good book.i enjoyed it.

(posted from Chapter 15)

WOW !!  That was quite a trip.  As usual well written and very enjoyable.  The surprise ending was - well - a surprise AND very nice.  Thanks for the ride.

B

(posted from Chapter 15)

Glad you enjoyed it.  This was my favorite of my works for the longest time.  I've always felt the response to it was a little disappointing, so I'm always happy when I hear someone liked it.

Thanks for the feedback,
Eric Storm

Excellent story I hope you have more to add too it or was that it?

(posted from Chapter 15)

Glad you enjoyed the story.

As to whether there is more to add:  The story status is marked as "(Serial / Novel - Completed)".  The last updated date is in 2015.  (Even that is misleading.  I finished writing this story before 2005...)

So, no, there is no more to this story.  It is completely finished.

Eric Storm

If you think I'm letting you off that easy," she said, still somewhat breathlessly, "you've got another thing coming!
The tail end of this concept is:"you've got another think coming."
I have seen this phrasing used in a number of your works the same way.

(posted from Chapter 12)

They are both technically correct, thing being more grammatically correct while think is historically the original word used in the phrase, despite being considered, today at least, ungrammatical as all frell

As far as I'm aware, think is in no way grammatically incorrect in this phrase, it's just awkward for modern speech.

However, to the original point:  You might notice that this is given in dialogue.  For every one person you find who says, "another think coming," I'm willing to bet I can find about ten thousand who will say, "another thing coming."  Therefore, since this is attempting to replicate modern speech, and not the exactness of the idiom, my way is the right way for it to be written in the scene.  Dialogue should mimic the character.  Unless the character makes a point of linguistic exactitude, your dialogue shouldn't, either.

Now, before you go digging up someplace I've used this when it has been in narration: I personally prefer the "another thing coming" version of the phrase myself, and so will continue to use that.  Its meaning is clear and well-understood, which is really the only thing that actually matters.  That we do not utter the expression the same way it was originally coined is, when it comes right down to it, completely irrelevant.

Eric Storm

Addendum:  I just looked "think" up in the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary.  Think is still accepted as having a noun form, which is what would be intended in the "another think coming" version of this phrase.  Thus, it is not grammatically incorrect, just slightly weird, for modern English.

I apologize for sending the criticism in open forum, I was intending it to be private  but missed the selection before submitting.

Thanks for the acknowledgement and explanation.

No worries about the public criticism, so long as you didn't mind the public response...

Eric Storm

Loved the story flowed along gracefully. The sex wasn't over done like some of the stories you read. It was a shame it ended but all good things end.

(posted from Chapter 15)

As usual, this brilliant author has outdone not only all others in his field, by being the most talented, and imaginative I've had the pleasure of enjoying in over 70 years.

(posted from Chapter 15)

Love the story, just one minor  point:

In Chapter 11: "Anyway, I did my usual big-brother routine on her, and, well... we did eventually get together. That's about it. I miss her. Here I am, girls literally waiting at my beckon call, and I want something I can't have. Have I grown so... I don't even know the word... am I so screwed up as that?"

seewww.grammarly.com/blog/beck-and-call-or-beckon-call/

While I don't mind the correction (which I already knew about, just haven't wasted the time to fix yet)...

NEVER cite Grammarly to me.  Grammarly is Evil.

I find it funny, though.  This story gets very few comments, but the one time it gets a comment, is right after I have just finished reading it!    Sheesh. 

Eric Storm

Warmth does not leave a lot of feathers ruffled requiring comment. That said Eric it is an extremely well written and entertaining piece. I am sorry it received little comment it should rank up with your better work

If I'm being honest, it is probably my 2nd favorite Eric Storm story (after WA). Everything just works.

Eric Storm wrote:

NEVER cite Grammarly to me.  Grammarly is Evil.

Not to start anything, and I have no dog in this hunt, but can I ask why this is? Never having used it myself, I'm curious.

Grammarly basically encourages people to not bother learning to write properly.  It also enforces "rules" that aren't really rules, but suggestions... not to mention that fiction authors, especially, regularly violate the rules of grammar intentionally, for dramatic effect.

No computerized system can really tell you how to write properly.  The English language is more like a set of exceptions than it is a set of rules, but no computer can recognize that properly.

In any case, I consider all of these such "grammar checkers" to be a bad idea.  Hell, even something as simple as a spellchecker gets it wrong a significant fraction of the time, thanks to the eccentricity of the language.  And grammar is significantly more complicated than spelling.

As to the original issue in question ('beckon call' vs. 'beck and call'), while I acknowledge that the historical version is 'beck and call', it is my assertion that it is perhaps time to update it to 'beckon call'.  Why?  Because 'beck' is used in only one place in the language anymore: this phrase.  And the word "beck" means... "beckon".  Thus the phrase doesn't particularly change meaning, while removing a now-useless word from the language.

This, of course, has little to do with Grammarly, and more my desire to clean up the language a bit here and there, without getting radical.  You know, not like suddenly and arbitrarily creating a rule that you can't end a sentence with a preposition, or that gender neutrality should suddenly be delegated to the male pronouns rather than the plural ones (both of those things happened, btw...)

Eric Storm

I use Grammarly rather extensively to point out POSSIBLE issues, but I frequently tell it to ignore something because its grammar rules don't recognize the situation that it is objecting to.
E.g. one of my games has a singular item with a plural name; wanna guess how many times it tries to correct it when I'm on Facebook?
Another example, which can show up in Eric's work: internal conversations -- AKA stream-of-consciousness writing. Throw ALL rules out the window when dealing with that type of writing because SOC just does not play well with grammar rules.
Note, my name is in a published book in the acknowledgements due to the amount of time that I spent with that author trying to teach him how to correct some of the true grammar issues in his writing. I had to research the issues to find references for instructing him.

Yet --like me--Darthel, just how many creative books have you published? My point is , like me your criticisms Need to be taken with a grain of salt. Eric is perfectly capable of this--sometimes he is brutal about it. Just be careful and thick skinned about it

Darthel:  The difference is, you're using it as a backstop.  You know what the rules are, you're just trying to be efficient.  Probably 90+% of the people who use Grammarly do NOT know what the fuck they're doing in their writing.  For those people, Grammarly is a crutch, and a dangerous one at that.

When I used to edit for people, I considered it my goal to get them to the point where they really didn't need me anymore.  By which I mean I would educate them about why what they had done was wrong, and the way to do it right... as well as times when the rule needed to be ignored.  Much like it sounds you were doing with that person and their book.

And I'd take your comment about internal dialogue further, expanding it to all dialogue.  People do not speak in grammatically correct sentences, and you should make sure they don't in your writing.  (Unless, of course, you're writing an uber-anal stuck up elitist bookworm type that insists on being grammatically perfect...)

Eric Storm

I don't think I have commented here yet.  LOL.  I am going to comment on some comments from a few years ago.  Eric you are probably getting tired of hearing me say this but you are one of my favorite writers that I have the honor of reading their works.  One of the things I assume is that even though you do not like grammerly that you do use a spellchecker or you have very very very good proofreaders.  I think that I haven't found miss-spelled words or other really bad errors in grammar ie. dear/deer etc.  I have been a proofreader for a few other writers years ago that were excellent writers and wrote really excellent stories but they did not use a spellchecker or grammar checker.  It was a full time job to proofread their stories but it was worth it as they were awesome writers.  Sadly the have since disappeared from any online forums or online stores their last uploads being 2017-2018.  It's sad...would be like you disappearing and never writing again. [shudder] I will let you go as I have once again talked your ear off.  May your muse guide you always.

(posted from the Item Information Page)

I have an absolutely outstanding proofreader.  The guy almost never misses a thing.  This dude's like a damned dictionary, thesaurus, and style guide all rolled into one.  He's a freakin' genius, my proofreader...

Yes, my proofreader IS me, why do you ask?  0

I have tried having proofreaders in the past.  With only a single exception, I've found that their grasp of spelling and grammar was far worse than mine.  Thus, I proofread my own work.  I achieve this by proofreading it right before I post it, and making sure I haven't read it for at least a few days before that.  That way, it is not fresh in my mind, and it is easier to spot errors, rather than glossing over them because my brain "knows what it meant to say".

Now, of course, I have a spellchecker.  When was the last time you saw word processing software without one built in?  Since I use a browser-based WYSIWYG editor to write, my spellchecker is the browser.  NOT the most reliable of spellcheckers, let me tell you... but it catches the obvious typos.

And, frankly, since writing is pretty much the only part of my life I enjoy, rest assured, if I disappear from the Internet, it's because I'm dead.

Eric Storm

Man you keep knocking it out of the park. I hope you haven't stopped writing.

(posted from Chapter 15)

Glad you enjoyed the story.  This is one of my favorites of my work.

I doubt that I will ever stop writing.  I am, however, currently in a slump.  I am writing, but very slowly.

Eric Storm