Brenda Coulter

A few weeks ago I planted three potted delphiniums. All bloomed a beautiful sky-blue. A bad storm bent the two flowering stalks on the middle plant, so I cut them and brought them into the house to enjoy. There was one yet-to bloom stalk left on the plant. Today it bloomed, and it is BRIGHT purple! It's a lovely color, but the dramatic overnight change has me baffled.

]You can see several photographs of it between the two sky-blue plants on this page of my blog:

http://brendacoulter.blogspot.com/2008/07/beautifu...

Has anyone seen anything like this before? What gives?

I've never been to a game, and I need to know which seats are considered the absolute best. In other words, if somebody with major connections gave you tickets to a regular-season game, where would you sit?

This is research for a novel. If the venue makes a difference, the tickets would be for a Minnesota Wild home game.

Several times each day, the "How can I get published?" question is asked here at YA. I don't understand why, because if you enter that question (I just tried it) you will immediately be shown five questions with almost the same wording--and there will be a note that says something like, "More similar questions (4,500)."

I really don't get this. Is nobody looking up those other questions? If you really want to get published, why aren't you eagerly combing through those old answers instead of asking the same question again? Why let such a valuable resource go to waste?

Why do so many of the people who come here and to similar forums for tips on getting published write so poorly when they post their questions? Do they really expect others to take them seriously as writers when they can't be bothered to communicate clearly and use Spell Check once in a while? I realize many of these posters are very young. But goodness, even a fourteen-year-old ought to be able to do better than, "I want to be a writr. can you ppl please PLEASE, give me some tips for getting my storys published?!? Thx. I write suspinsful storys if that matters."

Yes, I made up that example, but you've seen even worse in this forum, you know you have.

Honestly. I want to know. Are these people unable to write in plain English, or do they simply believe grammar, spelling, and punctuation are details that literary agents and editors will overlook?