Scarlet Letters

As many of you know, I'm captain of a Relay for Life team. Our goal this year is $2,000. Last year we raised $1,700, in part because of your support. I know everyone reading this email knows at least one person who has fought cancer, and too many of us have lost friends and family to the disease. For the month of May, the profits from everything I sell off my web site - T-shirts, SETTING SUNS, etc. - will go to Relay for Life, the fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. If you've been waiting, now's the time. Buy something. Donate directly - links are available on the site. Buy a luminary in honor of someone who has battled cancer - they will be lit at the event and light our way as we walk all night. However you choose to give, GIVE. Please. Thank you for your time, and as always, for your support. www.elizabethdonald.com https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=191162&lis=1&kntae191162=21DE685392394152A52843FF95B00B07&supId=155978935

CON REPORT Well, I'd like to say I learned something about anime by being part of ShowMeCon/Anime St. Louis for a weekend, but I'd be lying. That's not entirely true. I learned what yaoi is. I learned what "glomp" means. And there is some connection between anime and the delicious cookie sticks known as Pocky that escapes me. I also learned that anime teens read, and they have energy, and I hope they come to our side of the Force soon. I spent most of my weekend at ShowMeCon in the Authors/Artists Alley, hawking my books beside Van Allen Plexico, Shane Moore, Barri Bumgarner, Sara Harvey and Angelia Sparrow. I am happy to say that I sold out of nearly everything I brought: buttons, magnets, books, T-shirts... oh wait, I forgot to BRING THE T-SHIRTS WITH ME. *thumps self* All I brought home was a handful of SETTING SUNSes, a stack o' money and a smile. I'd also like to recognize two young ladies, whose names I do not know. One of them wanted to buy my book ...

Rest in peace, Mr. Vonnegut. As related in the prologue to one of his short-story collections, here are Mr. Vonnegut's rules of writing: 1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. 2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. 3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. 4. Every sentence must do one of two things - reveal character or advance the action. 5. Start as close to the end as possible. 6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them - in order that the reader may see what they are made of. 7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. 8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they c...