Traveling Eyes & Alibis

Good Monday morning. I hope you've had a nice, relaxing summer weekend. Here we've enjoyed yet another quiet stretch of time. Yeah, summer is in full swing here.

We had a wild Saturday night. Really, we did. Loud. Exhilirating. Filled with heart-thudding moments. That's right, we had a thunderstorm. Lightning kept the mountains around us almost constantly illuminated and the thunder crashed so loudly we could feel the house shake. Don't you just love storms like that? I do. I really do.

Before the storm, I finished reading a book I picked up last week. It's on the paperback bestseller list and I've been looking forward to reading it. It's gotten some buzz and a bunch of great reviews so I was psyched. And no, I'm not going to tell you the title. I believe in the "if you can't say anything nice..." rule and since I'm going to make an observation that could be construed as less than complimentary I'm going to keep the name of the book to myself.

Anyhow, although I was sucked right into the story I was--over and over again--pulled right out of it by one small issue. It's one of my "peeves" about writing. Notice I didn't say "pet peeves" because I don't believe peeves should be pets. My pets? Pampered, encouraged to grow and flourish. Why nurture something that gets under your skin? Me, I definitely don't pet a peeve.

So, what was it that agitated me? Traveling eyes. On nearly every page one character or another had traveling eyes. As in "his eyes travelled the length of her body" or "she turned, her eyes travelling across the room." In this story eyes swept, trailed, moved, danced...well, you get the idea. When I see any phrase that has eyes leaving a body and moving about on their own I can't help but shudder. I envision eyes putting on shoes and grabbing passports, readying themselves for travel. Do they pack bags to take along when they go trailing? Snacks, to sustain them on the long trip? Or how about when they dance? Do they wear special dancing shoes or do they just hop up and down on their squishy, trailing optic nerves?

Ugh.

Yeah, it's one of my peeves. Eyes gaze. They stare. They blink. They do all manner of things but they definitely should not travel. At least mine don't. And they never will, if I have my way.

I hope I haven't offended anyone by airing my one little peeve. That was not my intention. We all have 'em, don't we? The phrases, situations, nuances that pull us from an otherwise fabulous story...yeah, I think we've all got one or two peeves.

Now that you know what mine is, will you speak up and tell us what one bugs you?

Oh! Right...the alibi. I think I'll keep that observation to myself for now. I fear I've already stirred up enough trouble for a Monday morning.

;-)