Financial analysis for the non-financially-analytical

http://www.businesspundit.com/sub-prime/

It's genius, check it out. Clever commentary on how we got where we are, economically speaking.

Fucking greed...you can always count on it.

Creativity in a can!

I’ve got this novel idea, see…no, really, I have an idea for a novel.

My wife and I have been working on getting this story going and we really think it could be big. The best part is, though, that we’re not alone in this – several other people have expressed enthusiasm for our endeavor. One of her co-workers even threatened me with bodily harm if I did not succeed in getting it published!

Now I know what you’re worried about and NO, I’m not going to be stupid enough to post the idea, even my synopsis, on my blog! What I would like to know from the very select group of readers that I have, is the following (thank you ScarletVirago for the idea of seeking feedback from the readers):

1. What genre of books you enjoy?
2. Which authors are your favorites?
3. What do you look for in a story? What makes a “good” novel to you? (i.e., what makes you sacrifice sleep to see what’s in the next chapter?)
4. What makes a bad novel to you? (i.e., what kinds of things make you want to shove the book down the toilet in order to feel that your opinion of it has been fully expressed?)

Here are my feelings:

1. Sci-fi/fantasy (in a VERY broad sense), espionage (modern), mystery.
2. Steven Brust, Steve Perry, Those Two Ladies that wrote the Dragonlance series (I apologize, but I cannot recall their names right now), Robert Ludlum. I give insane amounts of credit to Tolkien and Tom Clancy, though I cannot bring myself to read them (just due to writing style) they are wonderful authors with great stories.
3. I like character-driven stories the most; I like to know what makes the character tick. I like to be challenged, by that I mean I like there to be questions put forth that I have to keep reading to find the answers to.
4. Choppy writing will make me toss out a novel faster than a used tissue because I like elaborate sentences and vivid (though not excessive) descriptions of things.

Any feedback you folks could provide would be helpful to us in finding what may be lacking in our story.