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I would quibble with a few others ...

In ideal world. When you have to write while your kid is playing a cricket game or taking swimming lessons or golf lessons, it's best to learn how to shut the world out rather than to try and eliminate the world.

So I agree with what he is saying, just differently.

This is one of the many things I've learned here on TNBW. And for me, it started with Sol's advice (on the old site, not sure it came over to the new one) - When you do a review, use the character's names, don't use he or she. This approach makes characters real. And from then on (for me at least) it started to get serious.

I agree, but again, differently. In an ideal world, where I'm a full-time writer, I can see this happening. In the real world, after a 10-hr work day, having kids with sports/birthday parties and other family commitments, I'd be happy with twelve months. I've long ago realised I'd be lucky if I can finish a 100,000 word novel (first draft and second revision) every two years. I don't think I'm special or the only one. Or that not meeting this target = failure. This also means that you need to put other systems in place to avoid it from "taking on an odd feel" ...

See the previous point ... sometimes you need to compromise. And I'd rather compromise and take 12 months to write a first draft than compromise where my marriage and kids are concerned. In an ideal world, you can have it all. I'm glad if this works for him, but I'm not so sure it was entirely written with "part-time" writers in mind.

Thanks for joining Mike! My arm was getting tired from all the waving, Tom still looks good though (thanks Tom!)! LOL

And by all means, if you have any questions, you know where we are - feel free to start a new topic!

As a side-note, you and anyone else are more than welcome to start a thread for your writing or books, but I'm not really pushing this aspect of the group as most of us already have similar threads going in other groups and having it in multiple groups make it really complicated. So all up to you.

For shamelessly joining the Romance Group and plugging your story, I've added you to my review list Mike!

And don't worry, I only throw bad novels at walls and people I don't like!

There is something to learn from reading bad novels, but I can't read it to "The End" no more, so I'll just pick up on the lessons I can get up to that stage. And hey, reading 70-100 pages is proof that at least I have really tried to give them some chance!

What I can also add - it's nothing compared to the number of books I returned to the shelf after reading the first few pages - something I've never done before either. I used to base my reading decision on the back page blurb only. I'm turning into one of my nightmares ... a critic! LOL

Baby-steps K! I used to FINISH every.single.novel.
But I'm thinking at this rate, even page 10 might be a stretch one of these days!

Helloooooooo!!!! *waves hand*

crickets ...

In any case, to all the recent members joining the group, welcome. And please, introduce yourself and what you're working on! We don't bite (hard)!

Yes, you just agreed with yourself! But that's because I understand "Janet's English"!

I'm going to change it next revision, I don't want readers to object to agreeing with themselves after all! I'm optimistic it will take re-arranging of the sentence structure and changing one or two words at most ...

Is Norm back yet?! Hope the downsizing was a success!

I could win a comp like this!!!! LOL

I'd read #4 and #2 ... And #1 is brilliant! Except, it could probably do with a few more adverbs!

On a side note, there's a similar "competition" for the worst romantic/love scene paragraph or sentence. I'll see if I can find that again. Let me know if I should also post it here (I'm definitely going to post it in the Romance Group!)

Some myths I've never heard of before. But yeah, it just proof again that you should never take something on face value (especially on the internet) - maybe some of his stuff needs to be checked too, who knows and who has the time?! On a side note, the guy's voice will drive me crazy if I have to listen to another one of his lists!

Speaking of cleaning habits:

The best/simplest advice I've come across was that human nature hasn't changed all that much. It rang pretty accurate to me. So just like today you get people that bath twice a day to people that don't bath that often, you'd get them back in the day too. Granted, running a bath was a b#tch those days, but that's about the biggest difference (and might at most changed the twice a day person to a once a day person, maybe, even then, if you ever roughed it, you know you can do wonders with a bucket of cold/luke/warm-if-you're-lucky water and a cloth).

The old tribes in Africa had really good teeth for people that didn't have fluoride toothpaste. Reason why - they sat for hours a day cleaning their teeth with sharp sticks. It was time consuming, but worked just as well if not better.

Also, I'm sure that if riders ran out of ale/wine, they would drink water from the streams. So some might have taken a liking to it too, who knows. But only a few probably, with that much beer around, who'd prefer water?! LOL Side note, one of these days Amy will be able to tell us how much beer $50 of TNBW prize money can buy! No pressure Ames!

And then this ... slightly different reason for not taking a bath, but related to the topic of bathing:

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/beauty … 7519995565

So who's with me?! No more bathing. Yay!!!

But yeah, my characters bath and wipe and clean themselves. If they didn't ... *shudders, I'd probably never read or write a historical romance novel ever again*

hehehe, just kidding! LOL

I don't think so. Anthony's change of heart is very sudden ... and making 100% sure is better than just assuming. Anthony has a lot to answer for and proof ... I think you can be supportive/loyal, while still being careful?