No Plot, No Problem was overdue and I'd already renewed it once, but I renewed it again. Hopefully no one else is waiting in line for it. One of the suggestions in it was to list your favorite aspects of a novel in one list and your least favorite in another. Since I like listing things. . .

What I Love in a Book

A "Once upon a time" magical feel. The feeling that you are about to hear a story.
Characters you love. Really love. Like, you want to squeeze them because they're so cool!!

Romance, told artfully and beautifully

Structured plots

Ridiculously shocking, possibly embarrassing, confrontational, eyeball-widening, eyebrow-lifting, scenes

Surprising twists

Lush and exotic settings

Mystery and intrigue

Beauty

Rich use of all the senses

Beautiful endings. I'm partial to happy ones, but I like bittersweet ones too so long as they're poignant and meaningful and beautiful and leave me feeling contemplative instead of depressed. I can never forgive a book for having a flat and depressing and unfinished ending

What I Don't Love So Much in a Book

An excess of wordiness so that you can't picture what's going on and your imagination is bogged down.

Cardboard characters

Really disgusting, unredeemable villains. At some point in the story, either in the beginning or in the end, I like the villain to have good points to his character, otherwise they seem kind of fake to me. So long as it's a human, that is. If it's some dark force representing of Satan, it doesn't seem cardboard.

An excess of action, particularly action you can't envision (yes, I know it's more grammatically correct to say "one" instead of "you", but "you" sounds better

Cheesy, sappy, over-done romance. Blec.

Monsters, ghosts, aliens, weird fantasy creatures. Most of the time.

Strange, unnatural fantasy problems. I find those disturbing. I still vividly remember my dad watching Star Trek when I was about eight or nine, and someone got a strange disease that turned their eyes yellow and their skin crackled strangely and grossly. I left to my room and sat on the edge of my bed with clammy hands and weak, trembling limbs and a queasy stomach. Unfortunately, I'm not much different today when it comes to those things.

First person when the character has an attitude

Preachiness

As afore mentioned, depressing and incomplete endings

Wars and Rumors of Wars

I need a war or a rebellion.

Therefore, I brainstormed with my handy dandy brainstorming partner, Kate McKay, as I fondly call my sister. Unfortunately, I have never once made a breakthrough from this method of brainstorming. I wonder why that is. . .

The abridged version of our brainstorming discussion is as follows.

Brittany: "Katie, I need a reason for a war."

Katie: "Have people kidnap this girl because they want to start a war."

Brittany: "For the last time, I am not going to write The Princess Bride."

Katie: "Have these people be fighting over a river."

Brittany: "A river? And why can't they just share the river? Is it going to run out?"

Katie: "Someone is contaminating the river. They're dumping toxic waste into it."

Brittany: "I'm not writing Sahara, either. They didn't have toxic waste back then."

Katie: "Maybe their bathing in it and urinating in it."

Brittany: "That's nice, Katie."

Katie: "Ummmm. . ." stops thinking and resumes reading her literature book aloud " 'Then there was Aunt Sarah Shoaf, who never went to bed at night without the fear that a burglar was going to get in and blow chloroform under her door through a tube. To avert this calamity---' "

Brittany: "Well, they could always poison the river I suppose. . . but wait, why? That doesn't solve the problem of how the war. Hmmmm. . . I know, they're fighting for that kachina doll god."

(earlier in the conversation we had discussed having these people fight over an object. We came up with the idea they were fighting over a kachina doll that one country's founder had carved out of something, then it was lost, then the other country found it, and they've been fighting over it ever since)

Katie: "The great kachina doll god! Wow, that's a book I want to read. . ."

Brittany and Katie dissolve into laughter.

Brittany: (gasping for air) "Okay, what is the war going to be about? . . ."

Katie: (continues reading aloud) " '---for she was in greater dread of anesthetics than of losing her household goods--- she always piled her money, silverware, and other valuables in a neat stack just outside her bedroom, with a note reading: "This is all I have. Please take it and do not use your chloroform"---'." (Katie stops reading.) "I still think you should have it be over a broken treaty."

Brittany: "What's the treaty?"

Okay, that's enough of this goofy conversation. I'm in weird mood now, have you noticed? Anyway, these options were ruled out:

• a broken treaty (can't think of a treaty)
• a war against a religeon (because. . . I'm not sure why, but because)
• a war over stolen goods (the stolen goods are. . .?)
• a war over a kidnapped heir or heiress (nahhhh)
• a war over a possesion said to belong to both sides (can't think of anything. Don't want it to be land or the great kachina statue or the polluted river.)
• a war against barbaric invaders (doesn't work)
• a war against a cruel dictator (can't think of anything I like. He can't be cruel because he's stupid like Taerith's king, he can't be cruel because he overtaxes people like Daelia's country's rulers, he can't be cruel because he's cruel to slaves like in Zoe. I don't have any ideas)

Well this is one of the more random entries I've ever written. I'm hungry. I think I'm going to go eat something. . .