Razorclaw X wrote:

  I myself don't care about established authors. The first thing, and
my
main criteria, is if the title grabs my attention. Of course, after
that
first, important test, the first few paragraphs have to keep my
interest
(this might be part of the reason why I never got passed the first
chapter of Hearts of Ice, sorry Ms. Perry!).

<shrug>  Well, you certainly not hurting my feelings.  I'm well aware
that the first chapter of HoI is by far the weakest, since it was my
very first public post ever, and I wrote it two years ago back when I
was first flexing my writing muscles.  Looking back, I can see that I
relied a bit heavily on the old Ranma fanfic cliches to get the story
started.  But then, being a new author on the fanfic scene, I was a bit
nervous about getting to the real meat of the story because of the
heavy-duty subject matter, and the personal emotional intensity I knew I
would have to evoke just to get it on paper.

So yes, I'll be the first to confess that the first parts of Hearts of
Ice are a bit weak.  However... if I'm to acknowledge the 10 to 50+ HoI
fan mails I have received nearly every week for the past two years, not
to mention the awards HoI has won, the 300+ people who have signed the
HoI guestbook, and the fact that the HoI web page counter is rapidly
approaching 100,000 hits... I'd have to say that you are the one missing
out.  ;)

Then again, to each his own, neh?  ^_^

Ja ne,

Krista
(who's still amazed by it all)