Ranty McRantypants

There are some days you just can't seem to get off the ground. Today has been one of them, definitely. Bad weather, bad finances, backache and all kinds of stuff have combined to leave me grumpy and blue. And the DH spending All Day (seriously! All day!!) on the damn XBox with various members of the Barbarian Horde playing various versions of Halo was Not Helpful to my general mood.

So I holed up in bed and I read. The only thing I've eaten today is a handful of M&Ms, a pimiento-cheese sandwich (I have *got* to start making my own; that store-bought stuff is such CRAP!), 5 slices of canned peach, and a grilled cheese sandwich. I know, I know. I'm working on that starting tomorrow. Mostly because we're at the point of only eating what's on hand, and thankfully the fridge is stocked full of fruits and veggies, and I'm gonna have to bake bread for sandwiches (but I don't WANNAaaaaa....)

And the reading the last couple of days has engendered a mini-rant from me. The words "He said," "She replied," etc., have long gotten old; everyone knows you need more interesting tags than that. BUT. Can we please put a moratorium on the word "coo" and all its variants? Please, God? Please? I'm sure it's a perfectly good word, if you're a pigeon or dove. Or possibly if you're speaking to a baby. But a fully-grown male (or female) speaking to another fully-grown male (or female) Should Not COO. Damnit. I'm sure it's supposed to evoke a sweet, loving, low, sort of sing-songy tone, but it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Let them croon, please. It just sounds more adult -- brings to mind Tony Bennet, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin. NOT a mother trying to calm a screaming child, or a particularly obnoxious and stupid (though quietly lovely) bird. Kthnxbai

Then, today, I read over my blog roll and find some sort-of-serialized posts. They're stories that I'd really love to love, posted in increments regularly for free on blogs. But sadly, I'm not loving a lot of them. The characters are great, but the English? Atrocious. Grammar? Non-existant. Spelling? OMG Let's not *even* go there. Look, I get that these aren't intended to be the most polished thing ever, but seriously! Get thee a beta reader who knows a little about this stuff to at least clear up some of the most egregious errors before you post! And more importantly, when you post excerpts from actual, published (or slated-to-be-published-in-the-near-future) works, make sure they're competently copyedited. Because as a reader, I'm not inclined to want to pay for your work if it's that unprofessional-looking. My book-allowance is slim; since I can't exactly flip through digital books at random down my local Wal-Mart, I really rely on those excerpts and blurbs to help me decide where my money's going. And even a few major foul-ups will make me avoid you like the plague. I have a couple of authors who were at one point on my auto-buy list *despite* many errors who are no longer there, because I can no longer tolerate the missteps, the homophone abuse, the redundancy. At one point, excellent world-building and interesting characters would be sufficient for me to overlook such things, but no more.

Now. The Halo, and the DH fussing at the Girl Child for not being as good at the game as he is (not that, frankly, he's so very great) are NOT helping the headache situation at all, so I'm going to go make some hot, sweet, decaffeinated tea of some sort -- possibly mint, although maybe not -- and go back to bed. And book.