It Snowed ...

Lectures from my Reading:  Have gotten all the way into Jane Haddam's Cheating at Solitaire to page 120-something.  As I said before, it's a dense read.  Not only are her paragraphs long, but the sentences too.  I didn't do a readibility analysis on the text (Too lazy, and I don't think it's important enough for the effort.), but I'm betting it's way up in the upper high school grades.  --  (I naturally write about the sixth-seventh grade level with short paragraphs.)

Example from when Haddam is describing a media feeding-frenzy (which I found funny):  "And Al Jazeera," Stewart said blandly.  "Great story about the decadence of the West with a great excuse to run pictures of girls in their underwear."  --  (That was a quote from dialog.  Note she got away with the dreaded adverb.)

Haddam must of had great fun poking (skewering ?) the celebrity scene complete with legitimate news and the paparazzi chasing the same non-story.  No chihuahuas as yet, but I think they've all been exported to Colorado to find normal homes.  (Local readers know that Denver shelters have been getting shipments of unwanted chihuahuas from LA for adoption.)

As always, the writing is for savoring as Haddam puts her characters on a POV carousel, each commentary inching the action forward.  I know the clues are embedded in each character's soliloquy, but they're rather difficult to find.  So far, I've caught only one dissatisfied loner who might meet the culprit profile.

Progress:  Emma.  Am up to chapter 10 and should get more done today.  No TV programs I want to watch tonight, outside the news.  Did get critiquers comments transferred too.  *ducks head in embarrassment at the mistakes*  (Honest, I did proof the stuff before I submitted.)

Critiquing... Got caught out doing a bunch of stupid mistakes.  Maybe not stupid, but things I know I shouldn't do ... or know better ways of doing.  --   I wonder if anyone has ever written a marketable book making every craft error imaginable.

Maren ... I've given up on actually trying to draft the first chapter.  My brain can't handle the two projects at once.

Trivia:  Chickened out of driving fifteen miles in the snow to have breakfast with a friend.  We rescheduled for lunch tomorrow.  The old man is amusing himself chasing a persistent squirrel out of our linden tress.