Dancing:  Another lesson last night.  I think the wife is getting a bit frustrated because she feels like we are going bakc to basics a lot, learning how to push and step correctly.  But, our instructor says we are way ahead of other couples she has.  I think it is that she sees we are doing well, wants us to get the fundamentals right, and is trying to push a little bit so we keep improving.  A lot of work on twinkles, promenade position, pushing, contact, etc.  At the end we did a bit of tango, but dear wifey seemed a bit tired and not concentrating, so after about ten minutes I said we should pack it up.  She wanted to go on, because she is stubborn like that, and she did practice for a few more minutes with the instructor's son before he gave his next lesson.  However, if it ain't happening I am usually content to leave it and try later when the mojo is better. 

It looks like we will only do foxtrot and waltz in smooth, rumba and ECS in rhythm, since that appears to be the Newcomer dances.  We may dance Bronze as well, but then we might have to do full Bronze next year.  However, I may want to do both Newcomer and Bronze, and she indicated that might be ok as well.

Gaming:  Well, more people joined the guild last night.  We may have broken that barrier that separates Kara guilds from 25 man guilds.  And there was some good discussion on the forum, Kal and Xaal are slowly getting back in the game, and they are promoting another officer, although who is unknown.  They asked for input, and I gave mine.

2.4 patch finally arrived.  There are so many quests it is somewhat confusing, to be honest.  I did get to run the Magister's Terrace 5 man in regular mode.  Not too tough, except for the last boss, Kael'thas.  The fight took us a while to figure out, and even then we only had two left when we finally downed him on like the fourth attempt.  The third boss was pretty easy, much like Moroes.  Even though we managed to let all the council bosses run around we still got them all down with no fatalities.  We wiped once to the second boss, but once we focused on the pure energy sparks [like Curator fight] he went down pretty easy.  First boss was like the fish tank boss in SV, not too much trouble.  He does do some aoe explosions that hurt a good deal, but again, no deaths.  The trash was not too bad, but we were a bit sloppy, letting mobs get away and drag other mobs in.  Fortunately we were well geared, so no big problems there.  I think heroic mode should be ok, except for the Kael'thas fight.  That should be a doozy.

Writing:  I am thinking some things through, but I am having so much trouble just motivating myself to write.  Once I get started, I will be ok, but it is like the big black death wall in the Belgariad that Garion has to break through to save Horse.  Then again, maybe I need to look at it as chipping away at the wall, a bit at a time.  I will set myself a goal of at least 1 hour on Saturday, and see if I can manage that.  I suck so much.

_starlady_

• Pay for what I read. I don't hang around B&N reading the first half of the book. I might borrow a copy from a friend or relative for an author I have not read, but if I enjoyed it, I buy my own copy. If I didn't enjoy it, I usually didn't read too much anyway.

• Give the author a chance. I try not to get diverted by the jacket blurb, or the cover picture. Read enough to make an informed decision about whether this is a book you want to finish.

• Realize that the world in the book is not your world. It is the author's world. They get to decide who lives, who dies, who saves the girl, what color the sky is, and all those things. If you want to decide, write your own book. It is way harder than reading!

• Loyalty. This is more personal, but I believe that once I have read and enjoyed an author there is a connection. I keep buying that author's product even if there is a hiccup. Usually the hiccup passes, and the next one is fine. Too many hiccups and the loyalty is gone.

• Let the author know you enjoyed their work. In today's connected world many authors have blogs or web sites where you can let them know you enjoyed their work. Don't go too far, you aren't their new BFF, but everyone likes being told they pleased you. I don't do this often enough, but I am working on it.

• Do the best you can to write an enjoyable, believable book. The Belgariad/Malloreon is close to my favorite series of all time, but then Eddings wrote stuff like The Redemption of Althalus, in which every challenge faced by the protagonist was easily overcome with uber powers. Not believable, and not enjoyable.

• Don't become self-indulgent or lazy. Robert Heinlein is my favorite author, bar none, but some of his later work is self-indulgent, and it shows. I really enjoyed Robert Adams' Horseclans books, but some of the later stuff has chapters and chapters filled with stuff from earlier books in the series in the guise of a new viewpoint; lazy, lazy, lazy.

• Be true to your vision and your characters. This is where Steve Gould comes in. I know he had no creative control over the movie made from "Jumper"; very few authors do. But he wrote "Jumper: Griffin's Story" in this "updated" world and seems to have embraced it. He says books change when they are adapted for the screen, and I agree. That doesn't mean you have to write another book in that changed world. I don't begrudge his making money over the movie, I probably would have done the same. However, there is a group of people who supported him before the movie, and I believe he has let us down by buying into all the changes that were made to his work by other people. I am no author, I know very little of the business and the demands made on authors, so this is from the viewpoint of a reader. This is your world, you made it, and I have no right to make it anything else. But once it is made, I don't think you should be changing it either.