Hey everyone! I'm getting very, VERY close to finishing Dear Rylee Book one, and unfortunately, as I move into Book Two, I'll be moving off of BCTS - let me explain why.
Dear Rylee hasn't gotten a ton of engagement on BCTS, unfortunately. It's typically, not THAT much of a problem, but I had to add markup to the story every single time I post on BCTS and Book 2 (Dear Ariel) will have 15 to 20k word chapters. I just don't have it in me to add markup to novella sized chapters that get so little engagement(comment wise).
Now, if you made it past that trauma dump about another trauma dump, it's time to reveal my identity. I've written a lot of stories on BCTS that I thought were different, but at their core have always been the same. It always starts with a trans girl getting adopted, forcibly, by an older cis female mentor. It's always been exactly the same whether it was Allison's Pledge, Woodcrest, or The Interview, Angela's Legacy, or that absolute disaster, The Mockreet. I think now that these stories were all so similar and so connected because I was trying to get to THIS story. To Dear Rylee; my story. The story that I was reluctant to tell because of how badly I failed Tori. I remember a beaten, broken girl named Melissa, detransitioned and standing on Tori's porch in the dead of winter, begging to be taken back, and she did, because that's just the kind of person she was. Things were never the same. I was never the same and I can't get back the feeling of those early days. Ever. All I can do is write the story down, and understand that someday, when I'm old and dying, I'll look for her, and she won't be there, and I'll understand that I wasted my life even when everything was handed to me on a silver platter. But for now, we'll just enjoy the story.
So with that said, Dear Rylee: You're a fucking moron.
Comments
What A Shame
I really was engaged by this story and Rylee's trials.
I'm sorry you feel under-appreciated here.
Dear Ariel is a massive story
Dear Ariel is a massive story. Thing is, if I did upload it here I'd have to first spend a lot of time going through and adding markup to italicize, bold, and underline anything that needed it. I could, but I have a job and the tatters of a life to deal with...and is anyone else like .. reading? The chapters would show up a month after they were posted everywhere else
Dear Rylee . . . .
Your story wrings my heart. And reminds me, again, why kindness is so important — everywhere, of course, but most especially here. So many people on this site have been through so much — have faced fear and guilt and hate, and more hate — just because of who they are. If you’ve screwed up, made mistakes, pushed people away, understand that you aren’t alone.
Thank you for sharing your story, Rylee. It meant a lot to me.
— Emma
I’m hoping to be able to read…….
The rest of your story, wherever it ends up.
You have a talent for writing, and obviously a story that you need to tell. Hopefully the catharsis of writing it here will help you in your real life.
I have been lucky in my transition, but not so lucky in much of my life. If it makes you feel better, I just spent the better part of last night crying and laying sleeplessly for hours on end - all while I am on vacation in a beautiful resort in Florida. I can’t help feeling that I just wasted a week of vacation listening to my spouse complain about everything, and bitch at me about anything and everything. Each imagined issue has simply added to the ruin of this vacation, and in two days I am right back to work for another five months until I get another vacation. At a job which I am beginning to loath more every week.
Who knows, by next week, perhaps I will feel differently. We all go through our dark moments, and most of us will never be the person we hoped and prayed to become. As I read just a few days ago, “May we all go to bed each night with the hope that we can be whoever and whatever we want to be, and wake up with the courage to be ourselves.”
Be well, and know that you have helped me through many a day with your story.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
A couple of suggestions
The first one and probably the easiest. Post links to "Dear Ariel" here on BCTS. The second is I usually write in the 15K to 20K word range stories and I do the mark up off line. If you would like, you could send me the raw story in .Doc or Docx and I'd be happy to do the mark up for you. If you would like to see an example of my work, take a look at "One Dozen Roses". It's an anthology of 12 interrelated stories 36046 words long by 7 different authors, I did all the formatting (including a live interactive table of contents) off line. There a lot of formatting, Italics, Bold, graphics (which I did as well) and even some font color changes and links to PM on individual stories directly to the individual author.
After it was all done, I simply cut and pasted the finished product in to the "Body" box on the add a story page.
I could PM you the finished product so that you could look it over before you post it and ask for changes before I send the formatted copy back to you. Under normal circumstances I could get it back to you in 48 hours.
If this sounds attractive to you PM me and we'll discuss the idea. All I would ask is that just after the "By Rylee Skye" line another line in smaller type "Formatted by Patricia Marie Allen" be inserted.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Dear >Real< Rylee - Please do stick around.
We all write for our own reasons. If RKCs (Reads, Kudos and Comments) are all that you are writing for ... Well, those are pretty 'small coins'. It might be better to find more rewarding hobby/ies.
You said you found yourself writing 'the same story' over and over again. That was the story that you >needed< to write. Not for RKCs, or to say you published, or ...
You needed to write that story, for >you<.
I think you 'lucked out' when you shifted from That Same Story away from "someone else rescued by Male White Knight" to "personally You rescued by Tori". I bet you will now more easily write other things.
We will all, sooner or later, "fail" those people we care about (and vice-versa). Mistakes. ignorance, our own very human limits. Ultimate. any two people will fail each other when one of them dies with things unfinished, happiness-es and joys unshared...
---
All of us can be 'morons', do some really dumb things. And some cannot be fixed.
Me? I threw away a perfectly fine marriage with a wonderful Lady, by being stupid.
Twice.
And, no doubt, needlessly trashed any number of my jobs ...
Some famous Buddhist guy said "My life has been one continuous mistake"...
---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Anthony writes for a living. He gave up writing novels. He switched to writing outlines, and if his publisher thinks the story will sell, writes the full novel. For him, his "RKCs" are "Coins of the Realm" with which he can buy thingies he wants and needs.
---
Several other writers here have recently had, well, 'hissy fits' for not getting (enough). RKCs. And. one of them 'should have', after 15 years, "known better"... We were able to 'talk them down'. Others, no doubt, have left silently.
---
And I am unabashedly selfish enough to want to know how the Real Rylee, and how fictional-ized Rylee, turned out. And I want to read your other stories.
===
Which is my ultra long-winded way of saying:
Please stick around. Keep on writing.
Thank you.
Not sure what the issue is?
I post here and the story shows up in seconds. Of course I don't do many underlinings, italics and such.
Be Blessed.
Gwen
A massive trauma dump
A massive trauma dump followed by a side by side search for formatted text so I can type EM or STONG until I lose my god damn mind.
EM and DTRONG and bears, oh my ...
... When HTML meets the Wizards of OZ-er-OS ...
/joke mode off/
Sounds like you are really far down on the tools ladder. It's like trying write a computer game in Assembly language instead of C, Python, Java, or even using a 'Games Development System'.
Others are suggesting better tools, ex: PDF. I simply don't know enough to suggest tools.
Depending on the needs of the story, some formatting might be nothing except what we can type directly.
I've seen telepathic conversations shown by everything from:
* this is mind-speak *
to
When commenting over in Facebook land, or even here, I use 'pointy brackets', like below:
>Please stick around<
>Good luck, Rylee<
Adding markup or not
You don't have to add markup if you don't want to or can't at BCTS. All you need is a PDF of the story with those things in it. Then you can attach the PDF (or RTF) to your post. Some people already use this ability.
People who want to read the story will open your post then click on the attachment to download it and read it on their machine.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Formatting …
If you have a PDF with formatting, you most probably have that same content with formatting in some text editor format.
So all you need is to be able to export it as HTML and you normally get the same formatting as HTML tags (quality of the exporter varies …). Maybe a bit of postprocessing (HTML tidy comes to mind) and you are good to go.
Dear Rylee
I have to admit that Rylee is on my to do reading list just based on the comments that I have read.
My heart goes out to you for your angst with BC. I haven't written in some time but my muse raised her ornery head recently and I will be joining the bloody fray again soon.
I am writing to take exception to your description of Mockreet. I'm not sure why you think it was a disaster. I was hooked on Mockreet and I think you'll notice that I commented extensively, if not on every chapter posted. If there was an issue, I wish you would write me. If you were at an impasse, please lmk. You had a lot of storylines going in Mockreet, and I thought they were all substantive, so again, I'm not sure why you thought it was a disaster.
I do hope that you decide to post on BC in the future, I thought your writing was top notch.
My best thoughts,
DeeDee
DeeDee
You surprise me in your view that Mockreet was (or is)
a disaster.
It was not my normal reading material and I was often confused, but in spite of myself I kept on returning to it, and would really like to see it come to a conclusion. Yes, I never commented, but so far as I remember, I always added a kudos. The same has applied to my actions with 'Dear Rylee'.
The kudos indicates my approval of something I would like to see continued, which is a method I believe to be followed by many other BCTS readers.
I live in the hope that most authors have at least an idea of the final outcome (though I must except Angharad's extremely readable 'Bike' from that belief).
So don't lose heart because of few comments, it does NOT mean your efforts are unappreciated.
Best wishes
Dave