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.

What would you tell them?

"Write the story you'd love to read."

AmyLiz took mine. "Everyone has a story. It's up to you to find it."

Oooh, but that's a good one, too, erika. Awesome way to look at characterization.

"What matters is the final draft--what doesn't matter is how many rewrites it takes you to get there."

What would you tell them?

It's a lot like Connie's, but I've long believed it -- "Tell. The. Truth."

I hate nuts in my brownies and chocolate chip cookies.

(That's for *both* topics)