blah blah blah cereal cereal:

Sorry, I just checked with her again, and she's actually on the phone with one of her writing students herself; and it doesn't look like she'll be off soon, & I want to go to sleep soon because I'm taking the PSATs tomorrow at the crack of dawn.

By the way, gulp....

Genre is written by unshaven men in t-shirts who have half a dozen pen names and churn stuff out for the pulps. Or by blowsly women wearing tattered peignoirs (spelling?) and feathered mules with a cigarette in one corner of their mouth as they churn stuff out for what is called the "women's magazines."

Of course, I may have seen far too many Bogart/Chandler movies.

Yeah, it's formulaic. I've yet to see some "heart-warming", "realistic", "touching" movie that I couldn't play predict the plot with.

Edit: Lizard, you'll rock. It's only 'cause they say "this could impact your whole life" that you're worried. Heck, a Chevy coming in at 40 miles an hour could impact your life, too, but do we worry about that?

Rebecca, you are soooo going to do fine on the PSAT. And you don't have to stay up on my account, if you are. Good luck!

Yo, connie, right about until I met yis, and started watching television, and got into fandom, I was a big lit snob. Okay, not actively so, but I didn't read anything marketed as fantasy or SF, etc, and the thought of doing so never crossed my mind.

Um. I still don't, really, but at least I'm consciously not paranoidly making a virtue out of it, like rather many proudintellectuals I know.

Hammering is of the good, Alibelle. Only way to get things done.

One tiny edit yet:

She cut the line and grinned up at her companion.

I think "companion" is disorienting a word for someone we didn't know, a moment ago, that she knew prior-- I thought he was just some guy walking through. "Companion", to me, means someone you've known and have been pal[l]ing around with for at least several minutes.

It's only 'cause they say "this could impact your whole life" that you're worried.

I'm more worried because I keep screwing up in the math sections in the practice tests.

I'm headed out. Lizard, you'll do great. Ali, I might be on later, I'll check in to see if you're still about. riani1@yahoo.com if you want to drop me a line.

Um. I still don't, really, but at least I'm consciously not paranoidly making a virtue out of it, like rather many proudintellectuals I know.

I have a whole rant on this (and you'll be a better intellectual than most because you're not doing that), about how the disconnect between lit-culture and pop-culture is such that I've started to finally understand the motivations of the Cultural Revolution, but I'll get to it later.

Alibelle, I'll bet Gregory Maguire would count as fiction rather than genre, and he does fairy tales - sort of. So I think you're on a good track.

Victor, that piece about Worcester made me smile because I'm looking at the same thing from the other side. I miss the past sometimes living out here.

Really, Katie? Cool. Thank you guys so so much.

Yeah, he's the one who did _Wicked_ and _Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister_ and, um, one other that I didn't read because I didn't like _Confessions_ all that much. But I'm pretty sure they aren't shelved in SF.