Some thing new

Well really a lot of new things. I have not been keeping up with this blog lately, but I am going to work on getting better at that, and honestly I have not had a lot to talk about in the last few months. Now I am ready to talk, and talk I will.

If you have been paying attention at all there have been a number of new things going on with Great Hites. We have have started a discussion forum so everyone can talk about what they think of the stories. There you can talk about how you like the stories but don't like the host or how GH is falling further and Further behind in getting the actual podcasts out. I am really working on that one and I will address it a little later in this post. the next new thing is that I have joined this century and joined face book. I don't share lots of gory details about my life on my page, so if you want to friend me, mostly what you will get are updates about what is going on with Great Hites. There is also a Great Hites Fan page that will only have things that pertain to Great Hites if you don't want the occasional thing that I put on Facebook that are about me and not the podcast.

There are a couple of other things that have been going on, you have may or may not have noticed depending on if you listen to the show of read it, we have had a number of guest hosts. I am going to try to keep that going. I would like to have a guest host say once every couple of months. This is less of a break for me, and more of a way to keep other people interested in the show and maybe bring in some new blood. This month's guest host is the lovely and talented Philippa Ballantine. I want to say thank you to both Arlene Radasky and Philip (Norval Joe) Carroll who have also guest hosted recently, helping me while I was traveling. Also more on that later.

Some really new things, as in thing that I have done today, have been going on. First, in the past couple of weeks there has been a lot of talk about the value of free. This is really in reference to giving your work away for free. All I am going to say about this topic right now is that there is a lot to talk about it out there and I don't need to rehash what people have said. Well Maybe I will but not in this post. One of the things that I thought about when this topic came up was should we (GreatHites) be paying some of the writers. I talked about this with the secret council, and the answer I got back was really, "no." No? I said and then I listened to their arguments and they were right. They echoed my fears about where would the money come from and how would we keep it up if the donation dried up, and last of course was that in the beginning at least, the most likely people to give would be the authors and then why not let them just keep their money. So in the end I scraped the idea of excepting donations. However, GreatHites has started giving one book away a month and we will have that expense, and as much as I would like to say that I can pay for that all out of my pocket, I can't always. So I found a compromise. If you look on the site (any of the sites really) you will see a little ad for a thing called swag bucks. If you follow the ad and sign up and then use thier search engine a few times you can earn points. The points you earn can be used to get things like gift cards and prizes FOR YOU. The benefit for GH is that since you clicked on the link from our site we also get the points that you earn and it allows us to buy prizes in the form of Amazon or iTunes gift cards or even Books. Really it works out for everyone and I don't have to be an accountant to keep track of who gave what. That works better for me.

The last thing that is new is the Great Hites voicemail line. I have set up a voice mail line using Google voice. The number is 585-205-UNIX (8649). So if you have thoughts or comments or questions just pick up the phone and give us a call. I can use the recording or the text (because Google is so cool and transcribes the audio for me) as feedback. So yeah another way to leave more feedback for GreatHites.

Alright, so there is a lot going on in this post, and I promised more things but I think I will save some of those for the next post, which will be coming soon. There will be some more new things going on. There are going to be some changes, and hopefully these will all be good things in the end. Thanks To everyone for sticking with me for the last few months while things have been so crazy.

-Jeff

A week of stories has been skipped.

Yeah I goofed. It happens folks and I am sorry. In one of my rare moments of being on top of things last week I got the Bloomin' Fuchsia Stories put together and then even had a live feedback show with them. Unfortunately the moment of being on top of things was sponsored by, failure! I completely missed the stories about making your own fun while growing up. I promise that I will amend this, I have all the audio with me today and will work to get it lined up today at lunch. Sorry about the confusion!

In the mean time, please take a moment or two and listen to / read the Bloomin' Fuchsia stories that are out there now. I think you will find there are some really good stories there.

Changes to Great Hites

Well it was bound to happen eventually. Great Hites is going to under go a few changes. I don't know if these changes are going to be the new thing with GH or if they are only temporary, but these changes are necessitated by my current schedule.

So here is what is going to happen.

* During the month of October you are only going to get one prompt (more on that to follow.) It is due on October 31.


* During the month of November and In to December if necessary I will play these stories so that you will have a whole month of guilt free listening while you work on your NANOWRIMO project. (Like I will be doing)

* At the Beginning of December I will give you another prompt that you might be able to guess at if you think really hard, and you will have until December 31st to finish it.

* During the month of January I will play the stories written in December, so that while you are winding down from the Holidays again you will have a guilt free month of "The Hite of podcast fiction."

So you are worried that from now until November you will have nothing to listen from Great Hites. that is where you would be wrong. I have asked a couple of the regulars to contribute some bonus material. And I will be putting out a 100 word bonus prompts now and again.

With all of these changes there are going to be a couple of changes to the rules so there they are and hopefully they are things that you can live with:

1. Maximum story length is going to be increased to a whopping 10,000 words. I figure if most of the writers were already writing 2000-3000 word stories in a week that they could use the breathing room for a month long project.

2. The rating on these stories will still need to be PG. I am not going to change that. Sorry to all of you that thought that I might but nope.

3. All the other rules stand. I need a story, a recording in MP3 format if you can, and I needs to be in by midnight on the date of the deadline. But you know me on deadlines, ask if you need more time, I am pretty flexible.

4. Please include your Name and "October story" or "December Story" as the case may be, in the subject so I can find it easily I have a busy in box.

PROMPT PROMPT PROMPT, I hear the crowds shouting.

But before I get to that, let me give you two things, 1, #changestoGH 2, #bonusprompts These are the two twitter tags I will be using to discuss the changes and of course the bonus prompts. So if you want to follow the conversations about those things, well you know what to do.

So the prompt:

"Creation, create your own creation story." This can be a birth story, the creation of the universe, life from lifelessness (thank you Star Trek II), an Adam and Eve type story, whatever you like. Used your imaginations this is a wide open prompt so please have fun with it. If you have questions about this please feel free to contact me.

Speaking of contacting me here is how

Jeffrey.hite at Gmail dot com

or you could follow me on Twitter I am JeffreyHite or @jeffreyhite

or you could skype me I am JeffreyHite

or you could leave a comment on the site. Not to worry, if it is a personal question I won't post it but rather just respond to you.


I think that just about covers everything. Except promotion: please please please tell everyone you know about this new prompt and lets see if we can get lots and lots of great stories. Do you remember Week 63? I want that but more, bigger, better and with more gusto.

Thanks
-Jeff

Podcasting for water

If you have a desire to help Please do.

Feel free to pass the promo to others.

Water Promo



Podcasting for water

reposting

Just a quick question. Should I go back to reposting the GreatHites Stories here. Was doing that for a while, but it seemed like overkill. What are your thoughts. Thanks

Great Hites Promo in Weatherchild

Yesterday I asked a number of people to play the Special Birthday Promo for GreatHites in their podcast, this morning I woke up to it already being a part of one of my current favorite stories, Weather Child.

Thank you all who agreed to play it including, but not limited to: Scott Roche, Justin Lowmaster, and especially Philippa Ballantine.

If you would like to play the promo the link for it is below, drop me a line when you play it and I will make sure everyone knows about your great podcast as well.

Thanks everyone.

Download Weather Child Promo


Download GreatHites Birthday Promo

Great Hites 44

Download


Hear Promos From:
Weather Child
Personal Effects Dark Arts

I talk about:
Wagwire
and Jeff's Random Thoughts

Pope and New Media

I find news like this very encouraging. If the Pope, or more likely his counsel can take time to look at new media as a way of communicating, and then turn around and use that as a way to communicating the message of the Church, this is an amazing thing.

If you have the time go out a read this article and see what they have in mind.

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0901066.htm

Random Thoughts

I have a new podcast called Jeff's Random Thoughts. It is a daily attempt to be funny in one of two sentences. I hope that they are funny. I don't know if they are or not. Well they are funny to me. Most of them are geek humor, so I hope they will be enjoyable. if you have a few moments and would like to take a listen the URL is http://jeffsrandomthoughts.blogspot.com

Whisper

I have received some constructive criticism and I would like any other feedback that you might have. Thank you Indiana Jim for your honest appraisal.

Someone (Jim) asked me why I whisper everything.

I told them that I am naturally shy, but if you also think that I tend to whisper please let me know. I will work hard to improve.

Also if you have any other feedback on quality of the podcast please let me know.

And, yes I will try to project my voice more.


By the way in case you think that I am not being serious here, I really do like to get feedback about quality, the stories, my treatment of the stories and anything or everything else.

If you think by chance that the podcast stinks tell me so. If you think you have been treated unfairly because I put your story last, tell me so. In all seriousness I take all feedback and welcome it with open arms. Please feel free to leave a comment, drop me an e-mail or even leave voice feed back by recording your thoughts and send them in an e-mail and I will play them on the next show so long as they are clean.

Thank you again for sticking with me and my whispering.

By the way if you are not listening to Indiana Jim, What exactly are you waiting for. :) After all he did play the Great Hites Promo the other day.

Great Hites # 40

This week we have stories By Justin Lowmaster, Lawrence Simon and Norval Joe

Great Hites # 40
	Inside Joke By Norval Joe
	Tuesday Morning By: Lawrence Simon
	Margo By: Justin Lowmaster
pollcode.com free polls

Last week Norval Joe won the voting. Congratulations!

Great Hites Prompt number 40

This weeks Prompt is:

"It is only Tuesday. "

All Stories for this prompt are due by Midnight Tuesday February 10th. Email the text of the story and a recording if you would like me to include it in the podcast to jeffrey dot hite at gmail dot com.

good luck. And don't forget to come out to the site and vote for your Favorite stories this week.




Download GH_Prompt_40

Great Hites Prompt number 40

This weeks Prompt is:

"It is only Tuesday. "

All Stories for this prompt are due by Midnight Tuesday February 10th. Email the text of the story and a recording if you would like me to include it in the podcast to jeffrey dot hite at gmail dot com.

good luck. And don't forget to come out to the site and vote for your Favorite stories this week.




Download GH_Prompt_40

Great Hites 38

This week we here stories from:
Krista Heiser
Norval Joe
Guy David
And you get the text only of my story due to the length of the recording.




Download GH38

Also this week I had a special guest while I was recording my one year old who was not feeling so well. He snores through must of the recording but that should not be a reflection on the story quality.

I talk about my blog post / podcast on Talking Hites on ways to improve and promote this podcast.

Lastly I played two promos for The Geek Survival Guide and Star Wars Codename Starkeeper.

Great Hites # 38
	A Spectacular View By: Krista Heiser
	December in Modesto By: Norval Joe
	This Machine Is Broken By: Guy David
	Cold By: Jeffrey Hite
pollcode.com free polls

The Big Questions

In this episode I talk about The Adventures of Indiana Jim and the Geek Survival Guide both are worth your time.




So I am going to ask the big questions, and hope and pray that I get some answers.

Yes, I know the answer is 42

Yes, I know that is not god behind the great barrier. That guy just needs a starship, and a life. And that James T. Kirk will only die when he is alone, or close to it. Don't eat too many mashmellons. That you need your pain.

Oh and

Yes, I know that Firefly will probably never come back.

Yes, I know that my freeze ray takes some time to warm up so I should hide under a cover, looking like a statue while it warms up.

Okay, okay, okay! Enough already. So my questions are not that big. But I do think that they are important.

So here we go:

1. I think that we have here at GreatHites some incredibly talented authors. And I am not talking about myself, instead talking about such people as Anima, Guy, Norval, Laurence, Justin, Peter, Robert, Joseph, and our newest member Krista, I know you have not read her story yet, because I have not posted it yet, but I have and it is Fantastic.
Because these people write such wonderful stuff, I really want more people to read it so, I am asking you, what you think the best way to promote GreatHites would be? These people need to be recognized, and I want them to be so your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

2. Feed Back... How do I get some? I mean other than begging and pleading, becuase I won't do that... Okay, yes I will Please, please, please, please leave your feed back about the stories. I don't have a feed back line, but feel free to record your feed back and e-mail it to. leave a comment on this site or the greathites site. Send me a text e-mail. I know as one of the authors, the authors would love some feedback. Besides I am getting lonely out there in cyberspace.

3. What can I do to make GreatHites better? I am open to any and or all suggestions. More Music, less music, more talking, less talking more promos, less well you get the point. If you want something added or taken away let me know. I know one of the areas of contention has been having Alex read the stories that I don't get recordings for. I am open to other suggestions. For example if you would like to do readings for me that would be really cool. I would do them but you have no idea how long it takes me to get though my own stuff. I stutter and stammer so much it usually take me nearly three times as long as the story to get the recording and then editing is a nightmare so...

4 Should I shift from a weekly podcast, to maybe a monthly thing?

The long and short of this is that I want GreatHites to be one of the best short story podcasts out there. I think you folks who write for this Podcast deserve nothing less. Please help me to do that.

So leave a comment, send me an e-mail text or audio comment, just please let me know what you are thinking, and I will do my best to make this a better show.

Download TH #5

Great Hites 37

Great Hites 37
	COUNTING THE DAYS By: Anima Zabaleta
	The Prison By: Norval Joe
	Prometheus By: Jeff Hite
pollcode.com free polls

Download

100 word stories tidal wave

Hello all. Last week I decided that I wanted to stir things up a bit. I was not sure how or where I would do it until I started thinking about the 100 word story contest.

The week before Laurence Simon, the sites editor and Publisher, only got 6 stories for his weekly contest. That is 4 or ten less than normal. This was in my humble opinion a big hit for his site. Unlike my site, where I get 2-4 stories a week, he almost always gets 10 stories a week.

This was my chance, my moment to stir up some trouble. And with a subject like tidal wave, how could I resist. So I wrote ten stories with different names and sent some of them out to people to read, even got my wife to read on under and assumed name. then I sent all the stories in, saying that I had gotten friends of mine to write them. I left the text of my story out, since my story gave the secret away.

I did however carry the joke a little too far for some people. I Didn't tell my readers what I was doing, and even in one case, replied saying I would ask the author if the recording was ok. in my defense, sitting in my office all alone I do tent to talk to myself, but to those of you who did the readings thank you and sorry if I offended you by not letting you know what was going on.

If you would like to hear the original podcast you can find it the 100 word story contest I won't repost his file because I don't have an explicit tag and he does, but feel free to got listen to the whole thing unravel. Besides there are some other very talented authors who publish on his site so it is worth your time to go listen.

However if you would like to just listen to the stories I told here they are. Thank you to all of you that helped with this this week. You time and talent as very much appreciated.



Whale Meat By Martin Joyce

"What is that?"
"what?"
"Up in the sky."
"Oh my goodness it looks like a whale."
"A whale? in the air?"
"Yeah, these young people and their improbability drives."
"Improbability huh? Well what are we going to do about that whale?"
"Hmm, not much we can do. It is going to fall in that lake over there."
"But don't whales live i the ocean?"
"Don't worry."
"Why not?"
"It won't survive the fall, worry about the tidal wave."




The Union By: David Tomes

"Ok guys we need to get organized here."
"What are we trying to accomplish here?"
"You forgotten already? Look we need to all rush forward at the same time."
"But why?"
"Come on we talked about this, we are trying to take over the world."
"How we going to do that, we are just krill?"
"That's why we have to get organized."
"What are we going to do?"
"We are all going to swim toward Washington DC at the same time and create a tidal wave an wipe'em out."
"Ok lets go."
They never saw the whale that swallowed them whole.


Last Message By: Ben Clarke

"This will be the final message from our civilization. It is important that someone know we where here and what we accomplished in our time. Our lives have been spent building thie beautiful world, that our children will never be able to enjoy, after the disaster that is about to befall us. Our scientists saw the disaster coming only a short while ago and told us all to prepare for it. Our world's about to wiped out. Oh the humanity, tidal wave!"
"Ow that water is hot," Tom said pulling his big toe back out of the tub.


Blow me to Bermuda By Misty Fritz

Mortally wounded, and heart sick from the betrayal, King Arthur made is way to the sacred lake. There he'd return the sword from whence it came, and hopefully gain access to Avalon that he might sleep until he was called for again. Nothing disturbed the lake's surface as he neared. Looking down the goddess saw all of this and more. She watched his life, and failings and knew the price that it has exacted on her. If she did this her vision would be obscured for some time.
"Merlin, what's that?"
"Surf's up your highness, tidal wave!"

Garth's Bad Idea By: Fred Hickman

The tidal wave of human bodies rushed forward and there was nothing they could do.
When the sparks began to fly from the stage everyone gasped in anticipation of a pyrotechnic light show. When the fire works lept from the stage to the gutiar, to the gutairist arm everyone realized it was no show. The screams flowed before the bodies but only because the bodies were heavier. All of the bodies moved as one, rising and falling with the pitch of the wailing guitar.
"See Garth, look at this mess. I told you we shouldn't do the flaming shirt trick."


Tidal wave of Paperwork - By: Robert Metsker

"We are a document Imaging company right?"
"Yes, Jack, we are why do you ask?"
"Well it just seems rather odd to me that we'd sell this wonderful software that takes digital images of paperwork and turns them into data to be stored a way on some server but we would have a room like this."
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean? Have you looked around you? I mean look at this. I can't reach the top of this stack."
"Don't touch that."
"What? Why?"
"Because it'd be bad."
"Whatever." he said leaning against the stack.
"Tidal Wave!"


IT Tidal Wave BY Alan Marker

Laurence and Alan worked feverishly to stem the tide of cases that were coming in. Three techs had called in sick leaving only skeleton crew. They joked between calls about The Day That Sysadmins Ruled the World, but It had been a murderous day, and they worked like mad men, but the calls kept coming in.
"Geeze you would think that this was harder than it really is."
"Right, I think every wacko whoever used their CD-ROM as a cup holder is calling today."
"Maybe we should just plug the plug."
"Won't help, as they say you can't stop stupid."



Brush The Dog By: Carolyn Westburg

"I told you to brush the dog."
"I did."
"Come on, there is no way this all came from today."
"I Brushed him, that is my story and I'm sticking to it."
"That is so typical, a guy that lies and then won't admit to it. I mean here we are with indisputable evidence, and you won't even admit that you are wrong."
"I wouldn't call it indisputable. A few dog hairs laying around."
"You call this a few?"
"Ok more than a few."


The Comet by Arthur Kline

When the giant comet hit the Earth, it caused tidal waves that wiped out coastal cities all around the pacific rim. But, that was only the beginning of the devastation that it caused. The water and air around the site were vaporized and broken into it's component elements, causing massive explosions, which cascaded to more and more. Resulting in the largest nuclear explosions ever on the face of the planet. Half of what was left of the atmosphere was blown off in to space. Even the dinosaurs could not survive such colossal devastation. I wonder if we, with our wonderful technology will be able to.

Too Many Stories By Jeff Hite

Tom Tossed the gauntlet last week with the stats. Laurence took the gloves off when he laughed at Tom's stats only having 6 stories. It was a sad day to be sure, when the 100 word stories didn't even cover my commute time. Ashley was the impetus for the tidal wave to new authors with his tpoic. Since I don't know any other authors I wrote 10 stories this week. Got a number of people to record for me, and just tossed all to Tom's stats in the toilet. Giggle giggle snort. I think I cheated on this one. Thanks everyone!

"We are floating in a tidal wave of dog hair and you call it a few."

Download Talking Hites # 4

GreatHites # 35

This week we have five stories from:

Guy David
Justin Lowmaster
Norval Joe
Laurence Simon
and
Jeff Hite

Great Hites 35
	Carbon Nanotubes By Guy David
	Floor Two Please By Justin Lowmaster
	The Space Elevator By Norval Joe
	The Space Elevator By Laurence Simon
	2016 By Jeffrey Hite
pollcode.com free polls

Download

Laurence didn't send the text of his story, so if you want to get his story then you have to listen to the podcast.

Who goes First

This week, we have a lot of new writers and stories. So the question is, who goes first? I am still laying out the audio files before I put it all together so there is still time to figure this out.

I had been going alphabetical, and that is pretty fair, but then the same people always get to be first.

I could do it in the order that I got the stories...

I could switch between alphabetical and reverse alphabetical.

Are there other options? I could just go random.

What are you thoughts on this. Please let me know what you think.

The Plan

Alright Folks. The plan from now on is going to be to publish / post new Greathites Episode on Thursday night / Friday Morning. I have been struggling to get it out on Wednesdays and, I keep failing. So instead of failing every week, and since Wednesdays seem to be such a bad day for me, it will be Thursday night. That also gives me a little more time without the extra pressure so I can deliver quality.

The long and short of this is that this week's GreatHites 35 will be out Late Thursday night or Friday morning.