Hello and Happy Friday,

You know Stephen King is one of my favorite writer's, he's in the top 4 and he has just made it to number two because of a comment he made about the writer Stephanie Meyers; that she isn't a very good writer, especially compared to J.K. Rowling who is an excellent writer. I am so glad he said this out loud. It's funny how you may think this writer or that writer is not very good but you'll never say it out loud or at least I wouldn't for a few reasons: 1) What do I know? They're published writers with known publishing houses and maybe I'm wrong and just not sophisticated enough to know a good writer from a bad one. 2) I'm jealous of the writer so I'll immediately say the work is not very good. 3) I'm just not a fan of the genre so wouldn't have a positive review any way.

But when someone like Stephen King backs your belief a popular writer is not a very good writer despite all the hype, you're thrilled, because if any one should know it would be a great writer, right? Someone who is a publishing and everything else phenom like Mr. King, who on top of it is very well read and a former English teacher, so who should know good writing from bad better than he does.

I know this is not a world turning event, yet it did make me smile to learn he'd said this and that other folks agreed. It made me feel that I had a chance out there with my work and that I may know a little bit about what is good or bad writing and that I use this bit of knowledge to judge my own work, deciding when its good or bad then trying to make it all good.

Keep writing, no matter what. Have I said this before?

If you have any comments or suggestions please e-mail me at my new address: shabazzl@adasbcc.org.

Until next time, God willing,

Lori