Anyway, I was drawn in and want to read more! Maybe I bought the premise easier of female writing male action figure because I’ve been watching Nim’s Island over and over again the last month with my 4 year old. So, I kept picturing Gerard Butler (I think that’s the actor’s name) at the door and that was a SWEET visual. Thanks for that.

I want to read more!

Heidi

If you think you wanted to tear your eyeballs out, imagine writing it.

Try March Upcountry.

I once heard his name uttered in the same breath as David Weber (whom I adored for his scary-intense, competent female action heroes). So I went to see what he was all about.

And then I pulled my eyeballs out of my head so I could give my sockets a good scrubbing.

I don’t enjoy political correctness in my books. I like characters that are a little offensive and appear to be a real person.

I think this is a hilarious idea, and I like your voice. You can get away with a lot more direct information transfer in first person (“This is me, this is what’s going on with me”) without it seeming too info-dumpy.

Make her less of a jerk, though. I know that she’ll be changing and growing during the book, but you don’t want her to be so much of a jerk on page 1 that lots of people will stop reading. (Sarah Bird’s How Perfect is That does a good job of turning a protag from love-to-hate-her to love-her, if you want to check out how someone else has done it.)

And, yep, I thought of John Ringo too. Hee!

The rest of the page, once I managed to go back and read it, was light and interesting. I was simultaneously put off and intrigued by the narrator’s description of her writing, and like other responders, I want to know what makes her write what she does and whether she thinks at all about it beyond the size of her paycheck. In short, the writing is clear and intriguing, but with just this page to go on, this may not be a heroine I’d want to spend time with.

The first half didn’t seem related to the second half somehow – so the “So” introduction seemed a little strange.

Other than that – excellent.

Well done.

Jill, I hereby invite you to my house the next time the UPS guy delivers. I *totally* understood this part. (I once wrote a book where my romance writer heroine celebrated finishing her book by shagging the UPS guy and made it a major plot point. Though it might have been Fed Ex…) ;-)

Hmm…I’m rethinking my comment. Of course we see men as sex objects! I crane my neck every time I pass a construction site.

I guess the UPS guy has been flying under my sexy radar. : )

Nice twist on the fact that so many female SF writers used male-sounding pseudonyms, back in the day. Hurry up & sell this so I can haz the rest!

I hope the author keeps to her vision and doesn’t go into some kind of angsty guilt trip about what she does for a living. At least not this early in the book.

Signed, she who lacks both “upper body strength and math skills.”