Are Tired Old Man's stories available anywhere online?

[brucearmstrong65]

I haven't been able to find any of the late Gary D. Ott's (aka Tired Old Man) stories online anymore. Jerry D. Young used to have them posted, along with Fleataxi's, but Jerry's site was down for a while, and the "new" site doesn't have any of the old stories. I've Googled around a couple of times and come up with bupkis (nothing). I downloaded them all years ago, but would like to have a site to refer people to.

[papaof2]

I have 18 of T.O.M.'s stories that I downloaded in PDF format. I could upload those somewhere as PDF's, not broken out by chapters.

Admin?

[brucearmstrong65]

Jan 27, 2018 16:20:12 GMT -6 papaof2 said:

I have 18 of T.O.M.'s stories that I downloaded in PDF format. I could upload those somewhere as PDF's, not broken out by chapters.

Admin?

I've got 102 of his stories, which I think is complete. Like you, I'm not sure of the rules about posting someone else's stuff. 

I was also looking for a list of the stories in TOM's "Three Amigos" series. I know there were at least 10, but I don't know which ones were in the series, and in what order.

[admin]

Jan 27, 2018 16:20:12 GMT -6 papaof2 said:

I have 18 of T.O.M.'s stories that I downloaded in PDF format. I could upload those somewhere as PDF's, not broken out by chapters.

Admin?

Yeah, That should be OK as long as they're not published as a book somewhere. Lets try a few (maybe 5) and see if anyone complains.

[papaof2]

A quick search on amazon.com finds no books associated with Gary Ott or Gary D Ott or Tired Old Man.

I'll post a few later today.

Six are up in Completed Stories.

[brucearmstrong65]

Feb 6, 2018 11:42:08 GMT -6 admin said:

Jan 27, 2018 16:20:12 GMT -6 papaof2 said:

I have 18 of T.O.M.'s stories that I downloaded in PDF format. I could upload those somewhere as PDF's, not broken out by chapters.

Admin?

Yeah, That should be OK as long as they're not published as a book somewhere. Lets try a few (maybe 5) and see if anyone complains.

Sorry, I wasn't paying close attention to what I was doing (story of my life) and I uploaded eight individual stories in PDF format. I'll hold off on any others for a while and, as you said, Admin, see if anybody complains. Meanwhile, I'll split the stories over 1 MB (40 out of 102) into two or three parts, as needed. We'll have all 102 ready when/if it's okay to go full steam ahead.

[admin]

Sounds good, I just don't want to step on anyone's feet.

[freebirde]

It may seem I am speaking ill of the passed, but I stated the following to Mr. Ott on Jerry's old forum. His early stories are good, but in my opinion his last stories got to be little more than "prepper infomercials". The story that prompted that discussion was one I had commented that it hadn't ended, it had just stopped. Mr. Ott replied that he didn't have any ending for that story so he had stopped it how he had. As I said before, he has good stories and if you start reading one that gets to being too much, drop it and try another that you might like. Of course, there are some that like those kind of stories, so ignore my opinion because that is what it is, an opinion.

[papaof2]

I usually stick with a good story but for others I've been known to "close the book" and walk away if
- there's more politics than story.
- there's more technical detail than story: "the pistol is a 1911 with pearl grips" is fine. If the reader doesn't know what a 1911 is, they'll look it up and the author can provide a glossary for that. Three paragraphs of pistol description is good-bye.
- there are repetitive descriptions: tell me once that she's old and mean, not once per chapter.
- the spelling and grammar sound like it was written by a second grader. There are very few English majors writing fiction but almost everyone can download free tools such as Open Office (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux) and do some checking. If you have a good story, dress it up pretty!
Current version of Open Office: www.openoffice.org/download/index.html
Older versions for older computers: www.openoffice.org/download/archive.html

Yes, I just stop reading whether purchased books or freebies. I may give a purchased book one or two more chapters than a freebie but your recreational reading time is limited so you shouldn't be struggling to get through a chapter. If you paid $5 for a dud, Kindle makes it easy to get a refund on an ebook.

I dropped a few of TOM's stories in an early chapter. Others I've read more than once. Your mileage may vary.

[brucearmstrong65]

I agree with what both freebirde and papaof2. It really torques me when someone is sloppy in writing a story - no ending, poor editing / spelling / formatting, and political talk bordering on hate / anti-Semitism. Not to speak ill of the dead (as freebirde said), but both Tired Old Man and Fleataxi had failings in this regard. (And as far as no ending, I'm quite the slouch in that department myself!)

Even with those caveats, I still like some of both TOM's & Fleataxi's stories, or at least parts of them. I think TOM was best at stories that didn't involve himself / The Three Amigos - "Jim and Becky," for example, is one of my favorites - at least the first half or so, anyway. "Ray" is another good one - again, for the first half or so. "The USS Iowa" was particularly creative ... again, for the first half or so. (Anyone seeing a trend here?)

Fleataxi had some creative moments - "Bugged-In in Elko" and "TEOTWAWKI 1 & 2" just to name two - but his were so filled with poor formatting, spelling errors, capitalization errors, run-on paragraphs, etc. - that they were distracting to the point of real annoyance.

The late Jerry Conrad (aka Patience) was pretty good at avoiding a lot of these problems. Sad that he wrote only five complete stories before passing away.

[freebirde]

I contacted Jerry and asked who holds the rights to Gary's stories. He said that he thinks that Gary's wife Sharon holds the rights. He said he would try to get her address. He has the rights to publish all of TOM's and Fleataxi's stories and plans to put them up when the work on his new forum is completed.

[brucearmstrong65]

Feb 15, 2018 18:50:33 GMT -6 freebirde said:

I contacted Jerry and asked who holds the rights to Gary's stories. He said that he thinks that Gary's wife Sharon holds the rights. He said he would try to get her address. He has the rights to publish all of TOM's and Fleataxi's stories and plans to put them up when the work on his new forum is completed.

I believe she still lives in the same house which Gary mentioned in his stories. I know if anyone with the power to do so asks for the stories to be taken down here, they'll be gone toot sweet, and quite rightly so. I hope Jerry can get his new forum up and running soon. It'd be nice to see his & Fleataxi's & TOM's stories "together again," as the old country song goes. Thanks for checking into this!

[mnn2300]

Feb 13, 2018 20:17:44 GMT -6 papaof2 said:

I usually stick with a good story but for others I've been known to "close the book" and walk away if
- there's more politics than story.
- there's more technical detail than story: "the pistol is a 1911 with pearl grips" is fine. If the reader doesn't know what a 1911 is, they'll look it up and the author can provide a glossary for that. Three paragraphs of pistol description is good-bye.

I agree, I'm not interested in more than one sentence describing a gun -- and I own, like, and shoot guns. but I don't need more than one sentence describing a semi automatic, or a shotgun, or rifle - it makes me stop reading. I'm not looking for an infomercial. I just want the story. I can also only take so much of the rich super prepper - maybe one a month is plenty for me.
I learned after my first couple writing attempts that if it doesn't move the story forward it needs to go away.

[papaof2]

I think this location has most if not all of TOM's stories:

archive.org/details/GaryDOtt