At 02:37 PM 4/27/2003 -0700, BarbJ wrote:
 >> If you've never read it, you can't be tainted by it.
 >> Which is REALLY dangerous when it's close.

Urk.  You're right.  Point re-thought.  (Hadn't been able to find it today 
in the used book store, anyway.)

Then Quinn said:
 >My suggestion was to keep a "reading journal" that lists the title, 
author, and
 >publication date of everything you read.

Now, that's a cool idea.  I'd heard it sometime in junior high.  I started 
several of those, with good intentions.  But I never kept it up.  Some 
people *do*, and they write a few lines about each book and whether they 
liked it and what they remembered most.  But I never did that . . . so I 
sometimes ended up buying or checking out the SAME book again later on, 
even when I didn't particularly like it.  I never realized this until I was 
a few pages in and said, "This seems really familiar." 
  But I think 
that's a great idea.  People do this on the Web now, and they do book 
reviews.  Kind of cool.

 >It should also include movies you see -- but could be rather 
time-consuming if you
 >were to do that, I reckon.

See, there's the rub.  Maybe I could teach my tutoring students to do 
that.  Even though what I'm "teaching" (ha) them is middle school math, as 
in graphing linear equations, predicting the graph, factoring polynomials, 
and so forth.  Often enough we start talking about what they did that 
weekend or saw the previous night, just to chat, and "waste" (as surely 
Mom, checkbook in hand, would say) several minutes talking about it.  If I 
could train them to do that from this early age, maybe they'd actually make 
it a habit.

Then I could read those journals and find which books I want to read next. 
. . .  (If I can stand what they read, that is!)

But those are good suggestions.  It's also nice to hear that some of y'all 
would read on.

Oh, and did anybody go to the Pikes Peak writers conference?  No?  Well, 
there were a couple of nice people I'd met before who headed out 
there.  Namely, editor (now freelance) Michael Seidman, whom I met at a 
conference long ago and got some encouraging words from and later a letter 
of encouragement, and Patrick LoBrutto, another editor who's now freelance 
(I think) and who came to Plano some years ago to speak to Patricia 
Anthony's science fiction class and look at our manuscripts and ask, "So 
this is your first novel?"  (At least that's what he asked me.  It *was* 
the first thing I'd tried to write post-college, but at the time that 
really made me feel insulted.  Tee hee!)  "Why don't you, if you do 
something else that starts with a character somewhat older, send it to me 
at this address."  And wrote out his post office box.  At the time, he was 
trying to become an agent, if I remember correctly.  Anyway, very nice 
person who gave me several guidelines and/or reasons the novel I showed him 
wasn't commercial and could be reworked.  I'd have kinda liked to go to the 
con just to have one of those appointments with them, to thank them for 
being nice way back when.  (At least six years for Seidman, ten or more for 
LoBrutto.)  That's part of what has kept me going all this time, that 
they'd said, "Oh, you're talented, obviously."  Even if they were just 
being nice!!  (Which is quite possible.)

And of course this echo has also kept me rolling along.  It seems to have 
survived me somewhat, as well.
- - -
The only thing that flies faster than an F-16 is your guardian angel
- - - -
Nine out of ten doctors recommend reading my books.  The tenth is a quack.
Shalanna Collins   http://home.attbi.com/~shalanna/>
_Dulcinea: or Wizardry A-Flute_  (e-mail me 4 excerpt)  ISBN 0-7388-5388-7
New!  I'm trying out a blog/jrnl http://www.livejournal.com/users/shalanna/>

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