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Weird Things we Love: Humppa

by Jennette,

Let me start out by saying I don’t necessarily love humppa; I just discovered it – or rather, my daughter did – a few days ago. But apparently it’s pretty popular in Europe, especially Germany, Poland, Austria, and of course Finland, where it originated. My daughter ran across it while researching a school project on Finland, and spent many hours getting sidetracked by humppa.

Finnish Humppa-Band Eläkeläiset on stage

What is humppa? It’s music. Or dance. Or both! Set to a very fast 220-260 beats per minute, the music is sort of a cross between jazz and foxtrot. My daughter describes it as “extreme polka,” which fits better IMO. Think Weird Al Yankovic, and you’ll come pretty close to Eläkeläiset, Finland’s popular humppa band.

The dances came first, around the turn of the twentieth century. There are three primary styles: one-step, two-step, and one that resembles a limping walk. The name “humppa” wasn’t coined until the 1950’s, and is assumed to be based on the the oompah sound of the tuba in some German folk music.

Humppa pretty much died out after that, until Eläkeläiset revived it in the early 90s with humppa versions of popular heavy metal songs. This is as weird as it sounds, and it’s hilarious!

Here is “Humppalakein,” Eläkeläiset’s version of “Breaking the Law,” (which some YouTube user put to the original Judas Priest video – LOL!):

 

It gets better: Black Sabbath, anyone? In the video, you can barely pick out the original melody, but I’m LOL watching this to Ozzy singing!

They’ve done covers of Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Kiss, Queen, and more. According to my daughter, the lyrics aren’t translations of the original English lyrics, either – they’re not even close! She says they mostly translate to things about humppa dancing, the music itself, or drinking. Heavily. (I’m not sure where she found this, or I’d link.) The concerts and festivals sound like quite the experience, too – the band often passes out vodka, to anyone who wants it! (And who doesn’t?)

Their website is pretty amusing, too. My favorite is the “Hidden Alcohol” page, complete with undecipherable (to me, at least) maps. Apparently, the band leaves buried treasure in many of the cities where they play – bottles of vodka! Can you imagine that in the U.S.? Me either.

So have you found any weird music you (or someone) love lately? I’d love to hear from you! What do you think of humppa? If you had a chance to see Eläkeläiset perform, would you go? I think I would, just to watch the audience! But I’d stay off to the side, so as not to get danced over.

Eläkeläiset photo by Roger Zenner, via Wikipedia, Creative Commons license

My Town Monday: The Road to Madness Starts Here

by Jennette,

Next week, madness descends on Dayton. A very specific kind of madess: March Madness!

Okay, granted, March Madness will descend on pretty much everywhere in the U.S., and anywhere else where you can find fans of NCAA basketball. People will be huddled around lunch tables and water coolers comparing brackets, sitting at their computers filling out their best guesses as to who will advance to the next round, or engaging in some (hopefully) friendly wagering, while those who don’t follow the sport will be sick of the words “final four,” “bracket” and “seed” by next week.

And it all starts here in Dayton, Ohio, where the very first game will be played, at the University of Dayton Arena.

Dayton has hosted the initial NCAA Division I men’s basketball championship game since 2001, when the championship series was extended by one game to allow an additional two teams to participate. The event was a hit, and the community embraced the game with open arms (and wallets). Last year, the opening round was expanded to four games, now known as the First Four, and met with equal enthusiasm.

This year, the city of Dayton is taking it further, by holding the first-ever, First Four Festival in the nearby Oregon District. About two miles from the arena, this free festival will take place on March 11th, aka “Selection Sunday.” This is when the NCAA will select which four teams get to compete in the First Four. There will be something for everyone at the festival. The Oregon District is a historical neighborhood with many bars, nightclubs, and restaurants, so there will be plenty of places to gather for a beer or a bite to eat while watching the tournament announcements on the big screen. There will also be heated tents in the street, with more places to watch tournament events and get food and drink, plus live music and other entertainment, games for kids, and educational/informational displays about all kinds of cool Air Force technology that’s been (and is still being) developed in the area. There’s also a “First-Four-Miler” fun run associated with the event.

People around here loooooove college basketball, and the city expects to recoup the investment they’ve spent on the festival (and then some, they hope). Last year, the games alone contributed $3.5 million to the local economy, and this year, they’re expecting close to $4 million. In addition to the economic boost, the festival organizers are hoping the event will further the public’s association of “Dayton” with the “First Four.” Hopefully, it will also show the NCAA selection committee that Dayton should continue to be the site of the First Four for many years.

U.D. Arena seats over 13,000, and as of last week, over 10,000 sets of tickets (to all four games) had already been sold. The arena has hosted more NCAA Division I tournament games than any other site in the U.S., and Dayton has been one of the country’s top areas for game attendance for many years.

I’d love to hear from you! Are you a college basketball fan? If you live nearby, would you go to the First Four games? Or maybe the festival? Are there any big sporting events like this in your hometown?

More information on the games and event can be found at Dayton Most Metro, the Dayton Daily News, and the official First Four website.

First Four logo ©NCAA, via Dayton Most Metro
U.D. Arena photo by flicker user Sonnett is used under Creative Commons license via Wikipedia 

ROW80: Shuffling Along, but A-MAZEballs

by Jennette,

This has been another less-than-stellar week, goal-wise, in which I’m not unlike a zombie.

But mostly, it’s felt like shuffling cards. Last week, my attempt to bring my burgeoning to-do list under control involved simply culling a bunch of stuff, sort of like pulling the twos through eights out of a standard deck of cards before playing Euchre.

I put the deck away each night, and each night, it seemed that gremlins were intent on finding those extraneous cards and shoving them back into the deck. So each day, the deck grew until it was back to being a standard 52-card deck.

No royal flush here!

The other thing I tried doing was shuffling. But shuffling doesn’t remove any cards. Likewise, moving a task that didn’t get done on Monday to Tuesday only increases the Tuesday list. The only solution I can see is to give up the to-do list for lent cut down the list even more, to the bare essentials. I even had a little reprieve last week, when I found my daughter had a band concert I’d forgotten about (i.e., not looked far ahead enough on the calendar). I rescheduled the meeting with the accountant, so I didn’t need to have the taxes done until this week. I was hoping to get them done anyway, but that didn’t happen. So now they’re definitely on the “bare essentials” list.

Last week’s results:

  1. Review Time’s Fugitive beta reader feedback (yes, it came back from the third beta)
  2. Collect remaining tax stuff for accountant
  3. Complete interview questions for guest blog
  4. Read nonfiction book for research
  5. Pick one task from marketing list, and implement it
  6. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts (Did two interval workouts and two short workouts)
  7. Track food intake every day (wow, I ate out too much last week!)

The good news is, that this beta read confirmed for me that I’ve found my Ideal Reader (as described by Stephen King in On Writing). This is the person who totally gets my work and loves it, but is also critical enough to see where I’ve screwed up something, left out something that needs to be put in, or left in something that isn’t needed. And she’s a good enough friend and writer to point all of this stuff out (or, when there isn’t much, to note that fact too, so I wouldn’t think she just fell asleep reading the long passage with no comments). And she didn’t have many comments, something I attribute to having put this book through the Holly Lisle “How to Revise Your Novel” wringer. And she said Time’s Fugitive is “EPIC” (yes, in all caps!) and “totally aMAZEballs!” And that she hated me because she stayed up until 5 AM reading, which is what we all want to be hated for. 😀

The other good thing is that I went through her comments and the other two beta readers’ (they are wonderful, too!) and made most of the changes they suggested, or at least considered them. I have just a couple more to address, then Time’s Fugitive is off to my awesome copy editor.

This week’s plans:

  1. Finish Time’s Fugitive beta reader changes and send to copy editor
  2. Format Hangar 18: Legacy for Kindle and send to beta readers
  3. Collect remaining tax stuff for accountant
  4. Read nonfiction book for research (it’s due back at the library this week)
  5. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  6. Track food intake every day (keeping this one on the list, because I’m still going back and entering this stuff the following day, which means I’m probably forgetting a few things)

How did you do this week? Do you find yourself still putting too much on your list to accomplish without burning out? Or have you mastered the shuffle that keeps the unneeded cards out? Or are you shuffling like a zombie? And for the authors here, on the good side of things, have you found your Ideal Reader?

Books We Loved (Way Back When)

by Jennette,

Enough about books we didn’t love – how about those we DO love? I’ve loved to read as long as I was able, and before that, I loved to be read to. I had a favorite book back then, too – actually, a favorite set. The collection doesn’t appear to have a name other than “The Wonderful World of Disney.” There are four books, all published in 1965 (yes, they’re older than me. 🙂  ). They’re Fantasyland, Worlds of Nature, America, and Stories from Other Lands. It’s the latter that contains my first favorite story: “The Cold-blooded Penguin.”

I was probably three at the time. Both my parents can probably recite this story from memory, even now, because I asked them to read it to me almost every night.

“The Cold-blooded Penguin” is about a penguin who didn’t enjoy living in cold Antarctica. It’s based on an animated short that was part of the 1944 feature film The Three Caballeros.

While all of his penguin buddies were out swimming and tobogganing and doing fun, outdoorsy things, Pablo hid out in his igloo with a woodburning stove, trying to keep warm. One day it occurred to Pablo that he could move north. He tried walking, but froze (and had to be rescued by his penguin friends. He eventually decided to cut himself a boat out of the ice surrounding his igloo, and sailed north.

Not surprisingly, his boat melted before he reached the tropical island of his dreams. When nothing was left but his bathtub, he stuck the showerhead into the drain, and it magically drew water up through the pipes and propelled the boat forward! (This was the funniest part in the cartoon.)

Of course at age three, it didn’t occur to me to wonder about the magical showerhead, or where Pablo got wood for his stove in Antarctica, or why he needed a bathtub in his igloo. But it was a great story, and still is. I also still love penguins!

I also still own the four Wonderful World of Disney books. In my copy of Stories from Other Lands, the picture above has black crayon covering the sky above the igloo, and Pablo’s belly. I’m sure I did it. I have no idea why.

 

Check out “The Cold-blooded Penguin” on YouTube:

Do you remember your first favorite book or story? I’d love to hear from you! Maybe I’ll (re)discover some more oldies (or not so old) but goodies!

My Town Monday: Arts and Letters, with a Leap Year Twist

by Jennette,

 

Ann Bain (center, wearing red) at the "Exuberance" show opening celebration

She paints, she draws, she letters, she sculpts, she stamps. Local artist Ann Bain has been doing it all for six decades, and she’s celebrating her twentieth birthday this week.

Ann is my brother’s mother-in-law, and her birthday is this coming Wednesday, February 29th. To celebrate, she teamed up with several artist friends for “Exuberance,” a gallery showing and opening party at The Cannery Art and Design Center in downtown Dayton. And “Exuberance” is the perfect name for the event: Ann might have been on the earth for eighty years, but she has the energy and enthusiasm of a twenty-year-old! The name of the showing pays homage to poet William Blake, and reads in full as “Exuberance is Beauty — Energy is Eternal Delight.” The Dayton Daily News had a wonderful article about the exhibit and party in Saturday’s issue.

Ann's work adorns the walls at the Cannery Art & Design Center

A Pittsburgh native, Ann’s early artistic career included a stint in Alcoa’s commercial art department. That was over fifty years ago, and she still keeps in touch with her boss, who sends her birthday cards that are works of art in and of themselves. When she spoke to her guests and thanked everyone for coming, she brought out this year’s card, an 8-1/2″ x 11″,  multi-panel fold-out that contained drawings and photos of Ann with some comical modifications and commentary.

Ann paints in a variety of media – and on a variety of surfaces. One work features calligraphy in an outline style, on sheer fabric, hung over a colorful painting. She has handmade books, and sculptures (usually covered in handmade paper and painted with lettering).

Some of Ann's work - Metamorphosis Wheel is the tall, cylindrical piece, center right

Some of her work is normally displayed in her home studio. Metamorphosis Wheel, a piece I hadn’t seen before, was particularly intriguing. Some of her work was exhibited at the Schuster Center last year when the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra and Wright State University’s choir performed Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. Several of her pieces, originally inspired by the Mass, were featured in the full color program as well.

Guests were invited to sign Ann's card, held by her cardboard likeness

The “Exuberance” exhibit will be on display at the Cannery Art and Design Center at 434 East Third St. through March. Ann’s work is also featured on an ongoing basis at the Village Artisans gallery in nearby Yellow Springs, and she accepts calligraphy commissions through The Mulberry Tree in Oakwood.

Ann’s website is at www.artbyannbain.com, which I designed and set up for her as a gift several years ago. It’s one of the more fun projects I’ve done as a web designer!

So if you’re in the area, consider stopping by the Cannery Art & Design Center, and check out Ann’s work! A lot of beautiful and fascinating artwork by the gallery’s resident artists is also on display. The gallery will soon move around the corner to a new home at 45 St. Clair St., and I’ll definitely return for another visit (and another blog entry)!

Do you have a favorite hometown artist and/or gallery? I’d love to hear from you! Give me some ideas on where’s a great place to experience art in your hometown!

Check out other fun facts and sights at the My Town Monday blog.

ROW80: Giving up The To-Do List for Lent

by Jennette,

No, not me. I’m not even Catholic. It’s my friend Jim Winter who’s giving something unusual up for Lent: his To-Do list.

Just the thought strikes terror into me. Without my To-Do list, I’d forget half the appointments I make – and I don’t have that many. I’d forget how much I’d planned to write – that evening, or that week. I’d forget to do the business paperwork, until my husband demanded it get done now (which doesn’t work very well). But Jim’s blog post made me think about how lately, I’ve again fallen into the tendency to overload my to-do list. Jim made the radical-sounding choice he did because he ended up serving his to-do list, rather than it serving him. It was removing flexibility from his evenings, to the point where he felt he couldn’t even go for a walk – because he’d planned other things instead. It’s easy to fall into the same trap by overloading the list, which is why I think I didn’t get anything on mine done last week, except the writing (which didn’t even take that long).

Last week’s results:

  1. Review Hangar 18: Legacy for beta reader edits and research details
  2. Collect tax stuff for accountant
  3. Complete interview questions for guest blog
  4. Read nonfiction book for research
  5. Make list of review sites to submit to
  6. Pick one task off of marketing list developed last week, and implement it
  7. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  8. Track food intake every day (I’ve been doing this for a while, but really slacked off last week, so it needs to be on this list)

So I made a half-ass attempt at some of these items: I started collecting the tax stuff. I have a deadline on that, as I’m meeting with the accountant this week. I did all three interval workouts, but only one short workout, and only tracked my food a couple days, probably because I know it’s not good (darn Girl Scout cookies!).

So something has to give, but it’s not the to-do list – at least, not the whole thing. Instead, I’m going to limit it: no more than two tasks, besides my workout and writing. I think the reason so little else got done was because it was just too overwhelming. We’ll see how that goes!

Here’s the plan:

  • Review Time’s Fugitive beta reader feedback (hopefully I’ll get it back from the third beta)
  • Collect tax stuff for accountant
  • Complete interview questions for guest blog
  • Read nonfiction book for research
  • Pick one task from marketing list, and implement it
  • Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  • Track food intake every day

How did you do this week? What do you think of my friend Jim’s radical plan?

Big Name Books We Don’t Love

by Jennette,

Last week’s post on why a particular book didn’t draw me in ended up generating quite an interesting discussion! And, according to my stats, last Thursday got more hits than any other day so far. Most of my blog followers are readers (many are also writers), so we all love discussing books. But when it really got interesting was when the author of the book in question outed herself in the comments, after we chatted on Facebook. It hadn’t been my intention to identify the book, but I had to give enough detail to discuss why it didn’t work for me, and who would know the book better than its author? I only hope I’m as professional and willing to learn as Elizabeth West was when bad reviews come in for my book – and I’ve no doubt they will. I’m not sure who said it, but one of my favorite quotes is, “Nothing is so good that someone, somewhere, won’t hate it.”

The comments also made me realize that Elizabeth is in some pretty prestigious company when it comes to books I didn’t like enough to finish. Prestigious as in, I am talking J.K. Rowling and Stephen King!


Yes! Harry Potter was a DNF for me! I love a good fantasy novel – in fact, I just read an absolutely wonderful untrained-mage-goes-to-college story: Fire in the Mist, by Holly Lisle. I enjoyed the first three Harry Potter books, too. The fourth… it was okay, and I finished it. But Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix began with eighty or a hundred pages of nothing happening, and I just lost interest in it. I’d been reading it aloud to my daughter, who was seven at the time, and she was bored too. After the first couple books in the series, each was longer than the prior installment, and not necessarily because more was happening, or it was a more complex story. Maybe I’ll pick Phoenix up again someday. But with three shelves full of books I haven’t read, not to mention dozens on my netbook and smartphone, it’s unlikely. It just seemed bloated. Now I have been guilty of this myself – in fact, I just went over Time’s Fugitive with one of my beta readers, who pointed out a section where she caught herself skimming, because it was all boring, unimportant details where nothing was happening that added to the story. At least it wasn’t in the beginning of the book. But thanks to her, it will get cut!

One thing I have not been guilty of – at least, since I started writing with the aim of publication – is the bloated, tedious writing I found in Black House, by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Although this book too, began with pages upon pages of nothing happening, it was far more egregious than the Harry Potter book. At least in Phoenix, we had a main character to focus on, root for (and wait for to do something). Black House began with over a dozen pages of nothing but omniscient description – a nameless, personality-less presence flying over a small town, describing it in minute (and boring) detail. It did eventually touch on Jack, the main character, but even this was boring description. Talk about a disappointment! Black House was supposed to be the sequel to The Talisman, a book I loved so much I’ve read it multiple times. I say “supposed to be,” because Black House was nothing like The Talisman, either stylistically or content-wise. There were hardly even any allusions or references to it! Well, at least in the 16 or 18 pages I managed to struggle through until I dropped the book on the floor.

I’ve put down romance novels, too, some by NYT best-sellers. Paranormals with characters I didn’t care about – heroines that were too invincible, too kick-ass. Romantic suspense with “as-you-know-Bob” dialogue and characters that were doing stupid things without enough reason. Contemporaries with watered-down conflict. Historicals that were the same as the last three historicals I read. And yes, plenty that just didn’t pull me in like the one discussed last week.

Don’t get me wrong, DNFs are the exception for me, rather than the rule. Next week, we’ll talk about books we love. But for now, what about you? Have you read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? That’s one I’ve heard a lot of people have trouble getting into, but it’s worth it – after about 100 pages! I’m not that patient. I’d love to hear from you! Do you have any blockbusters among your DNFs?

My Town Monday: Fight Club – in Dayton!

by Jennette,

This Saturday night, 16 area business people, arts and charitable organization representatives, Dayton Daily News staffers, and other volunteers will participate in Dayton’s own fight club – for charity. These fighters and their audience of 2500 (if it sells out) will get to take a little trip back in time, too (figuratively, of course) as they take Memorial Hall back to its glory days, when it was the place to go to see the fights.

Inspired by the venue’s history, as well as the sport of boxing’s storied past in the area, Dayton History is teaming up with Drake’s Downtown Gym to put on Dayton Knockout VIP Fight Night, with the proceeds to benefit Dayton History and the AIDS Resource Center of Ohio. It looks like it will be a fun time!

Gene Tunney & Jack Dempsey at Memorial Hall - note how the audience is all sitting in folding chairs, on the floor

It’s probably because I’m not a big sports fan that I had no idea of the significant part Dayton played in football history until I began looking for interesting things to blog about for My Town Monday. Similarly, I also had no idea boxing was a big draw in decades past. But starting in the late nineteenth century, boxing clubs started popping up all over town, and before long, some had gained a national reputation. One of these was Dayton Gym Club, which produced several Golden Gloves teams and was voted one of the best fight clubs in the U.S. in the 1950s.

Dayton’s Memorial Hall was dedicated in 1910. The “Memorial” part refers to veterans of the Civil War and Spanish-American War, whom the citizens wanted to honor. It’s on the U.S. Register of Historic Places. I’ve attended many concerts and plays there, but never a sporting event. However, it was a popular destination for boxing until the 1940s, when raised seating was installed. The last public performance held there was Bill Cosby, in 2001. It used to be the home of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra and other performing arts organization, who have since moved on to the Schuster Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 2003. Memorial Hall closed that year, and reopened in 2010, when the county placed it under the management of Dayton History.

Memorial Hall in the early 20th century

Tickets are only $15, or $25 for a package deal that includes entertainment by local band Funky G and the Groove Machine in the lounge downstairs plus three drink tickets. Local entertainment magazine Dayton Most Metro is giving away five pairs of tickets too – if you’re local and want to win ’em, hop on over to their Facebook page.

Have you ever attended an amateur sporting event like this? I normally don’t care for boxing, but this sounds entertaining. Got any interesting sports history from your area to share?

Additional Resources:

Dayton Most Metro, “Boxing in Dayton, From Past History to Present ‘Knockout‘” by J.T. Ryder
The Dayton Daily News, “Taking a Punch for Charitable Causes” by Amelia Robinson 

Photos via Dayton Most Metro and Dayton History

ROW80: Slacker

by Jennette,

 

I’ve been a slacker this week. My green items makes it look like I did a lot, but the main thing – the writing! – I Didn’t. Even. Touch. My husband has even been out of town, so I should have had plenty of time!

So what happened?

Not gonna lie; I’ve been spending too much time playing Farm Frenzy Pizza Party. The other thing is that time is like closet space or hard drive capacity. Whatever stuff (things to do) you have, will expand to fill it.

Thirdly, I didn’t do a good job allocating my tasks for each day. Some days, I simply put too much, so tasks got shoved off to the next day, which made that one even more overloaded. So next week, I’m making a more concerted effort to do better in this area. Planning out our work ahead of time can help in other areas, too; I’m convinced it’s one way I’ve managed to stick to my workout schedule. I use Jonathan Roche’s No Excuses Workout, and every Sunday he sends out an email reminding us to schedule in our workouts.

Last week’s results:

  1. Critique a chapter for a writing friend
  2. Book review
  3. Additional work requested for side job website
  4. Break down marketing task list into Yeses, Nos, and Maybes
  5. Brainstorm some articles I can write for my newsletter
  6. Review my last draft of my next book and get it ready for beta readers
  7. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts

The next book is shorter than my Saturn Society novels, thank goodness. And the edits hopefully won’t be too bad, since it’s already been through the How to Revise Your Novel wringer. This time, I’m going over the comments from my first beta reader (also my copy editor), plus adding in a few more research details I’ve learned about since writing this story. The book is 263 pages, so if I split them evenly across eight work sessions, that comes out to be 33 pages a session. For me, a “work session” is roughly an hour, maybe two. My goal is to do one four weeknights (there’s always one night where I just have too much going on), two on Saturday, and two on Sunday. Actually, two on Sunday may be a little ambitious, as lately, it seems my blog posts have taken me nearly all day to write. They don’t really, but feel that way, the way I procrastinate and take too much time researching (then playing some Farm Frenzy). But I’m going to shoot for it anyway. It should be doable, because most pages don’t have any marks, and the research details affect only limited portions of the story. I also have Monday off of work, so that will help.

Here’s the plan:

  1. Review Hangar 18: Legacy for beta reader edits and research details
  2. Collect tax stuff for accountant
  3. Complete interview questions for guest blog
  4. Read nonfiction book for research
  5. Make list of review sites to submit to
  6. Pick one task off of marketing list developed last week, and implement it
  7. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  8. Track food intake every day (I’ve been doing this for a while, but really slacked off last week, so it needs to be on this list)

How did you do this week? Do you divvy up your work over the week? Got any other tips for getting it all done?

New ROW80 seal design by “The Daring Novelist,” Camille LaGuire

Why I Stopped Reading

by Jennette,

Not everything! Just one particular book. It’s what some popular book review blogs call a DNF, to borrow from auto racing terms: Did Not Finish.

It was a free download, so I didn’t feel as obligated to finish as I might have if I’d paid for it. It wasn’t by someone I know, or anyone I network with, so that also cut down on the potential guilt factor. And I gave it a chance: it was approximately 75,000 words, and I read over 25% before I gave up on it, deleted it from my smartphone, and moved on.

boring e-book

Life's too short to read boring books!

I always like to analyze why I give up on a book, so I can learn something from it. The reason I put this one aside? One word: boring!

So what made this book boring? Or to put it another way, what did this book lack?

Well, for starters, it was a straight contemporary romance – no suspense or paranormal –  which I’ll admit is not my thing unless it’s a) really funny or b) really sexy or c) really emotional. This book was none of those. While it had its mildly humorous moments, they were super-mild, and I don’t know if they were even amusing enough to make me smile. It did have a consummated love scene in the portion I read – and I felt none of the rush of excitement or desire when the characters got it on. Instead, it was glossed over pretty quickly. But what really killed it was that the emotions were barely hinted at – and this was one of those best friends to lovers stories where the emotional whirlwind is key.

Add to that the fact that this was an office-set romance – which I have nothing against, but in this case, there were way too many boring details about work and again, at the cost of the emotions, the excitement and the fear the characters should have felt at risking being found out – and the impact it could have on their careers.

In a romance novel, emotion is what it’s all about. In a paranormal romance, some of the slack can be taken up by the weirdness of whatever situation the character’s in, otherworldly setting, magic, whatever. In a historical or suspense, there’s often other stuff going on that can pick up some as well. In this book, the author seemed to be trying to do this with the character’s work – which might have been okay if it was interesting, but it wasn’t.

In the book’s defense, it was well-written from a technical standpoint, it had an interesting premise, and characters that could have been people I’d have enjoyed spending a few hours with, had their emotions been better drawn. The book wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t have kept reading – except like most people, I have a To-Be-Read list (and pile of print books) that’s easily over a hundred books, if you count freebies I’ve picked up at conferences over the years that I still haven’t gotten around to reading. So with all that “competition” for my time…. life’s too short.

And this, I suspect, is the battle all authors face.

Read (or tried to read) any boring books lately? Or any that you just couldn’t see the point in finishing? Care to share why? If you’re an author, do you try to pick these apart to learn what not to write?