"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." - Dorothy Parker

I loved Cryptonomicon, but I had a high fever while I was reading it, and keep trying to crack codes in my sleep.

I used to slog through them all, but I've given up on a few in the last few years. One was a mystery that was written almost entirely in similes.

Well, I came to the realization today that I just need to give up on the idea of ever selling a romance manuscript-- at least in today's climate-- after reading a review for an Angel/Mermaid story that apparently involved the gentle brushing aside of her scales in order to get to the glittery hoo ha of happiness, and seeing all the enthusiastic oohs and ahhs from the readers.

And when I submit what I think of as a good, solid contemporary romance to an editor who wants good, solid contemporary romance and receive a rejection because it's "too real and ordinary."

Well, damn, of course, it's going to be too real and ordinary compared with scales and angels and glittery hoo-has.

that apparently involved the gentle brushing aside of her scales in order to get to the glittery hoo ha of happiness

Ew! Ew!

Ew! was definitely my response.

If it's a suspenseful book where I really like the characters, I'll sneak a look at the end to see if it "all comes out right." If a book is trending towards dull, I'll peek at the end to see if the end point is interesting enough that I want to see the trip. The dull normally kicks in about a third to halfway.

I'm having trouble with a current piece where I'm in the middle of crucial introduction of people and establishing initial reactions between characters. I'm finding it horribly boring to write because I know where it all ends, but I have to keep reminding myself that the reader will need this information. It's like pointing out the emergency exits and flotation devices that may be needed later in the flight when you really want to get to the takeoff.

oh my ... Mrs. Giggles reviewed J.R. Ward's black dagger brotherhood thing. She didn't like it ... said it read like information for fan fic Mary Sue stories. Not having read any of the books in the series (I have, I must admit) she's seriously put off by the way names are spelled (the author seems to be trying to do for the letter "H" what SG1 did for the apostrophe).

They used the phrase "glittery hoo-ha"??!! And neither the author nor publisher was 12?

I dunno Barb, I'd love to read a novel about real and ordinary people falling in love. Maybe you just need to find the right way to sell it. Maybe it'd sell as general fiction, not romance.

It'd probably be classified as chick-lit.

Actually, the term chick-lit isn't used any more, especially not within publishing houses. You only really see it used in media, because it became such a handy catch-all term.

And my problem really is that I do blur the genre lines pretty badly-- when I've tried selling it as mainstream or more commercial, it gets rejected for being "too romance" and when my work goes to romance editors, it gets the "wow, this really isn't romance." (Or in the latest case, it's too ordinary to be romance.)

They used the phrase "glittery hoo-ha"??!! And neither the author nor publisher was 12?

No, I'm the one using glittery hoo-ha-- it's become something of a joke among a lot of writers when the woman is so wondrous and everything about her so delicate and inviting, so completely desirable, that certainly, even her hoo-ha must glitter, because it's just so fabulous.