I'm only 1800 words of disjointed ramblings and no plot in sight, but that's keeping in the spirit of NaNoWriMo. right?

COMPLETELY.

It only took over a week, but the author tab is back up on NaNo and the site finally seems to be loading at faster than hamsters driving the connection speed.

I would be more excited about that if I had actually written more than a few sentences this week.

S'okay. I might have written more if the story hadn't taken a left turn that left me doing the contemplation thing for several days trying to figure out how to allow the turn, but steer the story back to where it needed to be.

Because this turn did not want to be ignored.

I've just been busy trying to get a copyediting job done. But tomorrow! Tomorrow it will be done and gone, and I can get back to it. Which I'm actually looking forward to.

The rush challenge is closed.

This week's challenge is hope .

If you're reading a brand new book, how long do you give it before you give up on it? I've been reading some new books by authors I like, and I've realized I'm reluctant to start some because I'm not sure I'll like them. So how long do you give a book to engage you? Does it matter if it's a familiar author or not?

One reason I'm asking is from a writer angle. How much patience does the average reader have for getting into an unfamiliar book?

One reason I'm asking is from a writer angle. How much patience does the average reader have for getting into an unfamiliar book?

According to most readers and editors, about two chapters. If you haven't captured them, either with voice or plot or characterizations, they'll bail, unless, again, it's an author they're familiar with-- then, halfway seems to be the killing point.

ETA: Depends on genre, of course. Fantasy & sci-fi seem to have higher thresholds than say, romance, which is why I've had an impossible time selling a romance manuscript. I take my time setting up and weaving my stories and that seems to be anathema for the genre

Then there's that whole pesky, I don't follow the "rules" of romance worth a damn that tends to be the nail on the coffin.

I almost gave up on a book I just finished. It didn't start getting interesting until page 200, and it only had 300 pages. I didn't give up only because Patricia Briggs blurbed it...which makes me less likely to pick up a book in the future if I would have been interested just because she blurbed it.

That's awfully convoluted.

I was recently reading a thriller that I almost gave up on, but it was a fast read and I soldiered on. However, when I was on page 100, I yelled, "For the love of god, kill somebody." If it's a thriller, you have to have actual danger early on, not 100 pages of someone thinking a new doctor is creepy.

This book also, memorably, described a period of silence as "turgid" and a sky as "tumescent." There was some unresolved sexual tension in the book, which expressed itself in random adjectives.