More Will and Jay stories from Alan Barker

My Friend from Great Britain, Alan Barker, too time out from watching the royal wedding to send three more Will and Jay stories. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

A fishy tail

"It's great to see you two guys enjoy fishing so much, seeing it's your first time and getting so excited when your rods quiver," chuckled Paolo to his two friends Will and Jay, "being out of the city and chilling by the lake will do you the world of good, but I'm a little worried about you Will."

"It was awesome when I landed my first real catch," said Jay, "but Will here is a guy who never gives up even though he's only landed some muddy swim shorts, several condoms and an old boot!"

Kitchen sink drama

"Uncle Stefano's restaurant always gets busy at weekends," said Carlo, Paolo's husband, "Paolo will be along in a minute to show you around our kitchen, but first you must eat and drink, so pick what you like from the menu and enjoy."

"It's all very well you overflowing with 'Molto grazie's ' to him," said Will to his partner Jay, "you do realise that when he said that the kitchen desperately needed two new dishwashers, he was referring to us, so eat up, it's going to be a long, long night mate."

Pole Dancer

"Tom, Will told me you're an awesome pole dancer, but how do you feel performing in front of large crowds and begging for money," pointed out Jay, "and you wear only a flower here and a few leaves there?"

"Well, there are at least ten of us Jay so as we've got just the right blossoms to cover your embarrassment," encouraged Tom, " why don't you come and join in with the lads at dawn on May 1st and enjoy dancing around the Maypole on the village green for charity.

Writing Tip #27 Don’t Muddy the Waters

I recently read and reviewed a 750 page, self-published novel that was written by a talented writer, and yet, I had a great deal of trouble muddling through the story. Not only was I not totally satisfied with the read, but the author contacted me after I posted my review to let me know I had missed several of the themes he had woven into the story. I freely admit that, although I caught some of the more obvious themes, several he mentioned did blow right over my head. He was very disappointed. It was a shame because much of his story was quite entertaining.

I’ve been thinking about his novel, my review of it, and the author’s response to my review for weeks now. The most prominent complaint that I expressed in the review was that the story was simply overwritten, and could benefit from cutting up to three hundred pages from the story, to tighten the storyline and focus more on the major themes.

After weeks of thought, I stand by my first analysis. I believe the main, and possibly the only, problem was the writer tried to encompass too much, too many ideas, into his story. He was so ambitious, trying to make his story grand, that many of the themes got lost in the shuffle.

I often do this myself when writing a first draft. I don’t realize what the major themes are until I’m deep into act three and all the subplots are coming together for the climax. But once the lightning bolt hits and I understand what my subconscious was striving for, then I’m ready for a major rewrite.

Once I know the premises, I write a theme statement, or two if there are multiple major themes, and I post them on my tack board over my desk. From that point on, the theme statements are my litmus test for cutting or keeping.

Particularly while writing the second draft, anything I find that doesn’t advance the major themes gets cut. Once while writing The Lonely War, I cut the first two hundred pages in half. The result was a cleaner read, and everything that was left did advance the themes.

My point is, be clear about what ideas the subtext of your story is creating, and keep the number of themes to a minimum. Two is good, one is better. In short, don’t muddy the waters by trying to do too much.

For my stories, I like to have two different subplots going on that are loosely linked, each with it’s own theme. At some point, usually deep into act three, I bring the two subplots together to pound home one overall premise. This approach is nothing new. In fact, writers have been using this technique since Rome was a village.

Again, the point is, know your theme, and cut anything that doesn’t progress that idea. Hopefully, you’ll end up with a tighter, cleaner manuscript.

Short Story Review: Legend of the Mountain Ash by Ruth Sims

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by Untreed Reads Publishing
Pages: 14

This poignant story starts with these two sentences: There are places in this world where magic and miracles meet, and when they do a legend is born. This is the story of one such legend, and how it came to be.

This simple yet beautiful opening blossoms into a tale of how Ethan and Davey meet in an army hospital during the World War II, after Ethan was brought there courtesy of a German bayonet. It then describes a growing love as the British lad, Davey, nurses the American solider back to health, a love as tender as a young shoot, but with roots growing deep in fertile soil.

Davey follows his lover back to America and they settle in a farming community, but bigotry from the townsfolk forces them to move on. They search for a place where they can live, free to express their love openly, so as to let it grow strong, and toughen into something that neither people nor time could destroy. In the Appalachian hills, they found such a place, a place where magic and miracles meet. The Legend of the Mountain Ash is, as so many legends are, a story of love and loss, sacrifice and redemption.

Sometimes the simplest stories are the most powerful. Such is the case with this tale, and under Ruth Sims’s skillful hand, this story also blends beauty and grace with that power, and she adds a dash fanciful magic to create an inner journey for the reader, a passage that leads to a bittersweet joy. As the lovers scratch out a life for themselves in this backwoods paradise (a reflection of their love), stone by stone, stick by stick, crop by crop, they also build a structure within the heart and mind of the reader.

The characters will pull at your heartstrings. The enchanting prose will tickle your whimsical soul. The ending, although somewhat predictable, will charm and sadden and uplift. This is one of those rare stories that is felt. And long after you put it down, you will continue to feel it, because it will awaken something in you, at least it did for me. I can highly recommend this story to all readers.

To read more about this story/author go to http://www.ruthsims.com/

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How Old Are You?

Thought I would share some fun today. Check out this memory test. I only missed two of twenty.

NO Cheating - don't look at the answers until you take the test!!!!

History Exam...
Everyone over 40 should have a pretty easy time at this exam. If you are under 40 you can claim a handicap.

This is a History Exam for those who don't mind seeing how much they really remember about what went on in their life.

*** Get paper & pencil & number from 1 to 20.
****Write the letter of each answer & score at the end.

Then before you pass this test on, put your score in the subject line.

1. In the 1940s, where were automobile headlight dimmer switches located?
a. On the floor shift knob.
B. On the floor board, to the left of the clutch....
C. Next to the horn.

2. The bottle top of a Royal Crown Cola bottle had holes in it.. For what was it used?
a. Capture lightning bugs.
B. To sprinkle clothes before ironing.
C. Large salt shaker.

3. Why was having milk delivered a problem in northern winters?
a. Cows got cold and wouldn't produce milk.
B. Ice on highways forced delivery by dog sled.
C... Milkmen left deliveries outside of front doors and milk would freeze, expanding and pushing up the cardboard bottle top.

4. What was the popular chewing gum named for a game of chance?
a.. Blackjack
B. Gin
C. Craps

5. What method did women use to look as if they were wearing stockings when none were available due to rationing during WW II.
A. Suntan
B. Leg painting
C. Wearing slacks

6. What postwar car turned automotive design on its ear when you couldn't tell whether it was coming or going?
A. Studebaker
B. Nash Metro
C. Tucker

7. Which was a popular candy when you were a kid?
A . Strips of dried peanut butter.
B. Chocolate licorice bars.
C. Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside.

8. How was Butch wax used?
A. To stiffen a flat-top haircut so it stood up.
B. To make floors shiny and prevent scuffing..
C On the wheels of roller skates to prevent rust.

9. Before inline skates, how did you keep your roller skates attached to your shoes?
A. With clamps, tightened by a skate key.
B. Woven straps that crossed the foot.
C. Long pieces of twine.

10. As a kid, what was considered the best way to reach a decision?
A. Consider all the facts.
B. Ask Mom.
C Eeny-meeny-miney-MO.

11. What was the most dreaded disease in the 1940s and 1950s?
A. Smallpox
B. AIDS
C. Polio

12. 'I'll be down to get you in a________, Honey'
A. SUV
B. Taxi
C. Streetcar

13. What was the name of Caroline Kennedy's pony?
A. Old Blue
B. Paint
C Macaroni

14. What was a Duck-and-Cover Drill?
A. Part of the game of hide and seek.
B. What you did when your Mom called you in to do chores.
C. Hiding under your desk, and covering your head with your arms in an A-bomb drill.

15 ... What was the name of the Indian Princess in the Howdy Doody Show?
A. Princess Summerfallwinterspring
B. Princess Sacajawea
C Princess Moonshadow

16. What did all the really savvy students do when mimeographed tests were handed out in school?
A. Immediately sniffed the purple ink, as this was believed to get you high.
B. Made paper airplanes to see who could sail theirs out the window.
C. Wrote another pupil's name on the top, to avoid their failure.

17. Why did your Mom shop in stores that gave Green Stamps with purchases?
A.. To keep you out of mischief by licking the backs, which tasted like bubble gum.
B. They could be put in special books and redeemed for various household items.
C. They were given to the kids to be used as stick-on tattoos.

18. Praise the Lord , & pass the _________?
A.. Meatballs
B. Dames
C. Ammunition

19. What was the name of the singing group that made the song 'Cabdriver' a hit?
A. The Ink Spots
B.. The Supremes
C. The Esquires

20. Who left his heart in San Francisco ?
A. Tony Bennett

B. Xavier Cugat
C. George Gershwin
----------------------------- --------------------------

ANSWERS

1. (b) On the floor, to the left of the clutch Hand controls, popular in Europe, took till the late '60's to catch on.

2. (b) To sprinkle clothes before ironing.. Who had a steam iron?

3 (c) Cold weather caused the milk to freeze and expand, popping the bottle top...

4 (a) Blackjack Gum.

5.. (b) Special makeup was applied, followed by drawing a seam down the back of the leg with eyebrow pencil

6. (a) 1946 Studebaker.

7. (c) Wax coke bottles containing super-sweet colored water.

8. (a) Wax for your flat top (butch) haircut.

9. (a) With clamps , tightened by a skate key, which you wore on a shoestring around your neck.

10. (c) Eeny-meeny-miney-mo.

11. (c) Polio. In beginning of August, swimming pools were closed, movies and other public gathering places were closed to try to prevent spread of the disease.

12. (b) Taxi , Better be ready by half-past eight!

13. (c) Macaroni ...

14. (c) Hiding under your desk, and covering your head with your arms in an A-bomb drill.

15. (a) Princess Summerfallwinterspring. She was another puppet.

16... (a) Immediately sniffed the purple ink to get a high.

17. (b) Put in a special stamp book, they could be traded for household items at the Green Stamp store.

18. (c) Ammunition, and we'll all be free.

19. (a) The widely famous 50's group: The Inkspots.

20. (a) Tony Bennett, and he sounds just as good today.

SCORING

17- 20 correct : You are older than dirt, and obviously gifted with mental abilities. Now if you could only find your glasses. Definitely someone who should share your wisdom!

12 -16 correct: Not quite dirt yet, but you're getting there.

0 -11 correct: You are not old enough to share the wisdom of your experiences.

Send this to your ('old') friends with your score in the subject line
__._,_.___

Book Review: The Quest for Brian by Jeff Graubart

Reviewed by Alan Chin
Published by CreateSpace (November, 2010)
Pages: 744

In the early 1970s David Rosen learns that his boyfriend, Brian, lost his job as a teacher because the school board found out Brian was gay. That injustice launches David on a quest for gay liberation, and once on that path he finds the fight a consuming passion from which there seems no escape. But the noble fight for justice does not lift David to a higher plane, rather, he falls farther away from the man he loves and seems to lose every battle, every friend. Because of his extreme and eccentric views, both Brian and the fellow gay liberation fighters distance themselves from David. From Champaign-Urbana to Chicago, to California, and back to Champaign, David descends into a web of obsession, drug addiction and instability.

Much of this story is the author’s memoirs, so the reader becomes witness to actual historical events, heretofore unprinted, starting in the early 1970s and going until the White Night Riots in San Francisco when Dan White got away with murdering Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. This autobiographical historical fiction is an important work, and should raise questions in the soul of every reader, gay or straight, red neck or liberal.

This was not a read I enjoyed, but rather, a read I found interesting. Brian was not a likable character, but he had noble qualities and a sense of justice, which made him a good protagonist. He was a young gay man who somehow linked his unrequited love for Brian Powers with the Gay Liberation Movement, and David’s obsession with both led him down a path of drug addiction and a lust for violent resistance that I found distasteful, as did everybody else in this story. David soon found himself a pariah in the gay community, with nothing to grab onto but the fight.

The story chronicles David’s few successes and many failures throughout this turbulent decade. One of the things I found most interesting was the variety of different gay political groups, and their intrigue, backstabbing and infighting that was a constant theme. Groups would form and dissolve at the drop of a skirt, and seemed more social than political.

The main issue that kept me from enjoying the storyline is that I found the book to be completely over-written. I felt the author could have easily cut out three hundred pages, and the result would be a tighter and more interesting story. As it is, I often found myself wading hip deep in detail that didn’t add much to the story. This was a problem from page one to the end.

This is a long, slow, repetitive, and often entertaining read. I recommend it for those readers who are interested in seeing a unique view of one of the most important and volatile periods in gay history. The following is an excerpt from the book that shows what the political situation was at that time:

In the film Milk, many got their first glimpse of the gay rights struggles of the 70s. Were those struggles an exercise in futility? Consider the following about 1980:
-­It had been just six years since Los Angeles police were ordered to harass and arrest homosexuals.
-­It had been just eight years since many states had special camps for incarcerating homosexuals.
-­It had been just ten years since it was illegal for bartenders in New York City to serve homosexuals.
-­It had been just eleven years since it was illegal in Dade County, Florida, for three or more homosexuals to congregate in public.
-­It had been just twelve years since a Time Magazine poll showed that most Americans despised homosexuals more than murderers.
-­It had been just fourteen years since a respected judge on the Florida Supreme Court wrote in a ruling that Americans would view the death penalty far more favorably if it was used against homosexuals.
So, suppose there was no uprising. Suppose Bryant and Briggs and Walinsky had won. Suppose the religious right was at peak strength in 1980, instead of in tatters.
And then the plague came.

Anita Bryant, who was fired from the Florida Citrus Commission, divorced by her husband, ruined in her career as a singer, and driven into bankruptcy; but those who choose to use God to justify their prejudices had better take note.

For more information about his book or author, go to http://thequestforbrian.com/

A new tool saves time & money with my writing

I use a Mac laptop to write, and I have a wifi interface in my home to connect me to the Internet. My screenwriting partner, Ed Harris, has the same Mac/wifi setup in his house in San Francisco, which is thirty miles away. In the past, I always drove into the city and spent the day working at his house, then of course drove home.

Driving time = 2 ½ hr round trip,
Gas = 4 gallons = $17 dollars at today’s prices,
Bridge Toll = $5,
Foul mood after fighting traffic = priceless.

Enter FaceTime, a Skype-like product -- runs on Macs, iPhones and iPads -- that lets me make calls over the Internet and see the caller who also has the FaceTime software.

Now, instead of meeting once a week because of the hassle and expense of driving to the city, my writing partner and I meet three times per week, he in his home office and me in mine. This video conferencing is FREE. We just downloaded the software onto our Macs, entered each other’s email address, and we were good to go.

We can have a number of documents open on our screen, and then in one corner of my screen is a window with Ed talking to me. It’s as if we are sitting across the table from each other. We are 10 times as productive as we were the old way.

I can’t tell you how much I love this product. Anyone who has a Mac can install this software in minutes, and carry on free long distance conversations, Mac to Mac, or Mac to iPad, or iPad to iPhone. It’s fantastic.

If you purchase this software at the online Apple Store , it costs 99 cents. I however did a google search on “Facetime Free Download” and found a site with free downloads.

Three new W&J stores from Alan Barker

Here is another installment of Alan Barker's Will and Jay two sentence stories. Hope you enjoy. For the first time, I'm able to include a picture of the author.

Adrift

"Mmmmm...mmmm....awesome," drooled Will to his partner Jay, "floating on my back is such a full-on experience and the gentle wave motion makes me feel as if I'm slowly drifting out to sea under that warm Italian sun."

"Dream on matey," teased Jay, "don't you think wearing your shades and designer beach shorts is a bit of an over-chill just to test out our new waterbed?"

Baby face

"Oh Will, you did look so sweet in your little sailor suit and blue booties," said Jay, looking the the photo album,"and I can see why you won the first prize in the 'Baby Face' competition hugging that awesome teddy bear wearing a sailor's cap."

"Well, you were a great success too at Rae's 'Baby Face' themed party, replied Will, "trouble is mate, you looked quite a hunk wearing that large bib and bonnet, but I didn't have the heart to tell the other guys that the secret weapon you had in your diaper was only your cell phone!"

Cover up

As Will and his partner Jay paddled slowly along the water's edge looking out to sea at the setting sun, their fingers touched as Jay said, "remember it was just a few hours ago when you naughtily buried me up to my neck while I was sleeping."

"All too well," replied Will with a devilish grin, "and I will never forget the look on your face when you saw where I had placed two small ice-cream cartons and a pop bottle!"

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