Yes, it’s time once again for Reader Request Week, in which I take a week off from thinking up topics to write about here at Whatever and let you folks do all the heavy lifting. Yes! You do it for once! See how hard it is! Ha!
Want to play along? Sure you do. Here’s how it works: Think of a subject/topic you would like me to write about, and put it into the comment thread below. What kind of subject or topic, you ask? Why, whatever you want to know about. No subject is taboo to suggest, no topic too serious or silly. Really, just reel it off. The worst that will happen is that I simply won’t pick it to answer (you can also send a request in e-mail, which people do sometimes). My only suggestions are:
a) That you don’t simply splotz into a list the first eight things that come to your mind — pick quality over quantity;
b) While I’m not opposed to requests about writing, remember I get asked those a lot, so you’ll have to put in a lot of thought to ask me a writing question I haven’t already been asked and have answered. Consider it a challenge.
Once people start putting in requests, I’ll look through the list and pick the subjects that interest me the most, and starting next Monday I’ll start answering them. It’s usually fun for everyone.
To keep from getting repeats, here’s an index for the last five years of Reader Request Weeks. If you see a topic here, assume it’s been asked and answered (although interesting variations of these might be considered):
From 2004:
Reader Request #1: Boys and Girls
Reader Request #2: The Meaning of Life
Reader Request #3: Can Writing Be Taught?
Reader Request #4: Fatherhood and Pie
Reader Request #5: Objective Newspeople
Reader Request Week 2004 Wrapup
From 2005:
Reader Request #1: Creative Commons and FanFic
Reader Request #2: Peak Oil
Reader Request #3: Beatles, Batman and They
Reader Request #4: Pot!
Reader Request #5: Odds and Ends
From 2006:
Reader Request #1: SF Novels and Films
Reader Request #2: 10 Childhood Nuggets
Reader Request #3: Writers and Technology
Reader Request #4: The Nintendo Revolution
Reader Request #5: A Political Judiciary
Reader Request #6: Paranoid Parents
Reader Request #7: Writing About Writing
From 2007:
Reader Request #1: Justifying My Life
Reader Request #2: Coffee, or Lack Thereof
Reader Request #3: BaconCat Fame
Reader Request #4: The Inevitable Blackness That Will Engulf Us All
Reader Request #5: Out of Poverty
Reader Request #6: Short Bits
Reader Request #7: Short Bits II: Electric Boogaloo
From 2008:
Reader Request #1: Homeschooling
Reader Request #2: Technological Gifts
Reader Request #3: Sex and Video Games
Reader Request #4: Where I Am Now
Reader Request #5: Professional Jealousy
Reader Request #6: Author Relations
Reader Request #7: Fame or Lack Thereof
Reader Request #8: Politics and the Olympics
Reader Request #9: Polygamy
Reader Request #10: Meeting Authors (and Me)
Reader Request #11 Athena and Whatever
Reader Request #12: Soldiers and Support
Reader Request #13: Diminishing Returns
Reader Request #14: Quick Hits, Volume I
Reader Request #15: Quick Hits, Volume II
There they are.
Now, then: Topics, please! Put them in the comment thread, and beginning Monday, we’ll get this ball rolling.