Those Darn Eyeballs

I'm in the second round of edits on The Wallflower, and I have to say that the process hasn't been nearly as painful as I thought it would be. A lot of what Angie is showing me is "noob" mistakes that I'll learn to do less and less over time. (And if not, she'll be more than happy to kick my butt and remind me I'm not as much of a noob anymore, lol.)

Apparently one of my biggest problems is spastic faces.


No. Seriously.

Eyeballs twinkle and roam all over the damn place. (I keep thinking of a beholder on LSD.) Lips try to teach us the Macarena, even though that dance is so dead even Anita Blake couldn't bring it back.


I know. It's not a pretty picture.

Who'd want to kiss that?

So now I'm in the process of once again taming those roving eyeballs and spastic lips while a three and a half year old repeatedly pokes me with a plastic toy. Ah, the joys of writing...

So what's your pet peeve in a story? Is it roving eyeballs and spastic lips? Is it "he said/she said" after every bit of dialog? Is it lengthy, prolonged, utterly boring descriptions of places that you'd rather chew broken glass than visit? (I'm a huge LoTR fan. I've read and reread the books ten or eleven times, and even I skip a particular chapter in The Two Towers. I feel like Nina Garcia on Project Runway: "Don't bore me!")

And on that note, it's tea and red pen time.