Thanks, all. Sometimes I feel like such a bitch being snarky about the NaNoWriMo ethos. Because if there is one thing I would tell high-school me, it is "if somebody's having fun and not hurting people they don't need you to rank on it." But then I go down to the site and it's all "First paragraph...group hug!1" and I wonder why I thought it would be different this time.

Every year I contemplate doing NaNoWriMo, and every year I chicken out. I've always written well in terms of essays and assignments where I have a clear topic assigned, but I've never been one to be able to come up with plots and characters. I frequently wish that we still had one of our old computers lying around; I know I wrote a 100 or so page story when I was in high school that I thought was brilliant at the time, and now I couldn't even tell you what it was about. I think there was a castle.

You're probably better off, zuisa. I still have the beast I wrote when I was 15 and it's terrrible.

I have a negotiating letter to send to a publisher with some objections. I have concerns both that I'm not always good at tact, and also that even though each objection is individually reasonable, there may be too many.

Anyone willing to look at it for me justing giving advice as to tact level and thoughts on negotiating approach?

Thanks

Gar - profile addy still good.

Gar, I can. My profile address is the one to use. Tomorrow, though -- I'm a bit sleepy for it tonight.

Thanks very much Amy. Its been sent, but definitely will wait until you are ready to look at it.

Bruce Baugh at Making Light posts on serial comma's vital necessity. [link] . I don't know: RPSers might choose to leave it the way it is.

Turned down a Guardian article commission because the PhD is taking up all my waking hours at the moment. Hoping it's not a bad move. But I'm encouraged that they're giving me fairly regular commissions!

zuisa, I get irritated that I can't write fiction, too. I have plays in my head (they're always plays, being the future wife of a theatre geek), but they don't go anywhere. It would be fine if I were Beckett. I am not.

Congrats on the short story success, Gud!

It would be fine if I were Beckett. I am not.

Haha. I sort of find I have the same problem. I've tried to write plays a few times and I generally find it even more difficult than writing stories. I am also a huge theatre geek, so this tends to make me sad.

The only modern playwright whose work I know with any authority is Neil Simon(I was sick for a long time in high school, and my mother brought me a big book of his work to cheer me up. And, possibly give me a heads-up...she also included that great daddy-issues classic "You Oughta Be In Pictures". Which is just like my life, except Jewish and much cuter. I learned two things: Don't cut funny. K sounds are generally funny. That's all I know about theater.