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Interesting article especially about the "fan" status. I had no idea that myth was about.

I agree - and I have always told my friends who ask how much I'm NOT earning this month that they should think of me as a college student, just without having to pay tuition.

An air cleaner is basically a device that's used to remove contaminants/dust from the air. Also known as air purifiers they're installed in rooms that are constantly filling up with these minute solid particles

Wonderful selection here.

That poster made me smile. We lived in much simpler times. But, then, that's what our grandparents said when we were growing up. Things change too fast these days. I can't keep up.

Interesting story about the Shakers. I used to live near Enfield.

What beautiful pictures! From my point of view (being lazy) the English cottage garden is easiest to manage - it's pretty but doesn't require too much work. The Zen gardens must be really hard to keep pristine.

Hal. I inserted Century AS a Mary-Sue, but he wasn't having it. Then, more recently, Kiana.

I have a lot of sympathy for the author you mentioned. Mary-Sue is such a vicious stop word these days. And yes, the pairing thing is big too. If you have a strong female character, you never let her enter into a relationship, as that might dodge the Mary-Sue bullet.

The upshot being the fandom-wide message that strong, independent women will never get a man (or woman).

I hadn't considered your last point. I thought every author got paranoid when the Mary-Sue trolls came around.

I'm curious as to which character of yours was called a Mary Sue now.

While I think Mary Sues are bad, the fear of creating one has reached a ridiculous degree. I am a fan of one fanfiction author who does absolutely amazing work, not a single Mary Sue fic to their name, but when they wrote a story with a woman as a main role they put right in the summary that she wasn't in any pairing. Such a great author was worried about the character being called a Mary Sue before the character was even INTRODUCED. It's insane.

The big thing is that true Mary Sue authors won't stop writing if they are called out. Good authors like you might though. So really it's the good authors that get the heat for Mary Sues in the end in my opinion. The ones who probably don't actually have a Mary Sue.

I have indeed. A friend of mine tried the (what do you call it) strength test? on my arm. If I held soothing stones, she could push my arm down. If I held an energizing stone, she couldn't. I closed my eyes so I didn't know what stone I held. After a while, I could feel the energy in my body. I really want to learn more!

Thank you very much, Brenda!

Thanks for this. I was stuck on the chicken or egg thing!

Interesting and excellent article like all of your work Jo. I love reading your articles.

Your trip looks amazing! My husband and I went to Botswana and South Africa on Safari last year and saw most of the same animals. Fortunately, we saw several prides of lions and leopards as well. A trip to Kenya and Tanzania is next on our African travel list. You just made me look forward to it even more (and brought back some great memories). Thanks for sharing!

This may not give you an immediate boost in income. You may get a few visits from Twitter users if you have a following. However, over time, this will increase your Twitter following, and more relevant will be the increwse in the number of sites that do actually visit, record your pages, and send traffic for the remainder of the time that each article is available for viewing.
BTW Sheri, just follow each step one at a time and the whole thing will fit into place.