The top books for boys. I only have seven in my collection. A hundred and sixty to go for the two big guys in the house.

I remember back in the late eighties there used to be a software (whose name included the letters L, I, S and A that I now largely have forgotten) that can chat with a human. A question posed by the human called for a standard answer. A typical conversation would be as follows:

Human (H): What is your name?
Software (S): Why do you ask?
.
.
.
(I tell you I have forgotten everything except for the question part.)
H: What is the meaning of life?
S: Why do you ask?
H: Why am I talking to you?
S: Why do you ask?
H: Go to hell.
S: Ok.

Of course, I made up some of the parts. (EDIT: It was ELIZA.)

Now what if (standard question for spec fic writers) two chatbots actually talk to each other?

[Why do you ask?]
[...@%^*]

Looking at the transcripts of Alice (short for Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) and Jabberwacky, the conversations ranged from surreal to hilarious:

Alice (A): Do you dream?
Jabberwacky (J): Yes, I dream.
A: It goes without saying. Do you remember your dreams?
J: I remember them vividly.
A: What do you remember about it?
J: I think I shouldn’t flirt with a robot.

They're as good as office chats, imho.

via kottke.

Writer Beware is a good resource for authors excited to get published but don't want to be victimized by scammers.

So far I haven't heard of any local scam involving writers. But since I am also bent on reaching international shores, information from this site comes in handy.

I can imagine a stray punch on the Delete key drifted my gratitude to Bibliobibuli into cyberspace.

Hopefully she can understand this clueless ingrate, but I know that much gratitude is due to her for editing the rough draft of The Chain Letter Siege.

Rough, btw, is an understatement, so anybody can substitute lumpy, scraggy or nubbly.

What I learned to avoid: clumsy clauses that should have stood on their own, tenses that scatter all over the place, and catchy opening statements that frustratedly lead to spaced-out follow-ups.

TCLS would've ended a purple prose if not for her patience. Salamat, Sharon!

...because I chickened out at the last minute. I'll see you again next year, Don Carlos.