It seems, as the years go by, that the real message of this time of the year has faded to overstuffing oneself on turkey, or whatever passes for the holiday meal and vegging out in front of the TV or computer, engaging in whatever non-activity one prefers.

To me, the true meaning of this holiday, that of being grateful for what one has received in life, has faded into self indulgence and solitude from the scary world outside one's "safe place." In this post, I shall attempt to re-affirm what is truly important to me in my life.

So its been a little damp on this rock this week, 'Angus' doing his best to drown half the population and wash away the rest!

It does mean that I've not been tempted much beyond my front door for a few days which in turn means my editor has taken delivery of more new Gaby than I had anticipated, the first 6 of the new book are complete. This in turn means that with a following wind the first complete arc may be made available on Sunday! I've written so fast I don't even have a title yet.

I hadn't been able to do much writing for the last two months but I've discovered, or re-discovered, something. Writing energizes me.

One of the reasons I wasn't writing was that I had so much else to do that it seemed wasteful of my time to write. And yet, I wasn't getting all that much of those tasks done either. Just staying even with the site was about all I could do.

I've been stewing for a couple of days over all the hate that has been spewed lately against several writers and enough is enough. Recently, Efindumb announced that they (I'm using a non-descriptive word for a reason) would be leaving BigCloset because of all the negativity that has been leveled against them in their writings. I made an initial comment about it on her blog, telling the author that I thought they should not leave, that the story the author is writing is not finished yet, and that I thought their Muse would drive the author insane if the story wasn't finished.

I'm looking for a story I read ages ago was about a ex space corp marine who's planet was attacked by space pirates, and thinking his family was killed he went looking for revenge. He was captured by pirates and put in a medical pod, an changed to a female, a cple things happened and the pirates were put in some and ended up being turned into young girls, who saw the older women as their mum. I remember that her sister was alive and she hired a governess who ended up opening a school. But that's about all I can remember I just don't know what it's called.

because some unthinking fool has given them grief has made me very angry! I've spent years here at Top Shelf and, while not every writer is one I read, their work is nontheless important to them and their fans. Writing is a way to deal with the anxiety and even pain that comes with being Transgender and being able to get those anxieties out in writing helps each and every writer to deal with those pains and anxieties.

So, yesterday afternoon I got a letter in the mail from the Department of Homeland Security.

It read:

Welcome To The United States Of America

This is to notify you that your application for permanent residence has been approved. It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the permanent resident status in the United States.

Needless to say, I am very happy.

A long discussion with my brother about various longform fictions brought up some ideas I thought to share.

Story structure is key to almost all commercial and popular fiction, movies and television. What I'm talking about is what you might call the information flow of the story if you were an engineer (which both my brother and I have been). The segments below could be episodes or chapters or groups of episodes or chapters. In something as short as a novelette, they could be very short indeed.

From time to time Big Closet writers become upset by comments -- or even lack of comments.

I just read about Angharad’s decision to cease writing for BC. She has been worn down by what she considers to be negative remarks. What’s negative and what isn’t, is her decision . . . as is how she reacts.

She has proven her character through her diligence to her craft. BC would be a much different place without her involvement. I hope she reconsiders and keeps writing for BC.

that Grover and Understanding Spouse have arrived safely in Utah and are recovering from a trip fraught with danger. U.S. starts her new job Tuesday and Grover will be back in the groove writing as soon as they get settled into their new domicile.

They got waylaid by snow in Denver over Friday and part of Saturday and, being from much warmer climes, they didn't want to risk life and limb trying to navigate the icy roads. I can't say I blame them.

Anyway, alls well that ends well and I can breathe again, knowing that my family of the heart is safe at home.

I find it disturbing that major contributors like Angharad and Efindumb are choosing to stop posting. When a volunteer organization, starts burning out it's best workers, the end is generally not far away. This does not bode well for BC.

Found a web site where it is all put into my own kind of philosophy. There is nothing a few pills can do for anyone unless they are one of those very very few who have a reaction. From what I have read on the tests of those individuals, they were borderline in the female hormonal department. A pill pushed them over the line and they developed female breasts as any young adolescent female would.

I read Penny Lane's 'What Milsy Did.

Since they were working with a blast furnace, I decided to upload some pictures that I took at the ruins of an old blast furnace in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, on the shore of Lake Superior. That way, everyone can get somewhat of an idea of what the blast furnace looked like.

The first one is at: http://ray-d.deviantart.com/art/Bay-Furnace-01-646521107

Here's an idea I picked up from a friend of a friend on Facebook.

Write the happiest story you can, using only four words.

Awaiting your contributions with interest.

My new Facebook avatar

After two (more) heart attacks and several mini-strokes my absence from this site is hopefully over. I have pretty much retired from any form of writing but look forward to catching up with some of my favourite authors and their stories. I've missed doing that! Anne

Author's Commentary on Somewhere Else Entirely: Chapters 7 to 10

Edits to these chapters consist mostly of corrections to spelling and adjustments to style. There is one sequence which required further adjustment which I will note below.

Just to keep things on an even keel - this is written about the Donald Trump campaign (and the man), but it is by someone who supported Clinton. This is pretty darned apolitical, but is good information to keep on hand.

Mind you, in a few spots, I'm using 'apolitical' in the "Irish Neutral" sense, meaning attack EVERYONE equally.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/

I have seen this before and didn't write about it, but when I ran across it today I felt it was time.

Stack Exchange is a place I go a lot for programming and systems management help. One of the sites that Stack Exchange operates is one called "Worldbuilding".

From the site:

Hey peeps

As the more observant of you will have spotted Amazon have started an 'on demand' print service. I'm in the process of making all the Gaby series available, the Nena books are already up.

Amazingly there have been some hard copy sales already, so my query is, if you have bought an Amazon print book what do you think of them?

Whilst this isn't intended as a sales plug I would just like to remind you that if you are buying anything on Amazon if you log in through BC this site gets a 'royalty' - Gaby sales last month put $50 in the coffers in this way.

I hope you guys don't mind, but I would like to take you behind the scenes of Mercy for a moment.

A while back, I felt really stuck on this story. What I wanted to do was get Faith to a point where she had grown enough and learned enough that I could bring back Brand for a final confrontation, but I simply didn't know how to get there from where the story was at the time.

So realizing that conflict drives stories, I asked for help in creating an opponent for Faith.

Backups are a PITA so they often don't get done.
Just refer to the anguish that Maddy Bell had where her PC stopped working.
Now she's got no excuse for not backing up her work. {courtesy of yours truly}

I came upon this little ditty again today.

Yesterday,

All those backups seemed a waste of pay.

Now my database has gone away.

Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,

There's not half the files there used to be,

And there's a milestone hanging over me

The system crashed so suddenly.

Several of my friends put together a guide for transgender individuals who are trying to update their identity documents as quickly as possible, before Trump's administration takes over and puts much of this in jeopardy.

The annual Transgender Day of Remembrance is November 20, 2016.

For my locality there is a rembrance service on Nov 19. It's quite an emotional experience. I urge everyone who can to check your local LGBT sites for local services. While heart wrenching, it's well worth the experience. Considering the potential political upheaval we all need to be aware.

Please... go if you can.

Trying to remember Author and Title

Not in order just how they are remembered

Alien artefact mistaken for Egyptian Sarcophagus and is displayed in a museum.

Artefact is either a stasis pod, or a regeneration pod, and also has powerful computer.

Protagonists gender is changed, and becomes host to the mind of the Alien.

Chase across the world to find another artefact.

Protagonist and Federal Agent fall for each other.

So first we've got this weeks chapter of Nena Four Star, Part 4.

Below, as promised yesterday, is the sample German translation followed by the original English text. I know its not perfect, I know it needs some tweaks here and there, what I need to know is whether its readable or just so rubbish its useless.

Cheers & thanks in advance
Mads

ps the text is from the latest Nena tale 'Remind Me Again'

I've had some drama in my life lately, and I could use a good action/adventure tg story to pick me up. On Stardust I read Grover's Dream of Dragon's and that was FUN, and i'd love something similar.

So can anyone point me in the direction of some fun adventure stories?

So, I poured coffee into my keyboard, a Blue Tooth one, that seems OK. Well, the keyboard still works, so I thought I'd tear it down and give it a bit of a flush out, since I have done it before numerous times on other ones.

My question? Is there a certain spray solvent to use?

Gwen

Hey Everyone.

I wanted apologize for the delay in getting the site back online today.

What happened is that one of our many elves happened to click a wrong button causing all of the "Author Taxonomy" to disappear. That may sound like an easy fix, of just rolling back the database, but in doing so we would have lost a couple new stories, and blogs that we didn't want to disappear.

Just back from the clinic and the pharmacy. I have cystitis! A week of antibiotics starts now. I have the greatest sympathy for anyone who suffers with this

Shiraz

I am very frustrated. After a pretty good day with only mild pain, I was heading home when I got a flashback while driving. Thankfully, I was able to keep control enough to make it home without getting into an accident, but it still bothers me that even after 6 years of working on this, I am still vulnerable to flashbacks without any obvious triggers.

Sighs ...

My husband and friends tease me that i'm such a bleeding heart. I'm a very forgiving person and I'm told i'm gentle, I don't even really express anger.

I also love to read, and for some reason I have a weird fascination with revenge/punishment stories. Perhaps because I was raised in a household where extreme punishment was the norm.

But this fascination has lead me to read a lot of stories that I regret reading because they eat at me inside. Has anyone else experienced this?

Does anyone know if Karen Page is still around, or if so, how to get in touch with her? I'm a latecomer to 'New Style of Education', and I wanted to give her some direct feedback. It was a quite captivating story, and the author of such a story deserves kudos.

I was watching a tv show. A super hero show.

Why is it that even though the police chase is like 30 stories straight down the "hero" has to take a LONG way to get there?

In batman he drives for like minutes to go less than a block away?

Superman/girl fly around at great speed in the clouds to go almost straight down?

I just found it amusing. Silly in extreme but amusing.

As most of you know I was forced to have surgery on my back summer before last. I was told it was surgery or learn to use a wheelchair and become dependent on narcotics, (pain killers that didn't work very well, and they were giving me some really strong ones.)

To anyone still waiting for the next chapter of my serial OFF THE DEEP END, I sincerely apologize for the delay (I'd make some self-deprecating joke about "my five or six fans" here except I'm afraid that might actually be the case...).

Practicing some radical distraction, I was cruising YouTube when I found an hour long video of "Similarillion", a JRR Tolkien story about the beginning of all things. I was actually quite lovely. Then moving on I found a series of beautiful and astonishing videos by Skyrim that were so impressive to me. How do they write the code to do that and then to make the figures move so realistically? Then the scum on the bottom included some Rape Fantasy videos, apparently many countries outlaw them, but it does not seem like America does. :(

Mike Austin, aka Jamie Austin, passed away this week after a lengthy illness. Jamie was a makeover artist, a very good one actually, and I post this simply because there are probably males here that Jamie worked her magic on and were unaware of her death. I was fortunate enough to attend several Southern Comfort Converences and similar events, and somehow was able to get an appointment with her at a couple of them. Before her health began failing several years ago, her shop was in a barn near Glamour Boutique in Boston.

In honor of Remembrance day, here is "In Flanders Fields",

IN FLANDERS FIELDS POEM
The World’s Most Famous WAR MEMORIAL POEM
By Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!

It's not the first time that stories in the series have had transgender considerations, including one whole book. Now the new book starting on November 14th is a transformation story titled, Joe/Joan by West Boyd. I'm looking forward to it.

Despite being super sick today, I did get one bit of good news. One of the managers of the Walmart I work at told me he sent an email to my employer saying how good a job I'm doing.

So that's a yay ...

Another pain filled day, and I discovered I really walk funny. My right foot sometimes goes from side to side rather than say back to front or front to back, and when that's not happening my right leg is going in some completely other direction than my left one.

To make things even more stressful, I came home to discover my dog is limping quite badly too.

I'm sorry - I just have to vent.

As you probably know, I live in Switzerland.

But I am English.

I have a few interests in the UK, and I have trusted my brother with looking after them. A job he has been doing for nearly 20 years now.

I have today had a shock and a surprise.

It looks like my brother has ripped off my sister and I to the tune of about £10,000 to £12,000.

Trump has won, it's a dark day for minorities everywhere. I can't help but feel that anyone who refused to vote or did a protest vote helped put him there.

Tragic.

And that if you don't vote when you can, you shouldn't (not CAN'T, never 'can't,') complain most of the time, but this year....

This year.

I was registered on time. I've been following things, planning to cast my own vote (the 'Deez Nutz' ticket, if anyone's curious.) But when it came down to actually going today, seeing every single Trump sign up and down the roads, knowing just how the ticket would fall regardless of whatever I did.

Call me a coward, but I stayed home.

I couldn't really see a niche for this. But I'm not sure about most people. But, I'll be pleased when this is all over. Luckily living in the UK I've not had the same problem as most of my Countrymen. My Mother-In-Law bless her, I so love that lady. Said well thankfully it doesn't really concern us meaning Brits. But like I said well as our closest ally, I don't care what anyone thinks, we are close allies. It means a great deal to the UK who wins.

... at the moment I'm in the midst of reading Susan Brown's Orphan, which is very good by the way, and was reminded of another similar story.

I can't remember it's era or if it is set in the UK or US, here is what I can (may be not in sequence order)

http://www.eonline.com/news/806683/covergirl-s-first-male-am...

Making history as CoverGirl's first-ever male ambassador, 17-year-old aspiring makeup artist James Charles is now the face of the brand's So Lashy! by BlastPro Mascara, which is designed for all lash types.