If I am ever lucky enough to have one romance novel published and then move on to write a second, I swear to you that in the second one I will place a new proper noun in every other paragraph just so I can pass on the joy that I get as a freelance editor from stopping every minute to verify and then record on the ever-mushrooming style sheet that new proper noun ...

For the young who want to

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

-- Marge Piercy

Now that I'm eating lunch at home, one of my worst fears ...

Movie review of the disappointing, scattered, annoying Stay summed up by R's comment, only 42 minutes in ...

"If they tease me with this $%&* and it goes Vanilla Sky on me ..."

I recently read this article . . .

***********

LONDON (AFP) - Bestsellers by Bill Clinton, J.K. Rowling, and David Beckham are among the books Britons find hardest to finish reading, according to a survey published Monday.

Although the average reader spends more than 4,000 pounds ($7,760 dollars) on books in their lifetime, 55% admit they buy them for decoration and have no intention of reading them.

Topping the list of unfinishable fiction is "Vernon God Little" by DBC Pierre, which 35% said they could not plough through, followed by Rowling's "Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire" (32%). Ulysses" by James Joyce (28%) was at three and Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" -- which prompted Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa, or death sentence, against him in 1989 -- is at number six (21%).

The non-fiction list was led by the memoirs of former British Cabinet minister David Blunkett (35%), followed by ex United States president Clinton's 1024-page autobiography "My Life" (30%). Real Madrid star Beckham's "My Side", the fastest-selling autobiography of all time in Britain, comes in third (27%).

The survey also found that only 24% of people find time to read every day, with 48% saying that they were too tired to do so.

***********

and it got me thinkin' that, although I would not admit this at a literary soirée, I am certainly guilty of having books for decoration, and I certainly still own books that I just can't read:

Decoration and No Intention

1. Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales (Nevil Coghill, Trans.). London: Folio Society, Vols. 1 & 2, 1966. (Beautiful old set including woodcuts purchased years ago at a used bookstore somewhere because I thought it not right for a lit major not to have a copy.)

2. J. K. Rowling Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers (Jean-François Ménard, Trans.). Paris: Gallimard-Jeunesse, 1998. (A friend bought this soft paperback for me as a nod to my love of French; a great but intimidating gift!)

3. Charles Dickens Charles Dickens' Book of Memoranda (Fred Kaplan, Transcriber). New York: New York Public Library, 1981. (A gift from my mom; excellent addition to all Dickens' novels, which I have read.)

Just Have Not Been (Yet) Able to Read

1. Jeanette Winterson The World and Other Places. New York: Vintage, 1998. (I believe I read one of her stories and liked it so I bought this collection, and I just can't get into it. I've failed twice. Not sure why.)

2. Dava Sobel Galileo's Daughter. New York: Penguin, 2000. (I know it is a bestseller and something I should be into, but I just could never get past the beginning.)

3. Simon Winchester The Meaning of Everything. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. (Again, seems right up my alley but I can't finish it. This might be more laziness on my part than anything else.)

There, I feel better ...