I am troubled tonight, and I don't seem to be able to sort my feelings out very well right now. I have been coming to this site just 2 weeks over 4 years, and I have come to know and have great affection for a number of the Authors here. I really appreciate the patience and understanding that Erin has shown me when my emotions were unmanageable. It is posible that I was the biggest drama queen ever to come here, and in spite of it all, I don't think anyone has ever sent an unkind email or comment to me. I am so thankful for that.

Okay, I *do* want to start writing again, and I'm starting this new job, which will entail a one-hour train ride each way.

So... two whole hours a day, potential writing time. The question is, what tools are the best for use on a commuter train?

I was considering an iPad, or some other kind of tablet device. My laptop is too large for this (17"), and pencil and paper aren't terribly useful, since a) it would have to be transcribed anyway, and b) my handwriting sucks even on a rock-solid desk, let alone a swaying train.

Well, an early update. I decided to post it now instead of waiting for Saturday or Sunday. The next one will be posted then but since I was sick last week I decided to give you this chapter a touch early. Have fun reading and enjoy the story.

Well, I had planned to talk about my stories again, but I am not up to it. The only story I have in my head is a very angry one, and I am not sure if that one is a good idea. Mostly, I am wondering the wisdom of spending a day or more in the ER. I simply cannot find a way out of this box, and the prospect of having to spend the rest of my life like this is becoming just about intolerable. The big reason why I haven't is the simple fact they cannot help me. I am the only one who can make the plunge ahead, regardless of cost, or not.

This took place about five miles from where I live.

The creator of the Spells R Us Universe, Bill Hart, had his yesterday.

Looks like a TG day in the news today.

”‹Brian Katcher's 2009 novel, Almost Perfect, has been grabbing attention and awards -- it just snagged the 2011 Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature Award.

This story sounds so much like so many we can find right here. It's nice to see a story about a TG teen get an award.

Hugs,

Connie

Hi everyone yet another storm comes LOL LOL will it ?

I've posted chapter 17 of Amanda's Eyes on Fictioneer. As before, no tg content but a good dose of teen angst and romance. Some here have shown interest.

http://fictioneer.org/content/amandas-eyes-chapter-17-boo

Amanda finds some friends, Ken does an over the top halloween display and we see Kelly starting to understand what she's done.

Enjoy!
Woody

I was greeted this morning with the blue screen of death. All unbacked up work, including two and a half chapters of Sweat and Tears, down the pan. Sorry.

In a storyline that could have come right out of TopShelf, Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place now features a transgendered character, in a roundabout way.

For those not familiar with the series, it's about a family of wizards living in the modern world and how they cope with everyday situations.

One of the staple characters, Max, was inadvertently magically transformed into a young girl, "Maxine", on the last episode. The promo "and she might be sticking around awhile" is what amused me enough to finally post about it.

Well, after several days of feeling fragile, I now feel like I am back on solid ground. Which is a good thing, because I think things are going to get tough around here. Between my job and my mom's job both being insecure, and all the internal stuff i am dealing with, I need to be thinking as clearly as possible. Meanwhile, my GF is feeling better too, and that's a relief.

After reading all the really downer blogs as of late I thought I would share something more positive, maybe. Last night I had to use the tiolet and , yep you guessed it, The toilet seat broke at the most inconvienent time. Well today I had to fix it or Mrs. C would have to go down stairs to do what she does. After who know how many years the nuts on the bolts were gone, rusted to the rust God in the sky. Mrs. C bought me one of those Fien cutters, only a knock off and well the battery went dead and now I'm waiting for it to charge. Why you wonder, am I writing this blog?

I had heard of the "Color Personality Test" oh a year or so ago, and tried to take it. Unfortunately, the site had been taken down because of too many hits. It was almost like a DOS attack - except they were all legitimate hits!!

You can find the test at http://www.colorquiz.com/

Just wondering: Is my story Portia and the Double Whammy really that bad? Sixty reads, and not one kudo, not even a negative comment. Maybe the kudos aren't working. I guess real life situations are not that popular. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Portia

I'm probably well behind here and have missed something important, like the announcement that Kudos being interrupted for a while, which would explain where mine's gone. I've checked all the blogs back to before the New Year and haven't found anything. Have I not gone back far enough?

I just looked one day and there it wasn't.

Now compared to someone like Ang, whose Kudos looked like a phone number, mine just looked like loose change, but now I don't even have a zero.

Is it trying to tell me that I need to write something new?

I just wanted to make it clear the town of Fairbanks in my story isn't located in Alaska it's a town I made up in Alberta. It is not in Alaska. I made sure to mention that the town was in Alberta. And Just to Clarify things, Bridgeview is made up as well.

Sorry for any confusion everyone.
Bailey.

Had a difficult day and feel shattered, so I won't be posting tonight. Hopefully, back to normal tomorrow.

Angharad.

As promised, since it won a prize in the contest, I added an epilogue to Santa Monica.

Scroll down to the Kilroy-looking separator, where it says:

~o~O~o~
Epilogue:

I just posted a long blog about the uncanny parrallels between Steph's (Cyclist) story called Sweat and tears and the many abuses I suffered in care from aged six to fourteen.
The blog disappeared into the ether when I pressed submit so it's lost forever.

I'll try again.

In 1975 just after I got married, my wife, (to whom I'm still married)persuaded me to write a faction about my early life.

I scratched away for several months with pencil and several thick notebooks and then the story sat around in my attic for nearly 30 years.

My dad who will be 84 on March 25 underwent surgery Monday to have his right knee replaced. If all goes well he gets the other done this summer.

Between the bridgework -- courtesy of a rollover accident before I was conceived -- two artifical eye lenses and a cow valve in his heart there isn't alot left of the *original equipment*.

-- snicker --

Visited him last night with sis, The Evil BlondeTM, and he's doing well.

Not a real religious type but your prayers are welcome.

John in Wauwatosa

Welcome to 2011!

Whilst I've no new scribbles to post myself this week I have a busy writing schedule lined up as well as a rapidly filling diary! Let's give you a quick outline of what to expect;

Got more of out of mourning coming soon, but will have a different story in a few days. It will be a one shot complete story.

Paula_D

Well, its a new year, and i am already hating it. I mentioned to my boss yesterday about my supervisor calling me Dorothy, and she dismissed it saying she would not do that. i had thought she was sympathetic, but I think she was ok with it hypothetically, but cannot deal with it as a reality. That, and today, my brother is taking me for some pants (mens, sadly), and get my hair cut. He just doesnt understand my gender issues at all, and its gotten to the point where being around him is painful. Which bugs me, because growing up, he was my friend, my protector, and in many ways, my idol.

From Chapter 14 onward this will be getting extremely dark and very nasty. I will, as is my normal style, not be going into unnecessarily graphic detail as I feel that what happens to young Stevie should be seen as shadows on a wall and not a slow motion porn film. I put some detail into his teenaged fumbling with Emily because I felt that certain aspects of that were essential to the plot, but I will not do that for other bits. Such detail is unnecessary.

Parody

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWhKdXcqYeU&feature=related

There was a commercial New Year's Eve party/event in Brooklyn last night, a big one. Two guys who are event organizers have been having these for several years. Three thousand people in a vacant 45,000 square foot industrial loft, themed as an airline terminal, with lots of people in costume. Airline stewardess seemed to be a popular one.

To all my dear friends here. Happy New Year.

Here's a lovely song that I absolutely fell in love with and I hope you enjoy as well.

The song is "Nella Fantasia" ("In My Fantasy") and is sung by Katherine Jenkins.

Much Love and all my best wishes to everyone here for the New Year.

Connie

Translation Below:

Italian:

Nella fantasia io vedo un mondo giusto,
Lᬠtutti vivono in pace e in onestá .
Io sogno d'anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano,

This year has been amazing! I have finally made several moves to revealing the real me to my friends and some of my family. Some of them were very surprised, but they've generally accepted me for the girl that I am inside.
I've been able to tell some of my stories, and it feels so good that they've been fairly well accepted. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the friends I've made, and how much enjoyment I've had in enjoying your wonderful stories! Erin and Company, you do so much for all of us! I'm with Zoe Taylor, this is almost therapy for me! Thank you all, so much!

So as the first complete calendar year of my presence here draws to an end (I signed up sometime in 2009), I thought I'd kick off the greetings. And what better way to do that than via this message which is currently going viral in Facebook statuses...

First, to get the site business out of the way, I had hoped to have Robin posted up by now, but a mild case of food poisoning has kept me in bed. You can't keep a good author down, though. I think my muse is finally returning from her vacation, so we'll see what happens :-)

I do want to wish everyone a very happy New Year. I was going to post a blog on my two year anniversary of signing on with TopShelf;I'm only a few days late! It sounds harsh, but glad the holidays are finally over for another year.

Well, it looks like things at work are headed for the crapper in a hurry. As of next week, I will be lucky to get one day a week. I am feeling a little hurt by this, as you can imagine. Thanks to my commitments to my daughter, i may have great trouble finding another job, and without my income, and especially since my mom's job is also insecure, we may end up having to make some hard choices about where we live, and what we can do without. The worst part is, i felt like i had finally found a job i could maybe transition at, only to have it pulled out from under me. Sigh.

Okay I'm putting up the recipes by PM request for some of Chuck's recipes in this last chapter.

1. Chickengasmic Fried Chicken.

Take a whole cut up chicken this recipe does one lot of this size at a time.

Step 1 Marinating your chicken: In a large bowl put your chicken in buttermilk and black pepper and the zest and juice of one lemon. Cover and let this sit as long as you can. Overnight is best.

Step 2 First dredging: Take the chicken out and now roll in in cornstarch and shake it clean. This will help the batter to stick to the chicken.

A few minutes ago, Cuddles killed her toy Skunkie that I got her for Christmas. Skunkie had been on life support since Cuddles bit the squeaker out of the tail on Sunday. Now, both of the squeakers are broken and pulled out of the plush. It's the nature of dogs to kill the toys they love the best fastest. She's never killed a toy quite so quickly before, just 6 days; it usually takes more like four to six months. But she had never loved a toy quite as much as she loved Skunkie.

Skunkie is dead. Long live Wheelie, the toy that squeaks AND rolls like a wheel!

Today I went shopping at Target (one of the chain stores in Australia). The thing is that I only recently gave myself the go ahead to crossdress. Even if it has mostly been at home (I live on my own). The only time I went into the city with womens clothes was on halloween, and even then some guy on the train did a double take when seeing me - this sort of freaked me out - I'm really worried about being seen in public.

There is fine story by Danielle J titled Duty,Honor, Country, Family that isn't getting any comments. I can tell from the votes that people are reading it. I know it's complex and difficult to comment on, but is it that hard to just leave an "I like it." for Danielle on this one?

The story is well worth the time to read.

Maggie

I've noticed that different stories appear differently on my cellphone. Just for the record: I have an LG Quantum (just released with Windows Mobile 7). I'll use two examples that are currently on the BC front page: "A Fortuitous Adventure: or, how I got my first job" by Louise Anne and "The Experiment: Part 10" by Donjo. Please note, I'm not singling out these two stories for any reason other than I looked at them on my smartphone.

well, last night my computer crashed, and i have now lost everything i have ever written. for the stories that are here, that is at least recoverable, but i will have to start over all the ones i was working on, as i had no back up. It hurts like crazy, but its just one more bump along the road, right?

I'm posting the last (maybe?) chapter of Unexpected Attractions, as I have to go to my Aunt's funeral in the morning. Should I continue this? I'm kind of planning on it, but I would welcome some input!
I've also posted my first story on Fictioneer. "Dena" is a future fantasy that we wrote several years ago. I hope people like it!

Wren

Mon Dieu!