Robynettely

I really ought to title this Word of the Season , since that's about how often I do it. Anyway, I was reading a book, all innocent-like, and this word just jumped out at me: ineffable . Immediately I thought to myself, what a wonderful word! It's like the F-word, nicely couched in a prefix and a suffix! Especially if you take that prefix off, and you wind up with effable, which is F-able, only polite. Except effable isn't in my dictionary, so I guess it doesn't work that way. I did look up ineffable, though, and was satisfied that it is an adjective meaning (according to the Oxford Paperback Dictionary that I keep on my desk) Too great for description in words , or That must not be uttered . The prefix in- can apparently mean "in" (how clever!) or "not". So effable would mean speakable . And I see now that Dictionary.com does have that. And its root is Latin, not Saxon, so it has no connection with the F-word at all. Too bad, really.

"Unicorn". Still at market #7. "Dolphin". Still at market #1, still with changes sent back 27 October. My goal for 2011 is one short story out per month. January will be “Bezoar”. This also means I need to get some stuff 'shopped.

Read/edited: The Rabbits (working on 3rd draft) Succubus (working on second draft) Apophis (working on 3rd draft) Wrote: Troll (4000 words, maybe 2000 of them in Dec?) This one came alive when I'd taken the month off from it for NaNoWriMo Dowsing (4000 words start-to-finish in Dec?) While wandering around in Mocassin Trail Park yesterday, listening to Ed and Connor talk about Halo Wars, I realized what I'd meant to do with this story that I completely forgot in the first draft. I need to type it up, stat, and then retype it with that entire theme on top. Imp Face (2000 words so far) Knitting: Socks for Lynda finished Socks for Ed almost finished -- I hope tonight or tomorrow, because I'm sick of doing other people's socks Morrigan hibernating Anhinga hibernating

“The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart” by Jesse Bullington. The good bits seemed to have been in the first third of the book, and the middle was a bit of a slog. I read it because of Jeff Vandermeer . I did finish, and it was good fun. Any book that name-checks the white company is worth reading (big Hawkwood fan here). “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg. My sister asked for it for Christmas, and the tradition is, when you give a book in my family, the other person asks “How was it?” I wondered, am I hostile to this book because of who asked for it, or does it really smack of the Grades 4-8 writing exercises I had no problem with? Maybe it seemed dated, or maybe I just didn’t connect with it. Or maybe I use Caitlin Kiernan and Elizabeth Bear as my writing role-models, and a bipolar person and a depressed person who have to write or they starve may not be the best role-models. The book is about forcing yourself to write. I wondered as I read, why do people do this? Why for