Thank you! And, lol,congratutlations! I'd love to know where your story is being published!

I love that, "Write what you need ... learn what you need ..." Great advice.

And the second paragraph is wise advice.

I just had a short story accepted by a literary journal, telling of an Australian surfer who is a newcomer to Central Asia, and suddenly finds himself heaved onto a horse and sent galloping out to join a game of buzkashi,a rather violent form of polo endemic to Central Asia. (How's that for a run-on sentence?) I have never ridden a surfboard and know nothing of the culture. And despite living in Central Asia for ten years I have never watched a game of buzkashi, either. But I am able to knit together what I do know, with careful research, and have a convincing story come out of the process. Apparently.

Some rules are meant to be broken, or at least tweaked.

Including starting a sentence with and.

Thank you Lisa...would you believe I also got a cooking column when I couldn't cook, from a wrong number phone call!?! I think SF/F are fun because so much of what you write is what's in your imagination. What goes on in a writer's head should be studied! (I just don't want my internet history studied.)

Making stuff up is most of the fun! So I'd love to know what you 'make up' for your wife's birthday?? lol

Absolutely agree with you!!

There is room for MY version of Hollywood - as fed for years by new and gossip - and room for me to put MY kind of characters into that kind of fame, and wonder what happens.

I don't think that's intrinsically any different from the creations of writers of cozy mysteries or noir romances: if I can tell a compelling story, there will be people like me who will want to hear it.

It's up to me to create something of a quality I'm happy to attach my name to.