Well, here I am, dressed up for my first Gaia Writer's award ceremony. I've entered a few writing contests in Gaia now, but this was the first time I would find out who had won. Well, it wasn't me, but you can read the stories here: Writing Contest.
If you want to read my story, here it is (page down, I put it in "Document" form):Dog Story
I thought it was okay, but I think it might be more interesting if you live with a dog. I'll have to see what the judges thought, but my general take on it is that it's not traditional fantasy (it was a fantasy entry) and more of a "life from dog's point of view" for the first half with a stereotypical bit Lord of Flies tacked on at the end. But I'm indulging in overanalysis.
I would be completely lying if I said my first reaction wasn't "Fools! Don't they appreciate my greatness?" blaugh Any writer who tells you they don't mind rejection is flat out lying. The reason we try to get published is to share our inner stories. We are like children that way, showing our collective mothers what we've been up to and hoping for approval. Any whiff of anything less than "Thank you, Writing Goddess" is like a squirming viper in our bosom. But if we want to survive, we have to laugh at ourselves and keep going.
I've had three rejections so far this month. Once I even made it to the finals in a national short story contest, only to get a (very nice) "sorry" at the end. No, it didn't make it much easier. Each time, I pestered poor Oxbridge with my wailing for a few minutes and then tried to pretend I didn't care. He's so supportive, though. He's always good for a hug, even if yesterday it was a virtual hug. So, last night, I poured myself a glass of wine and headed out with him to Barton.
I've mentioned that "cyber-dates" were the main reason we decided to sign up for Gaia. This is true, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea. We don't do "cyber-snookems". We have a healthy marriage, but really what I like to do is just spend time with him. Yesterday afternoon, though, we found ourselves in a secluded grove. No, we didn't. But he wrote very romantic lines about holding my hand and even clicked the "kissy" icon a few times. As silly as it is to say, I felt a bit warm from all that redface and had my little avatar Virginia stand up and walk a few paces away, stammering apologies. Heh. Maybe it was the dress, but I felt like I was the character in a Bronte novel there for a moment. We promised to see each other soon; I hit a few cry icons; after a hug, I ran off to get ready for work. heart heart
Okay, okay, sorry. I admit that might be falling into the realm of "sharing too much", but you really didn't have to read the above if you didn't want to. wink
Anyway, I was certainly looking forward to our "date" again last night. But we ended up being social and gabbing with other people instead, which was probably all for the best. Eventually we found ourselves chatting with a very bright 11 year old boy who plays cello and loved Bach and Beethoven. As I may have mentioned, the kids I meet here are invariably smarter/more squared away than I was at a similiar age. Oxbridge has a fair number of students his age (OB teaches flute), so they hit it off great. As the saying goes, OB's pretty good with children.
But then some dweeb came over (female avatar, but I have my doubts) and started doing that "hump" thing on us. We tried to shoo dweeb off but the "humping" and sex talk kept going on. I told the dweeb that our new friend was only 11 and she really needed to cut it out and take off. More abuse, very explicit and none of which I will repeat. I quickly PM'd our friend and fortunately he got the message and we all met up elsewhere. Yeah, I reported it as abuse (I told dweeb I would if she persisted, with predictable results).
Look, I'm no prude. I think anything between consenting adults is ok. There's some very explicit threads on the forums, and I think that's ok, too. Most of the people here are at least in their mid to late teens, and talking about uber-smootchies is just fine at that age. After all, in a cyber environment, some discussions can be had more safely than they can in real life where there's temptation to act on things that could stand to wait a year or two. Even a little bit of play-acting is probably ok. I mean, I just said I go on cyber-dates, I'm in no position to be judgemental. And I don't expect my line-beyond-which-I won't-go to be the same as someone else's.
But this was borderline child molestation. We may wear avatar masks here, but there's real people behind that mask. I may be new to the whole cyber-space thing, but I can't think of any circumstances in which sexual advances on an 11 year old are ok. Frankly, I'm getting very mad just thinking about it. mad I think OB and I did the right thing, although perhaps we should have left sooner. Frankly, our friend was taking pretty good care of himself, firmly telling her to go away. I have no doubts he would have left even if we hadn't been there. That doesn't make any of that okay, however.
Gaia's still a neat place, and I stand by my earlier statement that most of the folks we meet are super-cool (well, by MY definitions of cool smile ). But there's a few proverbial snakes in the grass. It's an unpleasant thought, but I'm not going to let it put me off going out and socializing. Too bad there's no such thing as virtual pepper spray, though.
