Robynettely

“Fairfax”. Started month with about about 36,000 words, in the midst of Chapter 14. Ended with about 43,000 and having started Chapter 17. Have I mentioned my process? When I start a novel, I always feel like everything is going to be great this time. I have a brilliant idea, and I just can’t wait to start RIGHT NOW!!!!!!! I write about 15,000 words, and then I realize that I don’t know what happens next. I have a general idea of how things need to end (giant robots!) but I don’t know how I’m going to get from here (burned house in the woods and water wheel and witch hunter) to making the giant robots and having the battle. So I write an outline of the next 75 things that are going to happen between here and the ending (that’s one thing for every thousand words I have left to write). I do not write the outline from now to the end, I start with the end, and then fill in backwards, and then frontwards, and then I fill in the middle. And then I largely ignore the outline and write anothe...

Editing “Dowsing”. (short story, 5K). Finished typing the rewrite, wound up with 6500 words. Edited the first 3000, and then printed again and edited the whole thing on the premise that the beginning is always the worst part. Posted on OWW and got four quick crits, suggesting that the ending was too sudden. That was kind of what I thought before posting it. I let Ed read it too. Toothbrushing Club. (Middle Years novel). So, this year I forewent (if that’s a word) NaNoWriMo on the premise that I don’t need another unedited manuscript lying around, and instead I need to edit one of those down, making November in fact NaNoEdMo. But then I did not apply my usual NaNoWriMo discipline, and instead worked on that short story (not a waste of time by any means) and then screwed around for several days. So, I found myself on November 16 thinking, Oh dear, I guess I’d better read this sucker. I wrote TbC several years ago, and then apparently tried to edit it without actually reading it. In ret...

“The Guns of Avalon” by Roger Zelazny. Book 2 of the Chronicles of Amber. I didn’t notice so much in book 1, but Zelazny really paints nice pictures and makes incredible economy of words in these. “Persuasion” by Jane Austen. When I go to the library, I like to take something out to be supportive, so when they didn’t have whatever the next Jim Butcher book is in the Desden Files, I took out this. Also, I have a DVD of it, and I prefer to read the book first. Anyway, this was a Penguin edition, and it had an over-explaining introduction and footnotes that didn’t seem necessary to me. A lot of the footnoted words were comprehensible in context, and I mean, who really cares that the particular coach they’re talking about is better than a convertible because the top can go either way? I love Jane Austen, and this book was charming. “Sign of the Unicorn” by RZ. These are so short I almost feel guilty counting them each, rather than reading the whole five-book series as a single book. But...

The challenge is here . This is something I had lying around that I wrote originally in March 2009. Maybe I'll post the whole 650-word version tomorrow. The bouncy ball was bisphenol-b. When the princess accidentally tossed it into a well, it sank to the bottom. A frog croaked, "I'll fetch it for you, for a kiss." "Okay," the princess said. "Kiss, then ball," the frog said. Their lips touched. The frog grew and the green localized to tights and a jacket; obviously a prince. The princess forgot about the ball. They didn't live happily ever after. As a frog, the prince had absorbed a lot of pseudo-estrogens. His vestigial third leg gave the princess the willies, and his sperm count was insufficient to provide heirs, anyway.

First Draft “Fairfax”. Started month with about about 28,000 words, in the midst of Chapter 11. Now I’m in Chapter 14, with about 36,000 words. That’s a third of a book! And now I will espouse for a moment on why I write a page a day. A couple of nights ago, I’d done like 4000 words of the Dowsing rewrite and I wasn’t totally into writing a page (roughly 280 words) of Fairfax. But I had to, so I sat down and started writing. I wrote a couple of paragraphs of description, and then the POV character said something that totally surprised me: he said (without giving anything away) he missed the clothes. He didn’t miss the lifestyle of what he was looking at, but he did miss the clothing. I was totally shocked and surprised, because right there, with those four words, he gave me all of his backstory. I knew who he was right now, but I had no backstory for that character, and because I was dragging my way through that block of text, he gave me a gift, “this is who I used to be.” Editing “Ra...

OWW: 3 “We Never talk about my Brother” by Peter S. Beagle. Short stories. The title story will stay with me. So elegant! Some of the stories were meh, like all short story collections, but this one was worth reading. “Storm Front” by Jim Butcher. So, when I was at the library taking back the previous books, I was poking around. I often look at the Jim Butcher Dresden Files books because I’ve heard so many good things about them, but I want to start with book 1, so I’ve never taken one out. I looked in the paperback FSF section, then the hard cover FSF, then the general stacks... and they always have some random middle books, but never the first. So, I’d given up. I was over in the general paperback section looking for Jane Austen (they only had Mansfield Park, but I wanted Persuasion or Sense and Sensibility) and I found this! It reminded me of Sandman Slim, though of course this came first. It came out in 2000, and it’s weird how strange that feels – the characters don’t have cell...

The challenge : a hundred-word story about bullies, and only the weekend to write it. They're all posted over on terribleminds.com, but to be complete about things, I've put it here too. “You should make something for the bake sale,” Janelle said. “It’s a good cause.” Their daughters were on the soon to be torn down playscape. It looked safe enough to Clarissa. “I’m not much of a baker,” she said. Money was a little tight this week. “Heather looks grubby today,” Janelle said. “Didn’t Children’s Aid visit you once?” “When her father was still around,” Clarissa said. Things were better now. “Maybe I can make some squares.” There might be brownie ingredients in the cupboard? Underneath the playscape Heather threw a handful of sand. Caitlin ran, bawling, to her mother.

This challenge was different -- Chuck Wendig is doing a worldbuilding exercise. The entries are all in the comments, but I thought for completism, I'd post mine here, too. The world was once terraformed. Aliens had seeded it With algae spores. These spores grew on all the wet things, killed some of them, and converted others. It was a very painful process. Creatures walked around, bodies half-covered in algae, going mad from pain. The algae spores are a modified version of filamentous green algae, which does conjugal reproduction (trading DNA with other species). The algae takes the sulfur out of the SO2 atmosphere, leaving the free oxygen that the original lifeforms are allergic to. The algae is still out there. Occasionally there’s an outbreak. Non-natives are particularly vulnerable.

Another Chuck Wendig challenge; the rules are here . I'd written this story to see if I could do something small in the world of my urban fantasy, without it having all that annoying stuff I see in some short story collections that contain those. I had to cut it considerably to fit it in the space. It would be neat to put this aside and then try editing it "straight", and see how it comes out. I had not realized my vampires were so racist. Mary Alice went out to give Sephora a hug. “Thank god you’re here. Avril is the dumbest thing ever.” “I know, honey,” said Sephora. Without a mirror she freshened her black eyeliner and cranberry lip gloss. Sephora would have flown commercial from Iceland now that Candelmas was past. She dragged a huge trunk behind her through PATH, Toronto's 10 KM of underground walkway and mall. “I can’t believe she’s going to be second,” Unlike the other vampires, Mary Alice was small and had a tiny voice to go with her pixie-sized body. “If Goat...

The challenge is here . Go there! Read the other stories! Mine is about a plant my mother is growing. Kitchens in the Cookie Factory Lofts were small, so Kimberley didn't have to walk far to show Mitch the ginger they had left in the cupboard. "Look at it," Kimberley said. "I wonder if you can eat the shoots." Four branches, hard like bamboo, grew off the corners of the wizened 3-inch root. "It's not a burger," Mitch said. He was working from home on the dining room table. The loft didn't really have an office. "Maybe I'll plant it," said Kimberley. She used ground ginger instead, and dinner was sub-standard that evening. Mitch knew enough not to say anything. After dinner, Kimberley took a flowerpot off the windowsill, and threw out the dead poinsettia it had held. She dug a hole and nestled the ginger root in with coffee grounds and potato peels. She watered the whole mess and set it beside the spindly avocados and garlic scapes...

OWW: 4 (and all in the last week) “Deadline” by Mira Grant. Bought this in North Conway, NH at the Borders Express going out of business sale. The boy devoured it and then nagged me while I finished “Rebecca”. We got Ed “Feed” for his birthday, so he could read this one. I think he’ll like the science. It was nice to have someone to discuss it with. Intriguing ending. I think Shaun has a reservoir condition in his brain, the boy suggests it might be in the Amygdala (whatever that is). “Among Others” by Jo Walton. My friend Lucy finished it before I’d even started, and asked if I’d read a lot of SF from back in the day. I said yeah, I had, and then I’d gone to SFContario last year and listened to Jo Walton riff with Ed Greenwood and TNH and someone else about how different writers connect together for an hour, and just written down a reading list. This book makes me want to work on “Toothbrushing Club” again. Maybe I ought to pull it out and do a new draft. “Last Call: the Rise and Fa...

First Draft “Fairfax”. Started month with about 22,000 I think. Now I have about 28,000. I also have most of an outline of how the rest of it will flow together, including an ending! I’m so looking forward to it! 3 Chuck Wendig things you can find if you poke around a bit here. Editing “Cats”. Did one last draft after receiving the three crits, and then sent it away. Knitting Morrigan (No Sheep for You/Frangipani). Finished the knitting over Labour Day weekend. Seamed it the following weekend, tied in the loose ends and blocked it. She is done, and took three weeks less than two years. Ugh. Chasing Snakes socks (knitty/some divine merino in a color called Lead). Second done. Loppem (Norah Gaughan). This is my anti-Morrigan, knit in fluffy white yarn on big needles. Two balls done. Fair Isle Argyle socks. First started – KPPPM and some regia silk I had lying around. Double Heelix socks. First started. I needed something small and simple, and after the heel is done, this meets that...

The challenge (100 words max, and the story has to contain three of five words provided) is here . I found this one particularly tough, I don't know why. Another vamp swung down from the ivy covering Bishop's tomb. I threw my weight at her like I'd learned in self-defense class. It was the wrong move. I was within arm's reach now. She easily dodged my fists. Her fingers wrapped around my throat. She tilted it sideways to press her teeth, her vampire enzymes, into my jugular. A berserker rage came onto me. I kneed her in the groin. I elbowed her jaw. She fell. My shoe heel made a passable stake. Because of the hands around my neck. Last life, that must have been how I died.

Because "The Alchemist's Daughter" was taken, repeatedly. The challenge was here (it was a picture, you should go look). I'm clearly influenced by the book I'm reading about prohibition right now. We burned the still with lots of people around. This way, it would be a story in itself, how it went up in a bonfire with all the eight families watching. On a hill above town, we'd spent the day making the pyre, and benches, and racks for casks, and torches to lead the way up. Will's family showed up before the sun was properly down. None of them had even started drinking. They were here to drink ours, to keep their own for emergencies. "What are you going to do, after?" I asked, handing him a mason jar with one of my father's exotic blends. They were brewed with rituals and herbs or animal bones, and I sometimes wondered how much he kept track of which family got what. I'd hoped he'd leave Will's family out of the experiments, so they ...

The challenge, and the other stories, can be found here . If you know where I got the idea for this story, remember, it's just a story. I'm told she's really very nice. She wore hot pants, a midriff-bearing sweater, and ankle warmers, so we ignored her technique, put her with the beginners, and snickered behind our hands. Weeks later when she asked where to get a uniform, we wondered if those were the only work-out clothes she had. But she came to the next class in her new gi, and wore a black belt and gloves. She fought all the black belts, and won the dojo, without even glancing at the green and brown belts. While she was fighting, we poisoned her water bottle.

First Draft “Fairfax”. Started month with about 14000 words (48 handwritten pages plus the two flash fics). Now I have about 22,000 I think. Editing "The Rabbits". (short story) Draft 6 came in just shy of 7000 words (having gained 500), so I put it on OWW in two parts for the August Crit marathon. “Chickpea”. (short story) I’d typed this (it came in just shy of 4000 words) back in July. I did a second draft to make the ending consistent with the beginning, and then wrote in a new character and added a proper ending, because it didn’t have one. “Fairfax”. Typed Chapter 3. Something weird happened while I was doing this. I started to feel guilty that I was spending all my time writing, and none on “having a life”. It was a terrible moment. The challenges “Flea Market Finds”. As has become my pattern, I wrote the 1st draft on Monday (a holiday), then typed it up on Tuesday, edited Wednesday and Thursday and posted in the wee hours. “Witch Trial”. Since I was going to Flor...

Back after a couple weeks off, with another challenge (read the other entries here ). I'd meant to write about Lord Simcoe, who named lots of places in Ontario. But driving back from our holiday, in the very edge of the former Hurricane Irene, we saw the weirdest clouds... Thanks to Ed for research help. "I wouldn't even know what to call those," Amelia said to her trusty plane. Much like the Eskimos and snow, she had something like 56 different words for clouds. Nothing from stratus to cumulonimbus quite described these log-shaped formations scudding below the smooth silver overcast. "Multiple layers of cumulus," the Electra said. Her navigator, Fred Noonan, couldn't hear, because in 1937 no one used intra-cockpit voice-activated communications systems. As they had entered this strange region of sky, they had dropped altitude -- 6500 feet, 6000, 5500, and now they were at 2000 feet with no place to land. Fuel was a concern. Going up, through t...

“The King’s Peace by Jo Walton. I found this book harder to read than her others, mostly because of the sheer number of character names. I wished it had a map, because there were also copious unfamiliar place names. Also, parts of it were too subtle for my undiscriminating eye until the book was almost over – made it seem like there was no plot to speak of and no real bad guy until about 100 pages from the end. All this makes it sound like I didn’t like the book, and that’s not true, but it was more of a challenge than "Tooth and Claw" to get through. There were some really awesome scenes, really nicely worked. “The Year of our War” by Steph Swainston. I requested it from the library because an article on her decision to put her writing career aside to teach Chemistry created a lot of discussion on the places I frequent on the Internet. The boy read it first (he told me I wasn’t going to be satisfied with the ending, which was true). Seemed more along the lines of “Perdi...

I might have taken this challenge too literally. The story is based on Grace Sherwood's, in Virginia in 1702. You stood and looked from woman’s face to woman’s face. Though I was beside you, I could track your gaze by watching their flinching and downcast eyes. “Sarah,” you said at last to a comely woman who stood at the back with two small children. “You know the trial will not harm the accused. If she be innocent, she will bear no grudge against you, because you let her go. If she is guilty, she will be hanged, and no harm will come to you.” Reluctantly, your wife left your children in the care of a neighbour and stepped between the rows of spectators in the courtroom to stand below you, looking out as if she was accused herself. Next you implored your sister, who instead took your children from your neighbour. So you looked to that neighbor. Perhaps because she was your wife’s friend, she came to the front of the court to glance back at me as if I was bestowing ...

For this challenge, once again I tapped into my twin personal themes of squirrels and taxidermy. Also, I'd had a dream with a girl named Ginevra in it, then I'd read this story, so the name was popping in and out of my consciousness. “How can you say you don’t like Billy Joel?” Carl said, for about the thirtieth time. Really, he’d said it about that many times. This morning, at the Fryeburg Flea market, he had found a Billy Joel retrospective four-CD set in mint condition. They were on the third disk now, and he’d said it after every song. “I just don’t,” Ginevra shouted. She was driving, and she’d always heard the rule was, the driver chose the tunes. Except maybe not so much in this case, since she had to drive the whole way from Maine back to Montreal, because Carl had no driver’s license. “But he’s so talented,” Carl said. “Not my thing, I guess,” Ginevra said. Carl had already accused her of having no taste, of being jealous of Billy Joel’s success, and of lying and actual...

Just one thing, "Bezoar", at its second market.

First Draft “Fairfax”. Started month with about 5000 words I think (12 pages plus the two flash fics). Each of those flashes is probably a chapter needing to be fleshed out (maybe 50% more? There’s no description of anyone, really). Now I have around 14,000, and I'm almost at the end of Chapter 7. I want to shout out a little where the ideas are coming from, because by the time I have a draft, I will have forgotten. My sister asked what was going to happen next after Dollheads. ChiaLynn I think first used the term (in my hearing) on twitter. I read http://truepenny.livejournal.com/ , where Sarah Monette reads a lot of histories, and commented once on the presentism (I think it would have been an example of that) in a book about the Salem Witch Trials, and how to the people living back then, maybe witchcraft was real and a real threat, so we shouldn’t assume they were all faking it or making it up. I’m paraphrasing here, and doing a poor job. Back in the late 80’s I shared a kitch...

OWW: 5 “Feed” by Mira Grant. Library book about zombies. I’m not sure what I was expecting; maybe less explain-y-ness. Quick read. The zombie science was great. Less developed, in my opinion, was the conspiracy. I guess that’s why there’s going to be a sequel. When I finished it, the boy wandered off with it. Mira Grant sure isn’t afraid to kill off characters! “Puritans at Play”. Bought this as research for Fairfax. It had one of the most awesome one-star reviews ever on Amazon, that ran something like this: “My teacher wrote this book. He made us read it for his class.” The horror! It was a pretty entertaining read, actually. There was a lot I didn’t know, and lots of names that I will probably remember when I read further. I found myself referring to it, for example, when we bought Sam Adams beer yesterday. Hmmm, not a very reading-ful month.

The challenge is here . This is not the story I thought I was writing; I thought I was writing about an eating disorder. Gerard was taking a shortcut home from school when the unicorn found him. When he saw it off in the distance, he thought it was a white rock, and threw a stone at it. He missed, and the white thing kept moving towards him. He thought then that it was an awfully clean albino deer. As the creature got closer, Gerard could see it was mighty small for a deer. Instead of antlers it had a horn. Its tail was long and skinny, with a brush on the end. Gerard picked up another stone and bounced it in his hand, but the unicorn looked at him with its outsized black eyes. "Go away," he said, and raised his arm. It blinked at him, eyelashes as long as fingers. "No, get," Gerard said. It lowered its horn as if to run him through, or maybe pay homage. Gerard threw the rock, and the little unicorn, not even billy goat size, jumped in the air like a startled cartoo...

The challenge is here . The title comes from a heading in a book that's open at the top of my staircase. Sorry about the appalling science. It was a beautiful June day. The walk up from Pinkham notch was easier than it should have been. Chuck kept looking up. If India or China had found a way to stop the end times ahead, he wouldn't know; news wasn't getting through. "Big change coming," said the man he'd caught up to on the hill. The man's pack looked nearly empty. Might as well eat beef jerky sticks and Mars bars when the end is a few hours away. "Going up for a better view?" said Chuck. He'd abandoned not just pots and pans, but the concept of eating. He'd fasted before for longer than humanity had left. He'd trained at the same time, even. He wore everything he had: swords, knives, armour. "Just thought I'd climb up." The man was far too old to be hiking. But if his knees gave out, he wouldn't be going down the m...

The challenge is here (it's to write a 1000-word story about the picture you can see -- do click). The title is from the socks I'm knitting -- pattern is Naiad, colourway is Slayer. I was leaving the theatre by the back door after the show when a man loomed out of the shadows. It was late, it was dark, and no one else was around. Any normal person would have been startled. But this man didn't expect any of that. "There's a breach in the sewer that used to be Taddle Creek." He was huge and yet hunched, with a voice like walking on gravel. "Where?" I said, grabbing the door so it wouldn't lock shut behind me. My weapons were still inside. "Annex," said the man. He smelled like road salt, even though it was July. "Bathurst, near Dupont." "Right," I said. Those streams want to be free. "I'll find it." I don't know who these people are, or how they know where to find me. My theory is they're bridge t...

Sunday evening we were sitting on our patio having a beer because we’d been rollerblading and it was brutally hot. I was seaming a sock when a robin came hopping across the lawn. “Cheep, cheep, cheep,” he said. I figured he was a teenaged male, because he still had some speckles on his chest. I said hello. “Cheep, cheep, cheep,” he said, and hopped closer – close enough that I could have reached out and touched him. “You’re too close,” I said. “You should be afraid of me.” He hopped under my chair to the other side, where my beer was. He pecked at my beer bottle. He hopped over in front of my feet and looked at me. “Cheep, cheep, cheep.” “Maybe he’s hungry,” Ed said. I don’t approve of feeding the wildlife. Perhaps a concession to that, when Ed went inside, he got a slice of 12-grain bread, rather than the wonder bread we feed the boy. He broke a few pieces off and dropped them on the ground. The robin ate one and lost interest. He cheeped at me. Across the lawn came another robin, als...

I had to wait a few days until I managed to get my sh*t together, but: “Bezoar”. Rejected (pleasantly) from market #1, is now in the queue at market #2. I can see why Uncle Jim at VP had the "no sleepovers" rule. All the spreadsheeting in the world can't help me if I just let things languish when they come back.

The challenge is here : 1000 word limit, has to take place on the 4th of July. Chuck said it was probably not suited to FSF, so of course I had to prove him wrong. Dina had plugged X-15 in overnight, so he wasn't there to help her get out of bed. She had to rely on her replacement hips and knees, for a change. As she washed up, she asked herself how she would ever get her full mobility back if she didn't have to use it occasionally. You'd think a physiotherapy program would be applied to the X-15 so he'd gradually hold back the help until she asked. Or something. Maybe that's what the Anti-Robot League were talking about, when they had their radical meetings and went on the radio and the like, talking about humanity's over-reliance on robots. "We're not against help," they would say. "We just want to keep our ability to think and act for ourselves." Dina wouldn't have minded doing that some other day. It had been mildly liberating to ...