remember it.

Yeah, it's an astronomical term (red shift is used to describe something rapidly moving towards you)...

This was engineering school, so we were a bunch of geeks...

You're probably right about this. My memory is terrible these days, but maybe they were talking about me walking quickly TOWARDS them when I got back the dorm?

I gotcha beat these days, unfortunately… your problem seems like a temporary thing (if I'm interpreting it correctly), where as mine is a chronic issue…

I need to stop WASTING my time with this BS, but NOT ONCE does the ACL blurb mention sports. NOT ONCE.

"Sports" is one of the tags, which is fairly plausibly considered to be part of the blurb.

That's true; my eyes skipped over that... The written text part of the blurb, obviously, doesn't mention sports at all, but you are correct.

Still, that "person" is solidly in my sights, and the focus of my anger. Like I said earlier, the blurb has been the same for over a decade, unchanged, and I've NEVER received any "complaint" about it.

Wanna see me get even angrier? Have him call me an "ambulance driver..." My state has NEVER had that title for someone in my line of work. It'd be like that stupid fast-food worker saying she deserved a higher hourly wage than EMTs did because she "did more" while she (and her colleagues) did their jobs...

Again, this is NOT aimed at YOU, and I'm sorry for my tone. Health issues with no definitive answers over the last year have left me very brittle. Why my wife is still with me is one of life's true mysteries...

Nah, I know you're not mad at me; his observation on the blurb was for sure unsolicited and pretty indelicately worded. I just like to see people taken to task correctly, and he was not off his rocker to identify that the blurb indicated sports was a part of the story, especially with the way zbookstore formats the tags to be part of the same textual element as the summary.

That seems to have been a habitual blight of authors. True, many had quite famous marriages, yet those are what we commonly refer to as 'long-suffering' marriages, where the spouse anxiously awaits our showing or head in between our more 'creative' spurts. My ex still curses my name, despite calling me several times a week, as she says "there's just no living with you!"

It's hard to be present in a marriage when your head and heard are constantly in a massage fictional universe with make believe people.

I'll second this one! Even though I'm impatiently waiting for the next book in the series! I ain't getting any younger ML lol! Seriously though a great, entertaining series!

https://storiesonline.net/series/1619/climbing-the-ladder

SunSeeker

Yep I know about your support sites but sadly inflation where I live has made me cut almost all "non-essentials" from my budget for the time being. Kicking coffee was hard the first few months let me tell ya!

I am looking forward to the book and will do my best to wait more patiently lol. Thanks for writing it!

SunSeeker

Thanks Paladin, I'm praying that things get better for all of us...

SunSeeker

For the life of me I can't understand people's obsession with coffee. I am one of the few and proud to say I have never had a Starbuck's coffee. I have one cup of Folger's a day.

I didn't start drinking coffee until I started in EMS. Then, when I got hired at the pinnacle (near me) of 911 paramedic EMS, I tried to keep up with someone who drank 4 to 5 large Dunkin Donuts coffees a day and carried chocolate-covered espresso beans to back that up...

Hint: shaking from caffeine overload is not good when you're trying to start an IV...

Hint: shaking from caffeine overload is not good when you're trying to start an IV...

Was your nickname "The Pincushion"?

It's funny, but I call every Saturday that now, because I go to acupuncture. "Pincushion Day..."

I've tried all the various acupuncture 'needles', yet I've always preferred the plain wooden ones or the electrical ones over those dreaded 'steel' needles! The feel of steel entering your flesh is just not a natural feeling. It's fine for needles, yet for something that sits there for a period of time, just not happening, for me at least.

Then, there are the self-administered intramuscular injections I give myself every Saturday before the dreaded metal acupuncture needles (I don't know if I've ever had the wooden ones...)

Since they're wider, they don't stick in as far, thus it's an entirely different sensation.

(My ex was an acupuncturist, yet more importantly, I've always had so many major health issues, anytime I'd go into an acupuncture training center, I'd get the best case, as it's a golden opportunity for the instructors to expose their students to the cases they'd rarely ever see otherwise).

So now, on the few opportunities I even both with the local clinicians, they can't do much, never having been exposed to that more-intense level of care.

Speaking of which, I'm guessing it's time to visit either NYC or Atlanta. Though again, you really need an 'in' by someone who's actively working in those sites, otherwise you make an appointment and see whoever happens to be available—which is often even worse. Shall we say 'adequate to the extreme'? ;)

By the way, crossing posts again, don't ever drink espresso before visiting an acupuncture clinic, as it won't go well, as 'wired' is the last thing they want.

Thankfully, that (espresso) won't be a problem these days; no more coffee for this kid… too many medical problems these days…

I used to work EMS near some teaching hospitals, and enjoyed (mostly) helping students out (I mean, when else will they treat someone as screwed up as me?)

And, thankfully, it never got that bad, because I stopped trying to keep up with him REAL quick...

Even after college and 15 years as an over the road truck driver, I never developed a taste for coffee. I got many free fresh mugs of tea and hot chocolate when the waitress would walk down the counter and just top off all the mugs. One morning I heard, "OOPS, that was tea," 4 times.

There's a new study out that highlights that certain people have NO hangover from drinking at all! That has long been unheard of, yet if it doesn't bug you in the least, why even bother bitching about it—thus is goes unnoticed.

Yet there's likely a similar gene related to coffee. It's not an immunity, it's just that they're don't suffer the side effects like the rest of us do. Then again, the fact you drink Folgers is more indicative that you just don't benefit from caffeine the way the rest of us do.

Still, the fact that you're 'happy' with Folger's is like a knife to the chest for us die-hard coffee fanatics, who live by the stuff! ;)

I learned long ago, if you do have issues with coffee—especially as you get older—then simply restrict it to early mornings. Unfortunately, for those with high-blood pressure, the 'decaf' coffees actually worsen the problem rather than resolving. So if 'decaf' works for you, great, yet if it doesn't, then avoid it at all costs!

For me, I have a definite 4pm cut off, so I mostly quit drinking coffee (or any caffeine-based product) by 3pm and I'm fine.

And everything that follows in the 16 Florida Friends stories.

I think Fantasy Lover's Lucky Jim series applies too, although in the last one he wasn't starting from scratch.

I think Fantasy Lover's Lucky Jim series applies too, although in the last one he wasn't starting from scratch.

Technically, none of the Lucky Jim's started from scratch. On the other hand, what they had at the start was insignificant compared to what they had at the end of their story.

It was also possible to buy noble titles. There is evidence of the sale and purchase of noble titles back to the 13th Century.

Yes, but if you're wealthy enough to buy a title or marry your children off to nobles, then it's hardly a self-made success/ rags to riches story.

My point was that a character who starts off as a poor peasant or equivalent won't have many options to become wealthy on their own merits because those doors will be closed to them due to class. At least in Europe. I don't know much about the Caliphates and Asia in that period.

That was more of a class/social-order thing. As those who 'made their fortunes' were generally treated like scum, even as the 'old families' depended on them to keep them afloat. It you were of a higher social class, then you were automatically superior to the 'common' laborers.

And once upon a time the wealthy could also buy absolution (i.e. 'buying your way into heaven', no matter what you may do afterwards). After all, those huge cathedrals don't just build themselves, yet the church still needed to mere peons to fill those pews.