The last few days have not been great for me. My spouse managed to ruin my holidays - something she has always been very adept at over the nearly forty years we have been married. Yesterday, the mail arrived as I was walking past our front door. You see, in my neighborhood, the mail carrier walks from house to house delivering incoming mail and picking up outgoing mail.

no cutlery of any kind. Not even any dishware. All I've got is an empty can of cat food, metaphorically. Now, not only am I cold all the time, I have a bloody cold. If I lay down, I have a hard time breathing - I have asthma - so I can't sleep very well. I can't wait for winter to be over. Shoot me now.

One relatively recent story of mine has over 100 kudos and under 1000 hits: How BttF Might Have Ended with 840 hits and 103 kudos -- the same number of digits for both.

Also, a fifth story hit 200 kudos: The Family Council.

It's always Christmas in the BigCloset, right next to the big box of holiday decorations! :)

Peace on Earth. We got that, Rule One. :)

Good Will to All. We got that, Rule Two. :)

Transgender Day of Remembrance 2024

Again this year I celebrated the Transgender Day of Remembrance at the adult fishing pool at Tingley Beach. But this year I had support from some of my transgender friends and my church. Despite some communication problems, we had ten people (!) this year. I expanded the vigil program slightly.

I am looking to have Doppler Press publish yet another anthology of my short stories on Amazon / Kindle.
Firstly a word about Doppler - Profits from this enterprise are applied to keeping BCTS going, so please support this publishing house and their authors, many of whom are part of this community.
But what I am looking for is somebody to help with my next book as my latest foreword writer.

Stopped as the wheels don't seem to want to roll unless there is a high priced liquid in the tank. A horse would be more expensive. Guess I'll stick with the old jalopy until I can train the goats to pull a cart. Life is so expensive any more.

Lady pulled into the pump behind me. I was at the back of my get mobile and she was at the front of hers. It was kind of a mutual greeting when she looked me up and down. "Are you a rodeo queen?"

... and my blood pressure, ekg, and arteries were doing great. I have been dropped from 92% clogged down to 90%. That still isn't good but shows that my heart medicines are barely keeping me going. I suppose that is good. The bad news is that the drugs that I am on cannot nibble away at the hardened plaque inside my arteries. That's a bummer.

Experience tells me that things written in one session like this need extra editing and maybe a rewrite, but I'm committing to posting before the 21st. I ended up writing it using the opening page of an attempt at a Halloween story. That's why you never throw out failed stories.

Well after Sundays drama, things could only get better right?

I'm still working on my epic alien story, which I've been trying to do a final editing pass through lately, but I keep being distracted by other stories. There's another one that's ready to post now, but I'm going to give you all time to read all the epic Christmas contest entries before posting it.

Besides that, there's Dog Days and a couple other short stories that are near being ready to post. The problem is all the other stories distracting me.

So this error pops up for people every once in a while, and I always forget to make a post about it. I often forget it's even a thing and spend hours trying to diagnose posting issues when it happens, only to remember, "Oh yeah, that's a thing."

The version of Drupal and the Database system we are currently using can't understand EMOJI! The charset doesn't allow for it.

John parked a short distance into the park. “I don’t think anyone’s supposed to be here at night.”

Lynn Oliver is a new author here on BC, and she has put up two of her novels for free download as PDFs!

I haven't read them yet myself but they seem worth checking out. You can find them at Lynn Oliver

If you read them, come back here to leave a comment and some kudos! Lynn will appreciate that, I'm sure!

Hugs,
Erin

I recently read and enjoyed a story written from the point of view of Princess Ozma of Oz. It was the first posting of to be of several about Princess Ozma, her transformation from the boy Tip, and the struggles caused by that transformation. I believe it was from "The Land of OZ" written by L. Frank Baum more than 100 years ago. It was the first Oz book I knew. It was a sequel to "Dorothy and the Wizard of OZ" from which the movie was made. I read most of them eventually. My mother read it to me when I was about five or six.

So here I am, in deepest Germany, things were going swimmingly until this afternoon. Yep I’ve been to markets, eaten lots of weird and wonderful food, matched that with drink and even had a ride on the Schwebebahn!

Every time I think I have made progress; I manage to screw up and put myself back at square one.

Yesterday's bit of self-sabotage came in the form of a police car stopping me and letting me know I had not renewed my license plates in July. To make things worse, my car insurance company no longer sends out paper versions of my coverage, and because I had never taken the time to go to the library and print out the information, all I had in the car was expired versions.

Sequel to 'The Color of Deception', 'In Cold Blood' is now available. A second adventure for Bart McFadden, forced to live as Matilda Hale. I hope you'll enjoy my seasonal, supernatural book!

Best wishes - Bryony

Pardon my interruption as I don't visit this site all that often. Since FictionMania is down due to moving to another server, I returned to visit to fill a void. It's funny how we can under-appreciate these sites we visit until they're gone. I applaud all authors who make the effort to entertain us but FM is my first port of call. The original and the best. I guess I'm just suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Haste ye back Fiction Mania!

After being called a liar and a hypocrite by my sister-in-law on Facebook, I have decided I am not going on that site again.

Anybody know a halfway decent social media site?

To any who may read my latest posting "An Unexpected Christmas Gift (Omnibus Edition)". I found the "Create Content" heading very unco-operative in editing the story, mostly in spacing to make it readable. Being frustrated I decided to post anyway and will continue to edit in "My Stories" which seems to be far more forgiving to a computer Klutz like me, so please bear with me for a couple of days.

Depending on how much of Project 2025 gets implemented, we might see major censorship of trans content. I urge everyone to read Bethany Karsten's essay on how to resist this censorship when/if it happens.

season is here

Please read and leave a comment (if you want to)

https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/104512/before-you

Linda meets her new brother...

Second Spirit - 15
by Melanie Brown
Read on Patreon

I've been out to my wife, kids and grandkids for a few years now, but my wife's extended family didn't know about my real self - until today. We went to my mother-in-law's for Thanksgiving, as she will probably not be around any more next year. It will be a blessing; she has dementia and is getting very near 100 years old. After talking with my niece, who lives with her and has known about me for a couple of years now, we felt that it would be OK to be me. With my wife's blessing, I went there as myself.

The Bridge reached 240 kudos. John's Living Nightmare, with its gargantuan hit level, reached 200 kudos, the fourth story to do so.

So my brother turned 61 years old yesterday, and we had a nice dinner together at a buffet restaurant.

I am so blessed to still have him in my life.

so what's new?

Heh. I love puns. In the next "Angel of..." story Aaron/Malak encounters someone who can make cutting remarks.

This week having a holiday on Thursday, I'm posting a day early; Monday and Wednesday rather than Tuesday and Thursday.

Next week I will revert to Tuesday and Thursday as planned.

So yesterday and the day before, it pretty much snowed here all day, and it was what you would call a mixed blessing.

One the one hand, the city looks beautiful, white everywhere, and after a pretty grim summer that is a good thing.

On the other hand, drivers here seem to forget how to drive in snow, so car accidents have been plentiful.

Ah well, into every life a little snow must fall, right?

small body of water or a small stream?

neither, Brook(e) while it does mean small body of water or small stream

In this case it is the new name of a main character of a story i cant remember the name or the author of, and most importantly much plot

MC changes school, to boarding school, can't remember if this is because change from middle to high school

can't remember if Brook is MC's name and mistake in gender is assumed as someone spelled Brook with an e

Does anyone know about Princess Chelsea? She had a certain interest in my BB stories. But I haven't heard from her in a long time.

I've finished writing what I'm calling a "Prologue of My Continuation of My Summer in Pantyhose." It's a chapter by chapter summary of the 24 chapters posted by Jeremy Chandler. The intended purpose is to allow those who've read the original to refresh their memories as to what gone on up to this point.

If you haven't read the original, this probably isn't for you. Binge read "My Summer in Pantyhose" instead.

I looked out the window. Definitely feds.

Second Spirit - 14
by Melanie Brown
Read on Patreon

make it up!

The German Green Party has proposed the creation of “women only” train cars for the underground network in the capital city of Berlin, due to the huge increase of sexual assaults and rapes in the last ten years. This proposal has caused a huge backlash from most other sectors of the German society.

A true tale. Hope you like

There are only 20 days left in December and a few from here before the contest closes on December 20th, 2024. I have been tossing out past Christmas stories daily in the hopes it might inspire some thought for an entry. I have begged for entries, shown potential entries and entries from the past with the BigCloset Retro Classic Christmas Specials.

many years ago, a man named Alvin Toffler wrote a book where he argued that the rate of technological change was going so fast, people could no longer adapt, and were suffering a form of culture shock, or as he put it Future Shock.

Since the book came out, the rate of technological change has only increased, and the effects have only gotten worse.

I believe this is one reason for the increase in popularity of movements that wish to slow, stop, or even reverse some of those changes.

I Don't Like You is now available on Amazon:

Meet Joanna, a courageous girl navigating the complex landscape of high school relationships. When her path collides with her former bully, old wounds resurface, forcing Joanna to deal with her pent-up anger while supporting her friend, Frank. The two must unravel the mysteries of love, friendship, and encouragement. “I Don’t Like You” is a compelling tale of self-discovery, forgiveness, and unexpected connections in this heartfelt story that explores the transformative power of compassion and acceptance.

Thank you to all of the readers on this site.

I spent some time with AI, and found that it really has a problem doing the little things. Jake has two different colored eyes, and it took me forever to get that done how I wanted. I went through, quite literally, hundreds and hundreds of images before I found my Jake. https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/104259/mister-sister-...

My reorganization attempt may have backfired.

I created four categories for most of my stories, but instead, I seem to have warded off some of my stories. Before, all of my 20 odd stories were listed on the right side, with attempted alphabetization getting around the word, "the". But now, only the categories are listed except for the one category being accessed.

Two categories approach 200 hits. The other two have hits in the mid-two-digits.

Anything I can do, besides live with it or undo the reorganization?

so, I found out something interesting yesterday. I had spent a good part of the day walking, and to my delight my joints were not bothering me despite the cooling temperatures.

I assumed it was because of the weight I had lost, but last night, as my manic phase eased, the pain came back.

It makes sense, my manic phase is a lot like being drunk or being high, both known for blocking pain, I had just never made the connection before.