THREE of five quit over furniture prompts? That is WILD. I mean, the armchair grudge thing got a laugh out of me, but I can't blame them. Paying $40 for that stuff is like buying a gym membership and finding out the only equipment is a jump rope tied to a chair. I've been burned before too, but honestly, the best prompts I've found were free ones on a random blog or even just stolen from song lyrics. Like, take a line from a song you hate and flip it into a scene. That got more real writing out of my group than any fancy book ever did. Maybe your Portland guy should stick to selling coffee and leave the writing advice to people who actually read.

Frank must have a lot of time on his hands if he's counting every 30 hours of tape play like a pilot logging flight time. Last time I checked, my decks are more likely to get dusty than magnetized, but now I'm eyeballing them like they're plotting against me. Guess I'll add demagnetizing to the list of things I'll never actually do, right next to realigning my VCR heads.