I have no idea what to write about today. I was home girl-cursed yesterday, and though I’m feeling better and back at work today, I’m not quite up to my normal. FYI, doing any sort of low carb diet first phase during That Week sucks. You have nothing to counteract the natural exhaustion. I still feel like I could sleep for a week.
While I was taking my curl-up-and-die-feel-sorry-for-myself day yesterday, I picked up another book in my TBR pile and tried to start it. I’m not naming names. I didn’t get past the first 14 pages. Part of it was that the style felt very amateurish. One of those where the language was supposed to be dramatic but came out melodramatic and kind of silly instead. The book had a prologue where in there was all the dramatic angst over not being able to be with the hero, a horrible event, then we pick up in Chapter 1, 150 years later and the heroine is still having all the same thoughts (almost verbatim) about the same hero, as if a day hasn’t passed. Now, I’m sorry, but if you haven’t moved on or at least grown up a little in 150 years, I don’t think I can handle you as a heroine. I also had a beef with the hero’s name. It ended in “lyn”. There is no name in the world that ends in “lyn” that doesn’t sound girly. I expect the author was just trying to be different, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. Unless the guy is supposed to be the gay best friend (which didn’t fit since it wasn’t chick lit), an “lyn” ending name for a guy, a serious alpha male hero at that, does not work for me. It’s going in my “To The Used Bookstore” pile.
As I’ve been getting all excited about my novella, I’ve been trying to drag Pot into the party. Now this illustrates one of the big differences between us. When I suggested that she write a novella, I was thinking something simple, stand alone–intended to be an exercise in getting an action plot from beginning to end (which is one of her weak spots–she likes to go all emo and is very good at it). We are now discussing space cowboys and she’s contemplating filling the void left in us by the cancellation of Firefly. We’re working on filling out the crew. I love this part! Maybe we should jump on the bandwagon with all the Write A Book With Me stuff and do a Write A Novella With Us thing.
Hubby came home yesterday with a new cordless, electric push mower. My MIL loaned us the money, as our pushmower has been inexplicably dying all summer, leaving our grass in need of a bush hog. Now, I don’t do yard work if I can help it. I don’t like getting hot, sweaty, and gross (which is all that yardwork in Mississippi ever does). And I can’t mow unless hubby cranks the mowers for me because I am not tall enough to get the leverage to crank them for myself. Now the cool thing about electric mowers? They start as I think all lawnmowers should start. There is no cranking. It’s either on or it’s off. There’s no dying and throwing your shoulder out of socket trying to recrank it. Hurray for sanity! So hubby is working on making our yard more presentable. He did the weedeating day before yesterday, the front yard yesterday, and he’ll do the rest this afternoon. We might actually not look like rednecks by dinner time.
I am very very ready for fall. Cool evening walks, the scent of woodsmoke and burning leaves on the air, chili weather… After the long, sweaty, hot days of summer, I’m ready to be able to get outside again without feeling like I’m breathing bathwater into my lungs.
And finally, Lili St. Crow is my hero. Finished Strange Angels over the weekend. It is awesome. Buy it. Read it. Reading Night Shift for free here. It is also awesome. Read it. That is all.