Robynettely

Why I read it: Last March I wandered over to the Chapters across from the YMCA, and I went up the stairs to where the good books are, and there, sitting at the signing table, was Rick Blechta . I played for him years ago at the RCM, and I'd bought one of his books then, and read it, and it was great to see him again. And of course I bought a book. It's kind of scary to read a book by someone you know and like. What if I hate it? What if it sucks? So it took a little while to get around to it. Also, crime fiction isn't really my genre. Bookmark: Promo for "A Case of You", Rick's latest book. Tastes like chicken: Probably the other book by Rick that I've read, "The Lark Ascending", which features the same characters. Other than that, well, I dunno. I don't read much crime fiction (I generally find the hard-boiled voice not florid enough. Not enough metaphors or something. Too many short sentences, not enough commas). What I liked: First, I

Yep, I entered my blog into this little thing: http://www.typealyzer.com/ And I am... ESTP - The Doers The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities. The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time. Somewhat true.

It's very hard to write a story in third-person when you have been deeply engrossed in a book written in first-person. Especially when that book switches first-person viewpoints.

As planned, I did some edits on "One Unicorn; Missing Uncle" (which is still a crappy title, but at least provided me with some guidance as to what the story is about). It is now down to 5711, which is a reduction of about 650 words. I sure write a lot of extra verbiage. And I now have 1% of the etiquette (really about a charm school) story done. I think I need to get a book or two about etiquette (as out-of-date as possible).

If I was ever going to finish this story, I realized it had to have a better title than Moraine, because that's just not descriptive of anything in the story. It's just the setting. So last night I rechristened the wretched tale "One Unicorn; Missing Uncle". This does two things for me: Aligns me with a camp in the on-going Unicorns vs. Zombies debate (I learned about the rivalry here ). I also chose to start the Etiquette story, not the Zombie story, as my next project (I'm on page 4!), so I guess at least for now, I'm on Team Unicorn. This title, though still sucking, helped me start at the back of the story and do a bit more editing (on paper, maybe I'll type it in tonight...), working back-to-front for a nice change of scenery. Allows me to use my favorite piece of punctuation! A couple of years ago I took a copy-editing course where each of us, in order to introduce ourselves, had to tell our name, what we work at, and what our favorite punctuation ma

Why I read it: Several weeks ago the author was at my local Chapters, sitting at a table, saying "hello" to the people walking by. So I wandered over and made some comment about "the glamorous life of the writer." After a while I let him sign a book for me. He looked like he figured I was going to ditch it in a stack on my way to the cash. He asked me if I was a writer. I said that yes, I write computer manuals. He asked if I'd written the manual for his blender. I said no. He asked if I wrote other things on the side. I said yes, but my team leader says that TWs can't write anything fiction, and the other writer I work with gets grant money occasionally to write pilots of TV shows. And he said "That's all very interesting, but what do you write?" so I confessed to writing short stories that I keep in a filing cabinet, because they are crap. That's kind of sad, isn't it? I shouldn't tell people that. Tastes like chicken: Reminded

If you tell me Everything is our #1 priority, that's the same as saying nothing is.

On "watcher" of course. Now I get to choose what to start next. I think I'm ready to embark on another first draft novel (editing is a separate activity, and ongoing on everything). Three choices: Thing about the birds Thing about etiquette Thing about zombies Etiquette is winning right now in my brain. I'm trying to come up with a system to keep it driving forward, like "Moraine" did. I need a proper title for Moraine. That would bring it all together, I think. Maybe when the boy reads it (I left the draft on the kitchen table, maybe he'll pick it up...) he'll have an idea.

Why I read it: There was a review in Salon , and so I requested the book from the library. Actually I requested it months after I'd read the review, because the review of the book reminded me of Nadine, my ex-coworker who is a britophile. I think what I liked in the review was the description of the layers upon layers of history in the ground in Britain, which aren't so apparent here in North America. While there's history underneath everything here, too, it seems like natural history, not so much human history. Maybe the First Nations lived lighter on the land than Angles and Saxons ever did in Britain. I had a conversation with the librarian when I checked it out, that resulted in the conclusion that I was going to have to read 40 pages per day to get it read on time, because there were other requests so I wouldn't be able to renew it. Did I mention before why it was "in transit" and the like for several weeks? (I have a feeling I wrote a note about this so

I'm about 100 words from my target wordcount, which, knowing me, means I will write another thousand words before I can let it end. And from where I am now, it doesn't look like there's that much to take out. And Moraine, well, it got longer again. But the words were good words, worth having. I'm going to have to get ruthless with some of my precious ones.

I'm now at about 6400. But that's okay, I think the 500 or so words that I added are good words (I bottomed out at around 5900, but then started trying to flesh out one of my characters, and well...). I did get rid of a couple of pages of notes, which means that the pile of papers surrounding Moraine is getting smaller.

Friday I printed out a draft, and I let Ed read it. He didn't say it sucked, he didn't call it unoriginal, and he seemed to have liked some aspects of it, so I guess that's good. He confirmed that I need to work on the Uncle Dave character. I think I need to flesh out his history a bit on scrap paper. Yesterday we were discussing the story over dinner after a walk in Stouffville (the point was to walk on the OR Moraine) and the boy got peeved that he hadn't gotten to read the wretched story. I told him he could read the next draft. So I guess I have two volunteer readers now. And then, I was doing basically data entry on some markups I'd done on the printout (reorganized and tightened the opening a little bit) and my wordcount actually fell below 6000! 5998. It does want to be shorter. I thought so.

I'm down to just over 6000 words now. Last night I spent about an hour working on the setting, and somehow it still got shorter. In other news, apparently I have no physical limitations. All of my limitations are mental. Though I may be taking this comment out of context. Okay, I am. Did I ever mention that my superhero name is Miss Interpretation? Also, EG TourGuide , you will be amused to know that while I was doing research (I wanted the proper name of whatever is killing the red pines in York Regional Forest), your blog was the #2 hit! Well done.

Last night I removed 1030 more words from Moraine, and it was, if anything, easier than the first thousand. Maybe that was due to a rather self-actualizing hour spent one-on-one with Sensei, or maybe I just recognized that the easy words to take out were gone, and I was going to have to cut ruthlessly if I was going to make it happen. The night in between, I was supposed to put some words in, but I watched election coverage instead. I must say, that went very well.

That's how many words I managed to remove last night from Moraine. When I set myself the goal of removing 1000 words, clearly I hadn't considered how that involved removing 12% of the words, and how I wanted to remove about 0% of the story. It took a couple of hours, but I managed to do it. And just think, I get to do it at least twice more! And as I work along, that last 1000 words is going to be close to 20% of the words that are left! But now I get to put some in, which is fun, I guess.

So if I wrote less than four more pages long hand on Moraine, and then called it over, it shouldn't have added that many more words, maybe 600. So I typed it up on Saturday, and added a little bit (mostly parenthetical statements of "fact check that"), and now it's over 8000. I don't think it merits more than 5000, but maybe I'm wrong. Also, the market I picked to target the story to (I'm thinking this may be a method to motivate myself) doesn't really publish things longer than 5000 words... I made myself a to-do list for it, and if I can do one item per day, that would be good, and then I can let someone read it. Because there's at least one person who's whining about "why don't you let me read things? You know I can read your handwriting..." Um, because my first drafts are crap? Remove 1000 words Ester doesn't want to run away, per se... Remove 1000 more words Fix Dave's backstory (it's a jumble now) Remove 1000 mo

Your result for Howard Gardner's Eight Types of Intelligence Test ... Linguistic 27% Logical, 14% Spatial, 55% Linguistic, 31% Intrapersonal, 25% Interpersonal, 31% Musical, 22% Bodily-Kinesthetic and 31% Naturalistic! "Verbal-linguistic intelligence has to do with words, spoken or written. People with verbal-linguistic intelligence display a facility with words and languages. They are typically good at reading, writing, telling stories and memorizing words and dates. They tend to learn best by reading, taking notes, listening to lectures, and via discussion and debate. They are also frequently skilled at explaining, teaching and oration or persuasive speaking. Those with verbal-linguistic intelligence learn foreign languages very easily as they have high verbal memory and recall, and an ability to understand and manipulate syntax and structure. Careers which suit those with this intelligence include writers, lawyers, philosophers, journalists, politicians and teachers."