I was reviewing the Cynthia Chronicles, in particular, the readers' comments. Apparently, The Wizard's treatment of some of the adversaries bothered some of the readers. Anyway, my creative juices may have returned in a small quantity. We'll have to see.
Dreams can be fun. Dreams can be bothersome. I am very fortunate that I seldom have nightmares. I don’t think I have ever had a night terror. Most of my dreams start out of nowhere and fade into nowhere. Many involve my life in the military and the jobs I had. They are never unpleasant. I also have dreams that involve the work I have done since I retired from the military. I worked In loss control for insurance companies. It was interesting work, and I was good at it. I also dream about making love to wonderful women, including my wife of more than 50 years.
Yes, it is about guns, but this goes far deeper than that. This was a trans girl/woman who was forced to go to this school to 'straighten her out' from her dysphoria. I imagine she was tortured by those 'Christians' on a daily basis. Such a shame, when the proper treatment and counseling might have left us with a well-adjusted young woman.
Been listening to the MET's Christmas version of the Mozart's The Magic Flute. I have always enjoyed this opera and we actually saw it performed in Vienna. I decided many years ago to see if I could adapt the story for this site. I did, and I think it worked out quite well. I wove the very famous but archaic Adventure Game into it. The story is "Cynthia and the Queen of Knight." Take a look at it. You might find it very enjoyable. It is part of the "Cynthia Chronicles."
Don't understand what happened. The story was there when I signed off. Then it was gone this AM. Almost all of the stuff I entered was missing. Go figure. It was fixed when I last looked. I'll check again.
Posted the last chapter a little while ago. I had fun writing it, and it basically came about because I asked myself what would I wish for if I found the "Genie". My wish would be what Ted/Sandy wished for. I did leave some things open for an additional story or two. I did mention some people that didn't "belong" there. Why were they there, and how did they get there?
Based on a little "What If" scenario, I decided to attempt to write a new story. Surprisingly, it took only a couple months to complete. I imagine some will pick up on what's going on right away. I am being deliberately vague in the first chapter, but all will be clear, hopefully, after second chapter. There are six chapters in all, and the story is a bit over twelve thousand words. I would rate it a mild PG. Things are seldom as they seem. Skim milk masquerades as cream.
As far as new stories go, I'm in the midst of setting up a story in my mind, but haven't put the pen to paper at this time. I have been doing a lot of proofing of my older stories as I intend to publish them during the next year. I'm thinking of reposting some of the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles here. I feel a couple of them are pretty good and will leave the readers feeling good. Besides working on my antique business, I don't have much else to do. I retired completely at the beginning of the pandemic.
Several folks commented or messaged that the ending of Floria confused them. Were they dead or were they alive, and if they were, how did they pull it off. Perhaps I was being a bit to obscure. Let me assure you, Geno, Andy, and Floria were quite dead The answer was the name of the establishment where they were going for dinner: The Elysian Bar and Grill. These are Italians, remember.
I have just posted "Floria". This will probably my last story posted here and elsewhere. I had posted four other stories that were taken from well known operas. They were "The Queen of the Night", "Anita", "Discovery", and "Mike and Ashley." They had happy endings but I had to do some significant finagling in two of them to make them end up that way' It wasn't going to happen with "Floria".
MEPS98 posted two fantastic novels on this site a few years ago. One was "Severance Pay" and the other was "5 Hertz of Separation". Both stories were quite long and well thought out to their satisfying conclusions. Meps98 just last week published another novel on TG Comics and Stories, "The Venus Lily" is a novel written in the film noir style and has some really great black and white illustrations. Take a look at it. It's well worth the price.
About 10 ½ years and 500,000 words ago I posted “An Incremental Journey” here; since retitled in my files as “Cynthia and the Incremental Journey.” I have changed several other titles as time has gone by. “Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend” followed. We found out about Bobby Schmedlap at the very end of the previous story. Cynthia Lewis had been Alfred Gontarski, a very unpleasant, overweight man with no social skills, who just happened to be transgender. Bobby Schmedlap had all the support he could want from his family; however, they were living in near poverty.
A number of months ago I posted story that probably went bit too far. It wasn't the TG content. It was my expressing my discontent with the current political situation in the US. I also went into great detail about the genetics of magic, trying to keep it as realistic as possible. This was not important for my stories. The readers didn't really care about this; however. it was important for the construction of the stories. The readers just didn't need to know the details. These stories aren't a Perry Mason crime story. They are just stories.
A few days ago my computer gave a few clicks of death and decided to go into a coma. Fortunately, we've managed to save the hard drive well enough to transfer the contents to a new computer. The transfers are in progress. At this point, we think we can recover everything. Should be interesting.
Reality is a bitch. As many of you know, my Cynthia Chronicles series of stories take place in New England. Bridgeport, CT; Hartford, CT; Boston, MA are some of the main locations. Bridgeport is the home of Cynthia Lewis/Brewer, and it seems the town and area is frequently visited by the SRU Wizard. His Wisdom took a special liking to Cyndy, her friends and families.
I think it has been very apparent that I have been struggling with the Cynthia Chronicles series. For that reason, I will be drawing it to a close shortly, or at least relatively shortly. I've been working on the final episode for a while; at least in fits and starts. It may take a while to make it right. This may take some major rewriting of a previous episode or two. I wrote the ending many years ago, but removed it from here because there needed to be many more things to be tidied up.
A few days ago, I put a posting on Facebook somewhat in reaction to the latest SCOTUS decision. Transgender in the military is a major part of the story in “Soaring with Eagles”, the seventh novel in A California Saga, a series of nine novels that were originally posted on BCTS. I had to remove them when I published the books on Amazon KDP. I felt “Soaring with Eagles” was a good story. It required quite a bit of research.
I have received several suggestions lately to create an index or a list showing the proper order for the stories in “The Cynthia Chronicles.” Quite frankly, I don’t have the skill to put the stories in the proper order that might show in a side bar. I also create a problem by not necessarily writing the stories in chronological order. I did, however, create a time line in order to keep track of events in the series. Sometimes I catch temporal errors, sometimes I don’t.
Been listening to Mozart's "The Magic Flute" being performed by the MET in English. Two and a half years ago I published my version of "The Magic Flute" on BCTS. I called it "Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight". I imagine there are many out there who haven't read it. I thought it was very well received for an SRU based story. It is many stories wound into a main theme of young lovers solving a puzzle based on an old interactive computer game, "The Colossal Cave Adventure Game" also known by other similar titles. I think it is a lot of fun, and very happy.
I have deleted "Myrna and the Grievous Error" due to popular demand - two people. However the lack of votes also indicated problems. The story has been replaced with "Myrna and the Genetic Disaster". The stories are pretty much the same for about halfway. After that the story is expanded considerably following the lives of Wanda and Tamesha, Penny, and Sydney. I particularly like how Penny reacts to her estranged parents. All around, more detail and a happier conclusion.
After some discussion with a trusted author and reader, I've decided to rewrite the last few Chapter of "Myrna and the Grievous Error" . I will probably eventually rename it. I suspect it will be close to 5000 words longer, if not more. The downer ending will be scrapped. We will concentrate on "Happy".
When I started writing "Myrna and the Grievous Error" I wasn't sure exactly sure where it would go; however, as it progressed I knew I had to address certain issues within this particular universe. I have maintained that magic had to comply with the laws of physics and chemistry. Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That is the philosophy and approach I have taken with the "Cynthia Chronicles." Magic cannot do anything that is not possible in our physical world. Previous stories in the series have addressed this phenomenon.
Posted the first part of an eight part story; part of the continuing Cynthia Chronicles. Although the story does end happily for the main characters, there are some very dark overtones. Myrna Moskowitz has been part of the series since "Cynthia and the High School Years". Although not magic, she has deep connections to most of the characters in the series, as does her husband and lover, Avery. For years Myrna was a free spirit with little religious affiliation.
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
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Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
