Now, see...I can respect that. I think your previous posts just felt too aggressive to me, and I responded in kind. I still think you are being too hard on fan fiction, but I can see where you are coming from.

Also, since you really DO believe these things, I''d like to apologize for the poseur cracks.

Anyway, I''m in the middle of packing for a change of residence. I''ll be all moved into my new house in the next week or so. As soon as I get to my notebooks I''ll post some of my material, if anyone is still interested.

AP - Now that''s much better. Now we can have a meaningful conversation rather than an argument.

Brit lit as the pinnacle of writing, eh? Not an idea I would have ever come up with... I like Blake and T. S. Eliot but that''s about it. Well, Shaw and Wilde and associated satirists are cool... If I had to pick a pinnacle of writing I think I would say for sf/fantasy it occurred between 1970 and 1985, earlier for various other genres. I''m currently studying surrealism in general and shoujo manga/anime from the 80s because they do a lot of things I want to be able to do in my writing.

So what brit lit did you specifically have in mind, and what do you think is cool about it?

ShadeStorm - I always like to see what my forum members are writing, and I have extended an open invitation to everyone to post their stuff and ask for c+c.

I actually find it hard to pin point why I like these writers, honestly. I guess the main reasons are that they could make their writings meaningful as well as entertaining at the same time. Elloquent, yet very passionate about what they wrote about. When I read those folks, I don''t feel like I, as a reader, am being cheated in any way possible. Lots of things from other periods I read seem to be dumbed down a little bit so the entertainment factor can slip through a little bit more. Or they try too hard to be intellectual, making them truly boring to read.

With british writers(I''d say from the early 1800s-early 1900s), I feel that you get everything writing has to offer. Yes, this is all a rather broad definition of the period, but it was a feeling that seemed to go through the heart of each of their writing styles. I really feel that they set an unreachable standard in terms of literary achievement.

The big ones that struck me off the top of my head were, as you mentioned Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw(gotta love those crazy socialists) and my other two favorites Robert Burns and Lord Byron. I know I''m forgetting a great deal more(for instance Robert Louis Stevenson who, although I''ve never read any of his stuff, wrote the original story from which my favorite comedy film, The Wrong Box, was based), but I sorta needed to keep it brief. I gotta be in my philosophy class in 5 minutes...