You know I went for schmoop if I'm obsessively listening to the Corrs "Breathless" over and over and over and...

If I had "Knowing Me, Knowing You", I'd be playing it and sobbing like a thirties housewife at a matinee, I swear.

The first half of 16 just went out to all who requested. There is half a chapter left to write, and perhaps a short epilogue, and then done. I expect feedback on this chapter, and misty eyes for the unregenerate schmoop therein.

Feedback on 15 and the first half of 16 sent in two separate email messages, deb. Mostly though? Wow. Just wow.

the bus stop is a good place for things to pop into my head. This is a free-range drabble, not related to any topics but those inside my head.

It was a brownie. No, it was a brownie as clean and pure as the writing the books urge you to do. Free of fripperies like frosting and nuts. Heavy, rich. Adverbs could not touch it, "chocolately" was extraneous. It sat on the tongue like the divine exemplar of chocolate. It was a brownie Hemingway would have been proud of.

edit for late discovery of a typo.

Heh. And, being free of the frippery of nuts? It was a brownie I could even eat.

Sizzler has these brownies. We've been known to pay for their buffet just so we can wallow in their brownies.

It's weird - I'm not much of a brownie fan, possibly because for years, all the ones I ate were sort of heavy and bland. And everyone around me would be eating the fancier ones and saying, what a shame you die if you eat nuts, because a brownie isn't a proper brownie without walnuts in it.

So I learned to make things like tequila lime tart and (for those moments where chocolate from hell is needed) chapeau noir.

A writing question, posed to all of you. I could do it as a livejournal meme and probably will, just to get the broad range of answers, but I wanted to ask a question:

Say you're sitting high atop Writers' Mountain, being the guru. Students of writing toil up the hillside, to ask you for the One True Pearl of Wisdom that will shine the glow of enlightment on their labours.

One line, and one line only. Distill, please. What would you tell them?

For me, it's dead simple: "Stop agonising over petty bullshit and tell the fucking story."

Everyone? I'm curious.

It was a brownie. No, it was a brownie as clean and pure as the writing the books urge you to do. Free of fripperies like frosting and nuts. Heavy, rich. Adverbs could not touch it, "chocolately" was extraneous. It sat on the tonge like the divine exemplar of chocolate.

Ahhh...food porn in the morning. And, this is the perfect brownie.

a brownie isn't a proper brownie without walnuts in it.

This is a complete and utter falsehood. Nuts muck up a good brownie.

One line, and one line only.

"Aspire to be someone other than Dan Brown."

"You cannot lie to yourself and put the truth on paper."

Plus it's slightly obscure and sounds like it might be properly guru-ish, being about truth and all that.

"Aspire to be someone other than Dan Brown."

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

"You cannot lie to yourself and put the truth on paper."

Yup yup yup.