If you're writing a series...

...please, please, PLEASE make your last book the climax to the series and answer the questions you've carefully plotted into the preceding books. I just read another ending to another highly publicized series and wanted to hurl the book when I was done. We're looking for the missing friends for volumes now, but we're not going to find them/address the issue/wonder?? (And come to think of it, there was a sudden black hole baby in this one, too, although not produced by any major characters...)

DON'T build up a character flaw and make the reader believe it will be overcome if you aren't planning to go there.

DON'T write yourself into a corner and then just decide to end the book before resolving the tensions your book has been building all along. 

They haven't all been in the same book, but these are all things I've encountered recently. Argh.

New trend?

I've been outside of the US for a couple years--is this a recent change? My kids have come home from school to announce that they are not allowed to wear Halloween costumes to school on Friday. They are all having parties that day--but they are not Halloween parties. They are fall parties. Is this all over the US now, or is it just because of where I live (Bible belt)?

I bought Halloween plates and napkins. Surely grinning pumpkins won't be banned??