A horse is wonderful by definition.

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series also shows the potential of lighter fantastic fiction. I read the first, and listened to a tape of a later one, and it's fun.

Polishing: a useful lesson for the hopeful writer. You say your tormented prose doesn't read as well as mine? Neither does mine, at first!

At this slower pace the journey took a couple of days, and I fought off a few minor threats along the way --griffins, carnivorous plants, giant serpents, hostile centaurs, that sort of thing, purely routine --and I was beginning to get bored when at last the dusky towers of Castle Roogna hove into view.

I did not know at first that it would be a series; I discovered after the first novel that I had more to say about it, so I did another. And another, and then the readers demanded yet more.

One day you'll discover that the opinions of worthless people are worthless.

As for collaboration - I have done a lot, 26 books, and found publishers increasingly resistive to them. It's not that the books are bad; editors won't even read them.