Have you ever read a book and thought, “I can write better than that,” or “If he can get this horrible story published, surely I can sell my novel”? Yeah, me, too, and I know I’m not a very good writer. If, someday, far, far away, I were to publish a book, it would be something non-fiction, because while I can think of situations and storylines, I’m horrible with dialogue. If I could get away with a novel in which my characters never talked to each other, I would be fine.

Which is why dialogue can make or break a book for me. I just finished Nora Roberts’s latest book Chasing Fire, and I’m starting to wonder why I keep reading her books. I’ve read everything she’s written, and she’s my favorite author (both as herself and as J.D. Robb), but recently, her books have gotten to be more about a formula than anything else. Non-romance readers are probably thinking that all romance novels are formula stories, and you would be right. But I’ve read many romances by many authors and there is some variety in there. There is even variety in Roberts’s early stuff.

But lately, in her stand-alone mystery/romance novels, it’s become extreme. The female lead character has an emotionally screwed up past, usually something from her childhood that makes it hard for her to trust/love. She’s a strong kick-butt kind of girl and no one except a couple of close friends and the new guy in her life understands that there is a fragile little girl underneath. The male lead is confident and falls in love about a quarter of the way through the book. He declares his love right before the female gets kidnapped and/or attacked by the villain. The only suspense is in trying to determine the villain and in Chasing Fire, that wasn’t even hard to figure out.

So why do I keep reading Nora Roberts? Because she still somehow manages to be a good story-teller and she’s great with dialogue. Of course, I also keep reading Diana Palmer, but that’s more a of a train-wreck scenario than anything else. I have absolutely no idea how Palmer continues to be a bestselling author when almost every one of her books are slight variations on the same plot. Very slight variations. I have actually read two of her books that I really enjoyed and I couldn’t believe that she actually wrote them. True Colors actually made me think of a Nora Roberts book, although Roberts doesn’t have a book with a similar plot. It just seemed so much more well-written than any of her other books and it doesn’t take place in that ridiculous fictional small town in Texas that’s filled with misogynistic ranchers and former mercenaries and 19-year-old girls who all wear their hair down to their waist.

The other book is The Morcai Battalion, and it’s actually a pretty decent sci-fi novel. In all her other books, the women wear leisure suits and wear butterfly collars and one has to wonder if Palmer has left her house in the last 20 or 30 years. Her dialogue is atrocious. Much like I would probably write, if I were to try. Except that I know mine is bad. People just don’t talk the way her characters do. It’s very stiff and formal and the few times she does try for humor are ruined because she uses the same “jokes” in several books. Again, it makes me wonder if Palmer actually talks to other people, or if she ever reads anyone else’s books. I keep reading her stuff, because I have found two good books in the whole mess and I keep thinking that if so many people are buying her books, there must be something I’m missing. If there is, I’m not sure I’ll ever find it.

I read books from all genres and some I really like and some are just okay. There are very, very few that I feel were a complete waste of my time. Anytime I read a bad book and think, “I could do better than this,” I pick up another book, and remember, “Better than bad is not necessarily good. Stick to reading.”

I know snakes have a place in nature and I’m all for that. As long as that place is far away from me. We’ve lived in this house for seven years and this neighborhood for eleven years and I’ve only seen three snakes in our yard. I saw two of those within the past few days. On Friday, I walked out to get the mail and saw a brown snake stretched out across the carport beside my car. It wasn’t stretched far; it was only about a foot long. I was able to sneak up on it to take a picture with my phone. I wasn’t scared of it attacking, but I didn’t want it to get away before I got a picture. This one seems to be a rat snake.

Today, on the way to the park, I stopped the car at the end of the driveway, walked to the mailbox, grabbed the mail, started back to the car and froze. Between me and the car, right where I normally walk when I get the mail, was a black snake with yellow rings. At first, it was acting like it was going to come check me out. Since I was in sandals and shorts, I wasn’t thrilled with that idea. I tried to make a wide path to the car to get my phone so I could take a picture, but by the time I got to the phone, the snake had disappeared into the leaves. From what I could find online, it was a kingsnake. I grew up in the country, and I’ve seen a lot of garter snakes and kingsnakes, but I’ve never seen one like that.

Now I’ve surely met my quota for snakes this year. If I could just get the word out to all the other snakes in the area, that would be great.

I got some cleaning done today, but I did find time to finish The Catcher in the Rye this afternoon. Somehow I’ve made to my mid-30’s without ever reading it. I’m not sure what to think about it. I’ve read weirder books, but they usually had some sort of plot. I’m not sure what the point of this book is or why it’s such a classic. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it, either. I didn’t consider it a waste of time; it wasn’t that bad. But I don’t feel like I’ve been missing out all these years by not reading it, either.

I do have a favorite line: “I cut going there entirely, gradually.”

I’m usually a lot wordier when I’m writing about a book, but I just have nothing to say about this one.

“Baby Book” Entry warning. You know, one of those posts no one else is interested in. 🙂

Today was the sixth day Bennett has stayed dry. He’s even stayed dry most of those nights. Now for the next step.

We’re still getting used to him talking, so when he strings a long sentence together, it still takes me by surprise. Today, he told me, “I poop in potty, I wear underwear like my brother.” Yep, that’s how it works, buddy. Let’s work on that, shall we?

Speaking of talking, his new favorite things to say are, “I so proud of you!” and “It good enough for me!”

A couple of years ago, we went to the Tellus Science Museum with GCA (our cyber school). Last night, we were fortunate to be able to go again, courtesy of GCA. You can check out my post about that visit, which was much different than this one, along with a separate post containing just pictures.

Bennett is dino-crazy and he was old enough this time to see and enjoy everything. He was naming all the dinosaurs he knew and asking me about the others. Jeffrey took the time to read all the information, but Bennett just wanted to know the names, so we were ahead of Jeffrey. Bennett kept saying, “See more dinosaurs!” I had to remind him we couldn’t just go off and leave Jeffrey. LOL

After the dinosaurs, we tried the planetarium, but Bennett was too scared of the dark, so I had to take him out. It was only a few minutes, so I let Jeffrey stay and see the show while I waited outside with Bennett. It was a roller-coaster ride and Jeffrey said it was really cool and made him motion-sick. I guess if you’re a boy, something can make you sick and still be cool. LOL

We moved on to the fossil dig. It’s pretty cool. They have “fossils” built into the bottom of the area and the kids can dig and find big parts of dinosaurs. There are also tiny fossils scattered throughout and the kids each get to keep one fossil to take home. Bennett got a sea urchin and Jeffrey got a squid tooth. While they were digging, another kid yelled, “I found it!” and Bennett yelled, “What you got?” He was so excited. It was very cute.

We went on to the air and space section and tried to get Bennett to take his picture in the space suit, but he didn’t like the dark. (There’s a piece of cloth at the back of the helmet to keep light out so your picture looks “real”.)

Then on to the car section and since I remembered to bring the camera this time, I got pictures.

They didn’t want to go look at the rocks, but once I got them over there, they didn’t want to leave. Jeffrey was having fun learning about all the uses for different minerals and Bennett wanted to see “more pretty rocks”.

We did the hands-on section last because I knew once we got in there, they wouldn’t want to leave. I was right. We stayed in there for an hour, until it was time to leave.

On the way out of the parking lot, we stopped to take pictures with the dump trucks and other big machines. Bennett really likes dump trucks and bull dozers.

I don’t have time to read all the fabulous blog posts written by my friends, but sometimes something catches my eye and I have to go check it out. This morning, I saw a post written by my friend Jen at The Path Less Taken about a new law in a Georgia city. Jen doesn’t live in Georgia, so that was the first thing that caught my attention. You know when news stories are so bad that people across the country are writing about them, it’s not going to end well.

Then I read the post and the news piece that inspired it and I was really excited. Because now that the City of Forest Park has rid us of those dangerous nursing mothers, maybe their next move will be to outlaw low-riders. Because very few things offend my eyes more than seeing another female’s underwear and/or butt crack when she sits down/bends over/breaths. And can we pass a law that regulates how low-cut a woman’s shirt can be? Because some women have enough cleavage to lose a small child in, and I’m happy for them, but I don’t really want to see every inch of it. If we’re going to “control nudity”, let’s go all the way.

Breasts were made to feed babies, people; get over yourselves. I’ve never seen a mother breastfeeding in public who just “whips it out” for everyone to see. Nursing moms are more covered than most women out in public every day. Bikinis, tank tops, short skirts and shorts… these commonly worn items reveal more of a woman’s body than breastfeeding does and I don’t see anyone running to regulate these items.

If you’re on Facebook, there is a petition available to sign. It’s very well-written. The word “moron” isn’t even mentioned once. You can find the petition here.

A former classmate posted tonight on Facebook asking if any of us could remember the themes from our junior or senior prom. So far, we’ve come up with nothing… Wait, we did have one possible answer for junior year. Just goes to show that all that stress and drama to come up with a great theme isn’t really worth it in the long run. I do however, remember a two (maybe three)-hour long dinner at The Olive Garden with several friends before we went to the prom. 🙂

We made it through Day 3 (Take 2) of the potty adventures. I think this may really be it. He’s had a couple of small accidents, but nothing like what we had last time. We’re using pull-ups (because he doesn’t quite have control over everything yet and some things are just really messy to clean out of underwear) and they have the little design on the front that disappears when the pull-up gets wet. He’s had a couple of smudges, but so far, nothing has completely disappeared. After he had an oops today, he told me, “I peed on my star.” Well, yes, you did. It happens. Hopefully not for much longer.

I watched American Idol tonight, but with James gone, I couldn’t get really enthusiastic about it. I started watching this season because people kept telling me there was a guy on there who has Asperger’s. I kept watching and voting because “that guy” happened to be really good. I really thought he was going to win. Now that he’s gone, I think Scotty is going to win it. I’ve only recently started to really like him, but I know he’s got the teeny-bopper text vote all wrapped up.