All Comments on 'Cockerelles & Posies'

I have seriously no idea what this is about

A well written story. You did a good job of having the characters speak with the vocabulary and mindset they would have acquired in the world you imagine. I liked the way the contours of that world were only slowly revealed in the telling of the story. I just wonder if you might have reached a more receptive audience if you'd submitted the story under another category (sci/fi or transgender).

Fantasy stories can be pure flights of imagination, untethered to reality, or they can describe the feelings of real people in situations that are at base not all that different from those we face in real life. I think yours is the latter---coming of age, trying to find oneself, mistrust of authority---but it was sometimes hard for me not to think that a lot of the heroine's inner struggle had to do with issues that are particularly Heartseedian rather than universally human. Still, though, she's a sympathetic character, and I'm rooting for her. Thanks.

An interesting story I don't think everyone will enjoy. It took awhile to understand the gender ambiguity that you have implied. Good luck. It was well written.

I almost got into it but not quite. I might read it again tomorrow and see what happens.

Yes, you've got it right. That's my intention, and I agree with your opinion on the placement of the story. It is taboo because it is only part 1 of a longer story. I've already submitted part 2, and it is in review. The taboo starts to show itself more prominently from that part forwards. I did not write it for the quick and dirty incest crowd. It took a lot of work on my part to put this whole thing together. A lot of years and sacrifices to make this story happen. And I have a place to go with it. I believe I do a pretty good job of keeping the tone and rhythm of the story. I'm very careful in how I write these days. My early years of writing were pretty rocky.

Your comprehension of my intentions in this story are spot on. And Kate Young is a persona that I've taken for the sake of the tale which may not translate very well here at all. I took a risk writing it like this. I feel that what I've written after this first installment starts to go somewhere broad and insightful and experimental, at least for me. Marketing myself has been a journey of discovering who I am and what I really want to say about these things.

A brilliantly realised snapshot of an attractive alternative world; I shall be very interested to see if (and how) you can make it all work out. Well done!