I was looking through my bookmarks this evening, deciding on a story to read, when I started thinking about the authors that I have become acquainted with here and those that I am missing.
Has anyone heard from Elsbeth? She is one of my favorite authors, but she disappeared suddenly around the beginning of Covid.
Bailey Summers posts sporadically and is another of my favorite authors. I hope to see more from Bailey soon as I basically owe my life to Bailey. We’re it not for Bailey, I would probably have eaten the muzzle of my .45 nine or ten years ago.
Rasufelle is still around, and I speak with her regularly - but she has not been writing and I miss her talent.
But perhaps the person I miss most of all is Denise Trask. I was priveleged enough to call her friend, and her passing was a loss to the world. I miss her advice and her counsel as much as I miss her writing.
I’m sure that there are others we all miss. I know I for one have slighted other authors I admire by not including them here, and to those that I have forgotten to include you have my most sincere apologies. Who knows? Perhaps someone I missed will be angry enough to write back, lol.
Comments
Elsbeth
I’m pretty sure we lost her to Covid she was pretty active on discord and we would talk at least once a week when she simply disappeared.
hugs :)
Michelle SidheElf Amaianna
Contacts
I wish that there was a way we could all share contact AND alternate contacts in a way that we could be comfortable in doing so that would allow us to know how everyone is doing. Case in point: I only found out that Marina Kelly had passed away by being able to reach out to a relative to find out why she was not available for our nightly chats.
I would be perfectly happy to share my information with the admins here on BCTS, but they have too much to do as it is. Would something like this make sense / be acceptable? Does anyone have other suggestions?
I share your concern
I often thought, particularly during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic... if I die, my good friends at TransScripts will be left waiting for me to reply and wondering, until eventually they write me off. This is one of the downsides of life in the closet – which is necessary, society being what it is. I still need to work.
I wondered if there might be some method by which one could use a web-based service to ‘check in’ but every solution I could think of was either intrusive and harmful to privacy (like Facebook), prone to false alarms, or just another damn social media site you’d need credentials for and then have to use.
Basically, I have no answers... yet.
Sugar and Spiiice – TG Fiction by Bryony Marsh
I've definitely been writing hon.
Just not posting. I've got a half-dozen stories I'm into, including one I'm around 40k words into in total.
Likewise, I've got a few other irons in the fire too, including a move within the next few months that will place me in Cali and, potentially, in a position to be a lot (A LOT) more active here again :)
*hugs*
Melanie E.
Looking forward to it
That'll be good. I've always enjoyed your work, even your contribution to One Dozen Roses that was completely off the wall. It'll be good to see you posting again.
I haven't done much since ODR. Just one story. Mind you, I liked what I came up with and 112 reader agree; a dozen of which left positive comments... and it did well in the contest it was entered in. But still, 20,000 words in over a year and a half? I ask you, don't you think I could be a bit more productive? Nothing going on in my life to excuse inactivity. It's just my muse is fickle. I go over a story I've been working on and get a few thousand words in a day or two and then I go back to it and draw a blank, even though I know what should come next and just how it should end.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I know Hon…….
But I do miss reading your stories! Hopefully the move will work out for you.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Even if they aren't posting stories
Many of the ladies on the channel are better than excellent at sharing knowledge or leaving a comment either on the blogs or a story. Rasufelle, is one of the many girls who aren't ghosting behind the scenes but gives of her time to respond. I know Cathy has a lot of health problems and has been in and out of the hospital this past year. She like so many the girls have name has been at the front lines helping others on this channel. She is personally responsible for dragging me to this site. There are so many sites out there how does one chose one over another if they even want to try and keep posting "free" stories? I was fortunate Cathy pulled me in as I was through posting and on the other hand even if I had, I'm guessing ninety percent of the sites I knew of forty years earlier are no longer there.
Erin, Piper, and all the other ladies can't be doing this because they are getting rich. The long hours monitoring the web making sure it stays clean and doesn't degenerate into chaos are grueling. It's a labor of love for all the girls is the only answer. That's why so many others failed. They burned out and who wants to buy and run a web business that isn't making any money as it demands almost full time labor?
I got off track but yes there are so many authors who have come and gone. Some got that story they wanted to write out of their system and that was it. Others have tried publishing as paid authors. Then there are those who quietly slipped away leaving those behind to guess at why. If they were ghost writing and family and friends didn't know, then there isn't going to be any closure for those here when they are no longer living.
Hugs D. Eden
Barb
Our stories are our legacy and will entertain readers for hundreds if not thousands of years.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Angry?
With you? No way!
I wasn't on your list but that's not your problem. First of all, you may not have liked my efforts; I can live with that.
Second, I haven't posted anything for maybe five years because I have just run out of inspiration. I have half a dozen half-written stories but I look at them and I'm just writing the same story over and over again with slightly different backgrounds, so if I'm going to post again I need to think of something fresh.
It's nice to see Bailey back again and I am sure I've seen Rasufelle recently too. There are obviously posts that you like because you comment regularly. That's what authors like.
How to get off the dime....
Having trouble writing because it feels you've done all this before? Or something similar?
Here's a trick: Take a story you really like, one by someone else, sit down with the intention of rewriting the story, just as an exercise. You could change the background, or recreate the main character to your liking. Work on it for at least a few hours, say 1500 words or so.
Alternatively to writing a sample chapter or so, you could just analyze the heck out of the story you liked. Diagram it, write thumbnail bios of the characters, draw a map of the action. Things like that. Four or five pages worth of stuff.
Either way, you've altered your perspective on what it is you do.
Now go back to a story you had never finished writing. You can rewrite from the beginning or jump in where you left off. If this exercise doesn't get you off to a sustainable start, repeat it in a week or two.
Good luck.
Hugs,
Erin
Oh, BTW, you may not have been posting stories but I do see your comments around, so you are here at roll call and that is half the battle. :)
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
several authors on my bookmark list are now gone
but at least I can re-read their stories and remember them.
Cheryl Bishop
Speaking of authors who we haven't heard from recently, has anyone heard from Cheryl Bishop? Her last post was 12/22/2021; her "December 2021 Christmas Holidays Story Contest" entry. I have her email and sent a message, but got no response.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Missing writers
It is the nature of the site and its members but there are notable absences including Sue Brown, Torey, Lilithy Langtree et al. They have made a significant contribution over the years but now seem to missing, I hope they are all well. It seems of the prolific sort with staying power is only Angela Rasch and I suppose I come into that category too.
Please let us know if you are all Okay.
Angharad