Quickie Dear Author

[neadods]

A comment and a postcard message.

The anti-rennfaire author I wrote about three letters back? One of the ways she dissed rennies was to have members of the culture make fun of other members of the culture a la "and she makes soap! Soap! All that messing about with pots and crap and do you know what soap sells for at the grocery store? What a waste of time and money!" I was thinking about that today because it's going to be really interesting if that author ever smacks into Tim Myers or Cricket McRae at a cozy con. I'm just sayin'.

2) Postcard to All Suspense Authors, Ever:

Please stop ending your first chapter with anything along the lines of "things were about to get crazy" or "if I knew then what I was getting into," or "that was just the beginning." Dude! It's the first damn chapter! We already KNOW there's going to be more to the story! Either we've already bailed or we're already going to read Chapter 2. You don't have to put a blatant hook there. Really.

Signed,

I just read four books in a row like that and it's started to give me hives.

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I've always countered that I'm paying that much for a month or two of entertainment and just having a nice pair of socks at the end as a bonus.

I'm totally stealing that explanation! (And it makes the price a lot more palatable, too.)

[fyrdrakken]

And I frequently follow up on that by pointing out that it gives me something to do with my hands while sitting in front of the TV, and that no matter how utterly craptacular the movie or show may have been my time watching it was thus not actually wasted, because I got this much work done during it...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Yarn Harlot got me started on that, the idea of having knitting everywhere. When I came home from the renfaire with a complete washcloth and (after that) a complete blanket square, I knew I was on to something.

[fyrdrakken]

A significant portion of my Four scarf was knitted during my weekday commute -- especially the amount of time I spend waiting in line at red lights on the way home. I would try to be at the beginning of a very broad stripe by Monday morning -- and then try to have that stripe finished or nearly so by Friday night, and then to crank out the next few narrow stripes until the next big one over the weekend.