All right, I'll say it. It's been a sweet forever. But Christmas vacation wasn't over until last week, and then I had to catch up on everyone else's blogs. Which took a looong time. Thanks for being moderately to extremely dedicated to your blog and your readers, everyone. Way to make me feel like a heel. Oh well. What can I do but aim for better from now on.
I could tell you about our beach vacation, wherein I purchased many things on sale at J. Crew outlets and also a fire alarm forced us to stand outside in the cold just minutes after midnight on New Years. Or I could tell you about my aging Granny and our family theory on how growing old makes you not care if what you say is nasty or hurtful. I could talk about All The Football Games and Speculation About Football Games and Analysis of Football Games I've had to endure lately. I could tell you about how one of my best friends got a job in the building behind mine, or how my dad retired, or about these fabulous chairs I found on craigslist that I desperately want. But I'll tell you what's on my mind. It's the Twilight series. Somebody help me. I can't quit reading. I don't even like the writing that much. It's just sort of plain. And the dialogue is often forced and awkward and I spend a lot of time thinking enough with the paragraph-long descriptions of the weather and the scenery and the trees and the dang rain already, can we please have some more mediocre dialogue? I'm pretty sure the books could actually be about half the length without sacrificing any substance. Still I read, though. And I won't lie, I'm more than a little intrigued by the notion of becoming a vampire myself. I'm already alarmingly pale.
Ordinarily I tend to read children's and adolescent literature. It's always the first section I go to in a bookstore, the children's. They don't mess around, those authors. Lemony Snicket, Roald Dahl, Louis Sachar, Jerry Spinelli. The books are so quenchy. And they don't get all bogged down in page after page of 20-adjective descriptors of every single thing. Students are always taught to be descriptive and specific and give as many details as you can, and frankly I think that better advice is to be entertaining, for heaven's sake, and if you can do it in five words instead of five hundred (I'm talking to you, Mr. Grapes of Wrath. It's really dusty, we get it already!), then God bless you. I'm not too proud to admit I skim right over those lengthy description paragraphs to get to the talkin. Hear me, Stephanie Meyers? I did. I skipped RIGHT OVER all that nonsense about the rain or the truck or his perfect skin and trembly hands.
Tell me this does not make me a lazy old Philistine.
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