October 4, 2009

Hi Everyone! It's nice to see that I'm still getting a fair amount of story traffic despite the fact that it has been at least 6 months since I've made any contributions, Thanks!

If you (or your kids) stay tuned into the Disney Channel, you may just get to see a bit of my hometown in one of Disney's 'Getcha Head in the Game' segments. These are shorts that are sometimes shown between the regular shows that encourage kids to 'get off the couch and get moving'. Disney was in town last week to feature a local fourth grader named Hayley who was a point shy of winning a state archery competition. She and her archery team from one of our local Elementary schools was featured for this segment. From what I understand, they shot a lot of the local scenery to get a few seconds to put into what will be the two minute segment. If you should happen to catch it, look for the girl on her team who is somewhat tall and skinny with short dark hair and blue eyes. If you can find her, you are looking at my 'little' cousin Laura! Word is that the segment will be shown about 6 times a month over the next 4 years. With only 12 minutes each month, actually catching it is going to be based on pure luck!

Latest Story Completed: Deadline

On the Drawing Board for Dukes of Hazzardi: Jesse's Desperation. (Another choose your own ending). Estimated completion date: January 2010.

On the Drawing Board for Hardy Boys: While She Slept (In Progress) Estimated Completion date: ? (Currently on hold)

On the Drawing Board for Three's Company: None

CONSEQUENCES CONSEQUENCES CONSEQUENCES

What in the heck was ole' Waylon talking about there on 'Consequences'? Well in case you haven’t figured it out already, he was leading you here so you could enjoy my very first Dukes Choose Your Own Ending Story. You can find the link on down the page but before ya go clicking away, I'd like you to take a moment to go over Uncle Jesse’s rules and commentary which are listed below. They’re here not only to make some humble requests, but to help you understand the story a little better:

Uncle Jesse’s Rules and Commentary:

Number 1:Don’t any of you youngin’s go reportin’ the prologue/ ‘one shot’/beginning of the story posted in the story area to fanfiction.net. Those folks frown on these kinds of stories and they would take it off and ban H.G. from the site. She spent five months burnin’ brain cells on this story to provide free entertainment and believe me, she didn’t have none ta spare. Besides, I can’t stand for tattlin’. Sure it’s against the fanfic law, but then us Dukes supposedly break the law all the time and ya like us, don’tcha?

Number 2:We needs plenty of feedback on this story. The way I see it, she’s got seventeen endin’s on there so’s I reckon she needs one for each endin’ you git to. That’s right youngin’, she wants 17 reviews from each of ya. Yeah, it might take ya awhile but I guarantee it won’t take ya nowhere near as long as it did for her ta think all this stuff up. (okay, she really don't expect you'ns ta do that much, but if ya like it drop her a line or two to let her know- she's kinda poutin' about the amount she's got and I can't stand fer feelin' sorry fer yourself.). And oh yeah, I know this story's gittin' purty near a couple years old, but she still likes them reviews. So's if yer late in tha game gittin' here, go ahead and leave her one. Ya gotta remember, she's jist a Georgia mountain girl herself, where the big excitement in her neck of the woods is seein' the mailman drop off her junk mail. So's if ya were to leave her one of them reviews, it might give her somethin' to git excited about other than the Wal-Mart circular.

Number 3:Well this ain’t a rule ta follow, just a commentary; I want ta personally welcome ya to the Duke family where there’s always room fer one more. Now I want ya ta understand yer relation. You’re my second cousin, which means yer Luke, Bo, and Daisy’s third. However, bein’ a youngin’ like them, I reckon it seems more proper fer ya to call me Uncle Jesse. So’s yer allowed. So as yer readin’ along, you might see that H.G. has you callin me Uncle but referrin’ to me as yer cousin. ‘Course now that you understand the situation, you’ll know why. You’ll also notice them outta town folks referring to me as your Uncle, we’ll they can’t help it they don’t know no better, what with you callin’ me uncle and all. That’s jist to let you know that H.G. ain’t lost her marbles as you read along.

Number 4: Another thing to remember: This here story takes place around 1980 jist like it did on tha T.V., so’s when we git into some technical stuff and talkin’ about money, it’s gonna be like it was back in ‘80, not 21st century. So don’t you young’ins go laughin’ at what we got. Yeah, you might think it’s ‘so yesterday’ as ya’ll like ta say but then again, so’s this story.

Number 5: Them there fan fic folks went and doctored the links so's when you click on them, they lead ya right back to this page. It looks like the only way you are gonna git to enjoy them anymore is ta copy them out in the address bar yerself, as even copy/paste 'ill put ya right back on this page. So go ahead and git ta copyin. I know it's kinda aggrivatin' and time consumin', but I think you'll find the trouble was worth it.

And now that you've read enough to feel like you've already read half the story, here's the link you'll have to copy out by hand in your address bar. http://www.hgstewart.bravehost.com/BEGINNING.htm

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Fun fact: You can 'Google' almost all the locations outside of Hazzard (and sometimes inside) in my Dukes of Hazzard fan fiction (As I use actual Georgia/Tennessee landmark/city names quite often).

About Me...Fan Fiction:

My fan fiction history began in 2000 when I was online looking up 'The Hardy Boys', my favorite series while growing up. In my search I came across the Hardy Boys website ran by Bob Finnan. Somewhere on that website there was a link to a Hardy Boys fan fiction page. Up untill that time, I had never heard of fan fiction, so I decided to see what it was all about. The first piece of fan fiction I read was a story entitled 'Bullet Burn'. I began to read it and was immediately engrossed. I had always had a special liking for the more edgy Hardy Boys 'Casefiles' series but this went above and beyond what even that series offered. When I was in elementary school, a friend and I often exchanged short handwritten 'Hardy Boys' stories for each other to enjoy but I had no idea that it was (or would come to be know as) fan fiction, nor did I have any clue that anyone else, much less thousands of other people, enjoyed writing stories about existing characters. After I had completed the entire 'Bullet Burn' series (there were four follow up stories). I took a deep breath and tried a hardy boys story all on my own. After I completed four chapters and felt someone comfortable with it, I nerviously submitted chapter one to the website. The first chapter of that story "I Thee Wed" was accepted with rave reviews. This inspired the confidence in me to finish that story, to write another called 'While She Slept' and finally to pen my first ever 'Choose your own ending story' called The Carjackers.

As my confidence grew so did my ability to accept constructive criticism without becoming defensive or depressed. Once of the most common critiques I had was that I wrote 'too country'. I tried hard to correct this problem but it seemed to crop up from time to time. When one lives in Georgia all of her life as I have, it is sometimes hard to sort out regional phrasing from nationally known phrasing.

Eventually a bunch of us fan fic authors had submitted Frank and Joe to almost every known form of torture imaginable (why do we like to do that to characters we like??). It was hard to come up with anything fresh and it was high time to move on. But where?

About that time, CMT decided to run the Dukes of Hazzard reruns. It's hard for me to believe now, but at that time, I had not seen an episode of Dukes in a good 10-12 years. I was slightly amused at first. I had forgotten that everyone called the comissioner 'Boss' and I had actually forgotten that the General could fly! I still remember watching that first episode and thinking 'This is stupid! Why did I ever like this show?" But the more I watched it, the more I remembered why I liked it. In time I bought the unofficial guide to the Dukes of Hazzard and began to read it. Imagine my suprise when I read how Gy Waldron came up with the idea for the Dukes of Hazzard and 'Chatsworth, GA' came up more than once. Chatsworth GA happens to be the town I grew up in. I think I actually opened my mouth in suprise. I remembered watching the show before I knew this bit of information and thinking 'Dang, this is a lot like home.' Single comissioner, check. Mountains, check. Moonshine history, check. A bunch of boys who like to race cars, check. (Yes, there is still a dirt racetrack in the county.) And even as far as I was concerned, uncle who owns a farm, check! (I did not live on the farm but I was babysat there while my mother and father worked and stayed durning summer vacations untill I was 14, and I know a whole lot about the workings of a farm). Then it all came together, how could I possibly write too country for this show? I had found my new fan fiction cast.

And the rest, as they say, is history!

COMPLETED WORKS NOT POSTED AT FANFIC.NET AND OTHER STORY COMMENTARY

Hardy Boys: If you want to read a great, completed, Hardy Boys Choose Your Own Adventure story I wrote, then visit: http/www.angelfire.com/super2/thecarjackers/If you want to review that story, send your review directly to me at frankjoehardy@yahoo.com

http/hardydetectiveagency.com/library/authorr.htm I contributed to the writing of two of the stories written here posted under the 'Round Robin' section. Working on 'Buried Alive'was my direct inspiration for the Dukes of Hazzard 'Three Days' story. I am also the author who began the story titled 'The Avalanche', I can tell you for a fact that I wrote Chapter 1 of 'The Avalanche' and chapter 2 of "Buried Alive', but to tell you what other chapters I wrote on the stories, I would actually have to go back and read them, which I am too lazy to do right now.

If you will google Moonstar's Hardy Boys fanfiction and seek out her story list, you will see some more Hardy Boys stories I have wrote under the pen name 'Holleigh Stewart'. The Titles are I Thee Wed and While She Slept. These stories are almost 8 years old now, and the first fanfictions I ever wrote for others to see!

Three's Company I had a lot of fun writing for Three's, but as there didn't seem to be much of a fan base for that paticular show, I went in another direction. Still, if you haven't read 'His Sister's Keeper', I'm sure you'll enjoy it a lot as it involves the traditional misunderstanding that made that show so fun to watch!