Robynettely

Over at Ilona Andrews' blog , they've got a lively though closed discussion in the comments about the boy who wouldn't wrestle the girl in Iowa. I'd just like to say, hitting a girl is not the same as having a wrestling match with a girl, and it's pretty messed up when someone confuses them. I am here to learn, and if someone won't punch me because I'm a girl, then they've just taken that learning opportunity away from me. That's all.

Not really a word, more of a phrase or a clause. But all of a sudden, I keep seeing it used all over the place. Maybe it started when one of my colleagues asked me to "reach out" to another colleague for information on a project I'd been supposed to be working on, but in fact knew nothing about. And the other person replied "It's too late to be reaching out," which I thought was a totally appropriate response. Now I'm seeing it everywhere, and I wonder, what does it mean? I don't want any colleague I've never actually met "reaching out" to me. Just send me an email. Please.

Back when I was in high school, I practiced my musical instruments. One of the ones I played, hammered dulcimer, sounded good even when I was just banging on the strings. Sometimes when I would play a piece (and I remember myself being pretty good) weird, accidental, awesomely cool things would happen. And I was concerned that when I got really good, those amazing accidents, the ones where I made a change in a piece by accident that made it "my own" wouldn't happen anymore. I needn't have worried. Also, today on Salon there's an article about Apophis (not sure how long that link will last...) so I guess I should work on that story. (ETA: you must watch the video there. The wailing shrieking music is awesome.)

I started this post in January, time for new beginnings. But I'm not starting new things just yet. I've got all these old things I just want done: Anhinga Morrigan Rabbits Bezoar Apophis I'm going back to them, and looking at them, and trying to make them work, rather than just make them done. Take, for example, the socks I knit Ed for Christmas. I finished the first one on the 24th of December at about 8 pm. There was no way I was going to get the second one done in time -- I'd started it, but I was maybe six inches down the leg, and those (click the link!) are some long socks. And then it was Christmas morning, and my brother-in-law was gloating about his new handknit socks , so I gave Ed his one wrapped sock. But it was too long in the foot, so I knit the second one shorter. But it was too short. So I ripped out both toes and made them right. I finished these socks at like midnight on Jan 3. And now, with my Christmas knitting finally done (I also had to do ones for...

Not much changing here... "Unicorn". Still at market #7. "Dolphin". Still at market #1.

"Spiral Hunt" by Margaret Ronald. I read a lot of nonfiction last month and really needed a novel. This book was not perfect – it had an early, very long and seemingly pointless scene in a magic shop (that did, to be fair, turn out to be important later on). I didn’t feel like the cop character acted like a cop all the time, but then I don’t know any actual cops, so I’m basing that totally on cop TV shows, which are probably not accurate, either. The magic system was very complicated and took a while to get into. It had a likeable, complicated protagonist and an excellent sense of place. Boston is very much a character in this novel. “My Misspent Youth” by Meghan Daum. I requested this from the library because somewhere I saw mention that it had an essay about playing oboe. And then, on the first page of the title essay, I thought to myself, “she’s going to move to Omaha,” and knew I’d read that one before, online, a couple of years ago. But I was wrong, she actually moved ...

First Draft “Imp Face”. Short story, about 5000 words. Because if I don’t mine my family history, someone else will... “In a Nutshell”. Four hand-written pages of a start that I add to the thousand words I wrote last year. Editing "The Rabbits". Short story; working on 3rd draft. It’s down about 3500 words. Karate Zombies. Still percolating on rewriting the first chapter. This post http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/10/all-important-first-chapter.html is making me worry. “Bezoar”. Read it, revised it, read the comments I got on it last August (why is this so hard for me?) Though it’s funny what I did. I’d read the comments initially when I printed them out. Then I guess I let them process for four or five months, then implemented most of them, then read them and got to feel self-satisfied. It’s a better story now than it was before. Good enough? I don’t know. But it’s better than it was before. One more draft, I think, and it might be done. Ignoring “Succubus”. Short...