26 Comments

I love the format of this chapter! The dialogue paints vivid images, some of them quite intimate. 🤪 Powerful stuff! If you are still traveling, have a wonderful trip, dear! 😘

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Thank you my dear! We are there and back again, you will undoubtedly see my Dublin recap posted today. 💜🩷💚

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Loooooooove your post and happy to see you back! :-*

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Aren't we all culturally impoverished in our own way...? This reads like a screenplay. I like it. I was tinking... this whole thing would really lend itself easily to screenplay format, all the dialogue is killer and throw in some scene headings and you have your movie!

Now, if Substack would let us use basic text formatting, we could even center character names and such.

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And culturally rich too, even Americans ;)

I think Lamb would make a great movie, but I guess I should finish writing it first before we go there. 😅 Thanks A!

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Aug 9Liked by Mr. Troy Ford

😭

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Jul 22Liked by Mr. Troy Ford

Thanks for the shout out, friend. I’m enamored by your ability to craft the structure for these episodes in a way that each stands alone and is so powerful. This one is so deeply sad. You put us right there on the train with them.

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Thanks Ben, the community has seen a lot of darkness, and for a long time I've been wanting to tell stories about the generation that missed AIDS but still got smacked in the face with addiction and shame and survivor-guilt. It's still going on, really.

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Jul 22Liked by Mr. Troy Ford

This was really great, Troy. I like this style of dialogue, and as Chloe says, so effortless! Feels such a genuine exchange. Also, the transition and change we observe shifting through the years...excellent!

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Thanks Nathan! I'm so glad it's got that flavor of authenticity... :)

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“Oh, well that’s not cool. But you know what, he’s no prince—he gives a really toothy blow job.”

— that line made me laugh so much. You did so much here with just dialogue, which is very impressive and hard to do. The way you touch on a confronting and sad topic with levity is simply wonderful. Bravo sir :)

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It's been a lot of fun trying out different styles and formats for each episode, making sure they integrate with the others story-wise, so I appreciate that. Isn't it crazy the things you see/learn walking down the street minding your own business? Thanks Michael! 💜

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The integration is seamless. And yes, it really is — one of the best ways to learn I think. :)

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Jul 21Liked by Mr. Troy Ford

Such a mix of hilarious, mortifying and heartbreaking. I also think you should write a book about how to effortlessly write dialogue, btw 💜

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Wow THANK YOU my dear, I never would have thought dialogue was a forte, but I'll take it and run with it... 💛💛💛

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This one made me sad even though I loved the new format.

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Yeah, things don't look good for Ernie.

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I loved the change of pace/format with the use of dialogue. A great chapter.

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Thanks Jeffrey! Felt like a good time to change things up a bit.

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Jul 19Liked by Mr. Troy Ford

I laughed out loud in that phone exchange. Err, my Neanderthal-hairy, Sasquatch-Viking brother once shared a similar problem. But he called it “peanut-butter-in-the-carpet syndrome.” 😂

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haha "Tatonka" (Sioux for Buffalo) was a similarly hirsute friend's nickname... 🤣

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Please share more Joyce... the only one of his I managed to gel halfway through was Portrait...

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We'll see - Kate Waller is doing a guest post on Dubliners (I hope! Fingers crossed!) and the author points out one interesting line in Ulysses: "The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit." I hope there are more than one. ;)

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Poor Ernie, so sad to see his progression. Love the quick conversation rhythm. Good start to reworking for film 👀

You know I’m in with Joyce! Looks like a good book. Enjoy Dublin, Troy 😁 🇮🇪

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I hope you're still up to talk about Dubliners! Thanks Kate!

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Absolutely! 🥂💙

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