That's just me, though!

No.

Not just you.

In Stephenie Meyer's world, the vampires don't have real fangs, can go out in daylight, and if the sun hits their skin, they, erm... sparkle. Literally.

Now I'm imagining her vampires as a bunch of tween age girls wearing glittery makeup and with those glow in the dark fake vampire teeth. But hey, she's the one who has sold like a zillion books.

I'm looking forward to my next writing block of time. I was hardly able to write anything yesterday with the map making and detailed outlining. Nicknames will appear in chapter 4, which will be fun.

I'm getting way too much into this

Unpossible. This is the way it's supposed to be.

Oh, and nicknames get established. After mid chapter 4, Woodchipper will never call techie anything except "Princess" expect when talking to techie's parents. Meanwhile since Woodchipper refuses to tell anyone her actual name, instead using what she thinks is a bad ass nickname, pragmatic leader names her after his cat and it sticks.

Very interesting piece about the Times list and royalties and publishing myths.

[link]

Cliches and stereotypes exist because the original form described something so perfectly that the form stuck. It's the twist that makes it work.

In college, I worked on a survey for the student radio station. I got bored calling people who had never heard of our radio station, so I decided to fake the rest of the responses. I know, bad me. I did the majority to match the other responses, but I made about a quarter just that little bit different: the grandma who loved rock and roll, the 18-year-old classical music devotee.

At a followup meeting, it turned out someone else had faked her results, but she just marked everything in the same two groups. My fakery was not discovered.

Most people are stereotypes. A fair number of them have twists. Don't go so far in avoiding cliches that you do stupid metaphors. Lips are compared to rose petals, because rose petals are red and soft. Cherry jello works in a bizarre sort of way, but comparing lips to your Aunt Helen's snuggly red afghan may be over the top.

Also, the only ones who got to tell truly original stories were the cavemen, and even then the proto-chimps may have been telling tales about how the female in the next tree really wanted to hook up with that new guy, but the dominant male wouldn't hear of it.