I hate to come in late on this, but the lead singer of the "Morningwood" video resembles an ex-girlfriend of mine. She looked kind of sexy in that busty, thick-thighed way. Then she pulled the rip release on the parachute and blew up, in weight.

Scared me and depressed me at the same time. I'm no svelt cat, but that was a bad fake-out.

Mmmm... bangers and mash...

(Bang!  Two in one day!)

Haggis seems to be one of those foods that would taste good if I didn't know what it was, like instead of listing the ingredients underneath Haggis in a menu they should probably just put 'Don't Ask'.

Tom, as to your many page previous post (by the way, 4 or 5 pages of bad jokes in less than a day? I'm impressed. I love this thread), in regards to the quality of work that you would like to produce in order to be successful: Michael Caine asked if he'd like to make a great movie or have a big hit, and he said (paraphrasing here); If it makes money they let you make another one.

True, there is a difference in that as an actor he is an important part of the art but is not the creator of the piece and thus while he may be selling the use of his abilities he is not selling a piece of his soul. However, if an editor asked me to simplify some things (in terms of character's backstory and motivation, overall plot, and word usage and sentence structure) in order to help sell the work then I would do that happily. The point of writing is to communicate an idea and I enjoy the challenge of being able to be understood by a lot of people. It is actually very difficult to write like that without 'dumbing it down' but making it more accessible and consequently more marketable would be worth the extra effort to me.

That is a choice I would be willing to make. However, if someone asked me to change the point of a piece to something completely different for whatever reason that is something I absolutely would be unwilling to do. The statement is the art and I'm not willing to compromise on the statement. The rest, while important, is just the tools I use to make that statement.

One book would be good. One successful book would be better. A successful book that leads to a writing career would be ideal.

I made bangers and mash for the first time a couple of weeks ago and was surprised at just how well mashing and banging works.

The best part was the simple gravy I made for the potatoes: Carmelized some onions with salt and cardamum and then added some beef broth and boiled it until it reduced to a thick beefy, oniony syrup. Yum.

Steve -- I agree with your point about editors; a good editor guides, not steers.  But for me, it still comes down to the author.  Stephen King published anything he found in the back of his desk drawer -- although I usually cut John Irving some slack, he's been guilty of the same thing.  Hell, Kurt Vonnegut has published THREE books since his death!  Mostly short story collections (many unpublished), but it doesn't take a literary genius to figure out WHY they were unpublished. 

I want to get Byrne into this conversation.  I'm curious if he's published anything (prose or cartoon) that he didn't feel was "ready" -- or he felt was heavy-handed by the editor (the anecdote about the Beyonder aside).