Well, first off, it's now day 44.
Yesterday I did get the laundry done except for one tiny load. So I'll finish that up tonight, and go on from there. I have walked every night this week so far, too. And I've lost eight pounds since Easter. Yay me! I figure on an average day I'm eating between 1500-2000 calories, and to maintain my current weight, I need to eat more like 2800 calories. So I'm doing good with the eating, and the exercising is just helping everything out. I even jumped rope a bit last night, but I only lasted five minutes. (In all honesty, I've never had an eating problem; it was more like a lack of movement problem. I figure any exercise I get is good, and will help burn calories and help take off those inactivity pounds!)
Tonight's list:
1. Finish laundry (need to fold a small load only, I think. I think it's all dried.)
2. Work in the basement. I keep going down the basement and getting overwhelmed. It's the sheer volume of stuff more than anything else, and the fact that I just don't want to deal with it all... but that's another story. So what I’m planning to do is to organize my craft area first, and then work my way outward. That way, at least I'll have a clear spot to remind myself that I can do this! Hopefully it will work.
So tonight's goal is to switch the tables, clean and organize the craft stuff, and end up with a little oasis of organization so I can model the rest of the basement after my craft area. That should be relatively easy to do. (!!!) I hope.
3. Walk, as usual. Other than the idiots who insist on not giving pedestrians the right away, my walk is actually quite nice. Although I do have to insist on a bit more SPRINGTIME!! 80 degrees and humid is JUST TOO MUCH for April!!
And now, the rant...
So my aunt gave me three books to read when I went to her house last weekend. One of them was Riptide by Catherine Coulter. Not being a suspense/romance fan, I figured I'd give it a try anyway, just because she's a relatively popular author.
That book stinks! Argh! It's absolutely transparent, badly written (or edited), and the plot is about as involved as a deadbeat dad. (Okay, bad analogy, but you get it, I hope.) I'm about halfway through, and I keep tripping over run-on sentences, POV jumping to the extreme, and just plain... horrible writing. Ick. Ack. I don't think I'm going to finish it. I'm very glad I didn't spend $29 on the hardback, let me tell you!
Here's a recap of the plot:
Becca Matlock is a speechwriter for a governor, and she has a stalker who calls her up and calls himself her boyfriend. The police don't believe her, she acts like a ninny at the best of times (and then turns around and is good with a gun, even!) and when the governor is shot in the neck, she flees to Riptide because Tyler (can't remember his last name), an old friend of hers, called the town his refuge. Or something like that.
She tries to keep the police off her tail (they really want to talk to her now, since the governor was shot and she doesn't want anything to do with them) and ends up renting a house that used to belong to Jacob Marley. Oh, and Tyler's wife vanished and was never found, and he has a son named Sam. Well, it turns out that Becca's father, Thomas, was a CIA operative who accidentally shot his Russian nemesis' wife way back when, and the guy (I'm not even going to try to spell his name) has been gunning for him ever since. So Thomas never returned to his family, and Becca thinks her dad is dead. But instead, the Russian guy is going after Becca to find Thomas.
Did I mention that everyone in the town of Riptide thinks Tyler murdered his wife? And that right after a big storm a skeleton falls out of the basement wall of Jacob Marley's house? And that Tyler is very obviously wanting Becca to replace his missing wife? And that Adam, who is sent by Thomas to protect Becca falls in love with Our Heroine as well? Oh, and the fact that Sherlock and Savich are two computer geniuses who are recruited by Thomas to help? And then there's the six or so other guys supposed to be protecting Becca...
Now. The skeleton in the basement/missing wife angle could have been fine without the Russian guy/CIA/Stalker handle, but the two do not mesh well in this book. Not only do I get the feeling that the Tyler subplot was just tossed in to make the book longer, when, in fact, it only makes the book more convoluted and confused. There are two distinct stories here, and they just don't mesh well at all.
I mean, first we meet Tyler, and think, ok, maybe he's this mysterious stalker, even. Becca lies to him, which I understand, and they seem to hit it off. The son, Sam, is a bit odd; he evidently stopped talking much after his mother vanished. And Becca doesn't think Tyler could have killed his wife. (She's not the skeleton in the basement wall, btw. This is another person, a runaway.) And then we enter in Thomas, and Adam, and all these other people, and Tyler and Sam kind of fade in the background. And then they appear, but only seem to muddle things even further. And then the Russian guy kidnaps Becca right from under their noses... Ack. Ick. I did flip through to see if my guesses were right after I stalled over yet another POV shift in the middle of what should have been a single viewpoint chapter. So I know that Tyler murdered his wife and the runaway, but that doesn't come out until after the real climax, when the Russian guy dies and Becca is saved, etc. And by that time, it doesn't really matter because I've already slogged through four hundred pages of drek. I am serious; the characters are cardboard and the dialogue is wooden, the action feels fake and the coincidences are just... plain inane. And the POV shifts are enough to drive me insane! I will go on record saying this only once: Mary Higgins Clark is a much better writer than Catherine Coulter, and MHC is so predictable I can usually recite the plot after the first ten pages.
(My. Long rant.)
I don't usually spend this much time on books I don't like, but I felt that I had to say something about this one. Even if a book isn't in my usual genre, I still have found some I've rather liked (Like when I discovered Nelson DeMille.) But Riptide isn't one I'd recommend. (Jack Higgins is another author I don't care for; his book... I don't even remember the title... stunk very badly too. The President's Daughter? Something like that.) But anyway, geez. I hate to say it, but I could write a suspense novel 100% better than Riptide. And I really don't need another genre to write in, but I might just succumb to the temptation one of these days. Just look for my name at your local B&N.
Yesterday I did get the laundry done except for one tiny load. So I'll finish that up tonight, and go on from there. I have walked every night this week so far, too. And I've lost eight pounds since Easter. Yay me! I figure on an average day I'm eating between 1500-2000 calories, and to maintain my current weight, I need to eat more like 2800 calories. So I'm doing good with the eating, and the exercising is just helping everything out. I even jumped rope a bit last night, but I only lasted five minutes. (In all honesty, I've never had an eating problem; it was more like a lack of movement problem. I figure any exercise I get is good, and will help burn calories and help take off those inactivity pounds!)
Tonight's list:
1. Finish laundry (need to fold a small load only, I think. I think it's all dried.)
2. Work in the basement. I keep going down the basement and getting overwhelmed. It's the sheer volume of stuff more than anything else, and the fact that I just don't want to deal with it all... but that's another story. So what I’m planning to do is to organize my craft area first, and then work my way outward. That way, at least I'll have a clear spot to remind myself that I can do this! Hopefully it will work.
So tonight's goal is to switch the tables, clean and organize the craft stuff, and end up with a little oasis of organization so I can model the rest of the basement after my craft area. That should be relatively easy to do. (!!!) I hope.
3. Walk, as usual. Other than the idiots who insist on not giving pedestrians the right away, my walk is actually quite nice. Although I do have to insist on a bit more SPRINGTIME!! 80 degrees and humid is JUST TOO MUCH for April!!
And now, the rant...
So my aunt gave me three books to read when I went to her house last weekend. One of them was Riptide by Catherine Coulter. Not being a suspense/romance fan, I figured I'd give it a try anyway, just because she's a relatively popular author.
That book stinks! Argh! It's absolutely transparent, badly written (or edited), and the plot is about as involved as a deadbeat dad. (Okay, bad analogy, but you get it, I hope.) I'm about halfway through, and I keep tripping over run-on sentences, POV jumping to the extreme, and just plain... horrible writing. Ick. Ack. I don't think I'm going to finish it. I'm very glad I didn't spend $29 on the hardback, let me tell you!
Here's a recap of the plot:
Becca Matlock is a speechwriter for a governor, and she has a stalker who calls her up and calls himself her boyfriend. The police don't believe her, she acts like a ninny at the best of times (and then turns around and is good with a gun, even!) and when the governor is shot in the neck, she flees to Riptide because Tyler (can't remember his last name), an old friend of hers, called the town his refuge. Or something like that.
She tries to keep the police off her tail (they really want to talk to her now, since the governor was shot and she doesn't want anything to do with them) and ends up renting a house that used to belong to Jacob Marley. Oh, and Tyler's wife vanished and was never found, and he has a son named Sam. Well, it turns out that Becca's father, Thomas, was a CIA operative who accidentally shot his Russian nemesis' wife way back when, and the guy (I'm not even going to try to spell his name) has been gunning for him ever since. So Thomas never returned to his family, and Becca thinks her dad is dead. But instead, the Russian guy is going after Becca to find Thomas.
Did I mention that everyone in the town of Riptide thinks Tyler murdered his wife? And that right after a big storm a skeleton falls out of the basement wall of Jacob Marley's house? And that Tyler is very obviously wanting Becca to replace his missing wife? And that Adam, who is sent by Thomas to protect Becca falls in love with Our Heroine as well? Oh, and the fact that Sherlock and Savich are two computer geniuses who are recruited by Thomas to help? And then there's the six or so other guys supposed to be protecting Becca...
Now. The skeleton in the basement/missing wife angle could have been fine without the Russian guy/CIA/Stalker handle, but the two do not mesh well in this book. Not only do I get the feeling that the Tyler subplot was just tossed in to make the book longer, when, in fact, it only makes the book more convoluted and confused. There are two distinct stories here, and they just don't mesh well at all.
I mean, first we meet Tyler, and think, ok, maybe he's this mysterious stalker, even. Becca lies to him, which I understand, and they seem to hit it off. The son, Sam, is a bit odd; he evidently stopped talking much after his mother vanished. And Becca doesn't think Tyler could have killed his wife. (She's not the skeleton in the basement wall, btw. This is another person, a runaway.) And then we enter in Thomas, and Adam, and all these other people, and Tyler and Sam kind of fade in the background. And then they appear, but only seem to muddle things even further. And then the Russian guy kidnaps Becca right from under their noses... Ack. Ick. I did flip through to see if my guesses were right after I stalled over yet another POV shift in the middle of what should have been a single viewpoint chapter. So I know that Tyler murdered his wife and the runaway, but that doesn't come out until after the real climax, when the Russian guy dies and Becca is saved, etc. And by that time, it doesn't really matter because I've already slogged through four hundred pages of drek. I am serious; the characters are cardboard and the dialogue is wooden, the action feels fake and the coincidences are just... plain inane. And the POV shifts are enough to drive me insane! I will go on record saying this only once: Mary Higgins Clark is a much better writer than Catherine Coulter, and MHC is so predictable I can usually recite the plot after the first ten pages.
(My. Long rant.)
I don't usually spend this much time on books I don't like, but I felt that I had to say something about this one. Even if a book isn't in my usual genre, I still have found some I've rather liked (Like when I discovered Nelson DeMille.) But Riptide isn't one I'd recommend. (Jack Higgins is another author I don't care for; his book... I don't even remember the title... stunk very badly too. The President's Daughter? Something like that.) But anyway, geez. I hate to say it, but I could write a suspense novel 100% better than Riptide. And I really don't need another genre to write in, but I might just succumb to the temptation one of these days. Just look for my name at your local B&N.
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