Critical Thinking

Well, you all refused to do my work for me and send in a finished story to be torn sentence-from-sentence. Have you no mercy? So I had to come up with another idea for today's article.

Which I did. Two, actually. Two fabulous, Earth-shattering, mind-numbing ideas, both of which require a lot of research and work and stuff. And you'd think I'd have the time, what with this being the first blessed day of school and all. But I rode my bike, instead. (I always name my bikes, but I haven't this one yet. I'm thinking TRAG or something--Tax Refunds Are Great. Maj Tom got glasses, instead.)

And it was a great ride. I was shooting for twenty miles but, after chugging a smoothy way too fast, realized I needed to crank it down to sixteen. Twelve miles of which were in black-eyed-Susan country.

Then a trip to the Perk for my celebratory school's-back-matte (tasted like grass) and a little Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Then back home to put in my hours at work at job #1 so I can go to job #3 tomorrow and Friday.

But wait! How could I forget? I am violently allergic to black-eyed Susans. I love them. They're like the "What Not To Wear" of the daisy world. But even a daily Claritin and a brace of weekly shots could not fend off the vile allergens. I'm dying here. My eyeballs are swelling into my brain. It's pretty gross.

All that to say, I'm toast. I'm sure, despite your gracious acceptance of my second-rate articles, you're not really interested in a fourth-rate article. I will try to get the good ones written in the weeks ahead. (Maybe I should write down the ideas before I forget...)

But! Google Reader smiles upon me. Two blog entries, one by a successful author, another by a New York agent, both on the same topic. A topic that has been discussed to some degree here. Still, as People Who Actually Read Books Occasionally, I'm interested in your view.

So peruse the following, then give your opinion. Remember to show your work.

First from Joe Konrath, author.

Second, from an anonymous NY agent.

And, finally, the source material.

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Kersley Fitzgerald is...going to look again for that Benadryl.