Wednesday 2/10

Wed. 2/10 10am

Was up at 5am, drank coffee, played solitaire, did a crossword, read. Back to bed at 8.30 and now up again, feeling more awake.

Caleb, my coworker/supervisor (the other fulltimer at the store) is reading the Odyssey. He said he really had wanted to start with the Iliad, but nobody ever gives him what he has actually said he wants, just something close. So we had a nice discussion of how much of Greek culture underpins our modern day society, and how Shakespeare takes up the slack. I didn't have the impression of him as a reader. Considering his goth-y and very dark past, I think it's the mythology that attracts him, but hey, reading is reading.

I, on the other hand, am reading a new author's mystery series. They say "write what you know," and as Sheila Lowe is a "forensic handwriting analyst," that's what her series is about. Our heroine is a "handwriting analyst," you'll note, not a document examiner, which is a forensic field of repute. And she does do writing authentication. I'm assuming the author's description of the field is accurate and complete, though the character also does personality analysis, which I've always understood to be a less than scientific approach. Sometimes the client is a employer vetting applicants but sometimes it's lawyers building a case. I'm not so sure that the courts accept character assessment based on handwriting as irrefutable fact.

I've finished the first book and am starting the second. I'd rate them as "middling." Not great, not terrible. Reasonable plotting with an effort not to be prudish (though she doesn't describe her heroine's sex scenes -- an admirable restraint as most of the romance writers who turn to mysteries can't resist their impulse for hot and steamy and frequent sex, which often unbalances the books). This author didn't start out as a romance writer, so she has none of those faults.

Her biggest fault is the tendency to use a non-sound word to describe dialogue. "Mugged" is not a substitute for "said." Hemingway pronounced that the only words that should be used for dialogue are "said" and "asked." That's a trifle draconian, but better to err on his side than to use such words as "simpered" or "laughed" or "pouted" instead.

"Oh Keith," she simpered.
"Now, Melanie," he laughed.
"Phooey," she pouted.
And they strolled off, pleased with their massacre and themselves.

There; that's my little lecture for the day.