Robynettely

Two people at work made comments about the fairy tale nature of this latest royal wedding, to which I responded, “Fairy tale? Well, I guess you’ve got Camilla, the evil stepmother, but where’s the death, where’s the dismemberment? Where are the people trapped in animal bodies? What you really mean is this royal wedding is totally Disney.” I really don’t feel the need to expand on that.

The challenge was a story in three sentences. I'm not entirely satisfied with this yet, but it's due now. For someone who professes to hate the wretched geese that live at my office, I sure get a lot of stories out of them. The gander's attention was almost fully on the powerpoint through the boardroom window, and it was only in his background circuitry that he heard Dan the maintenance guy (was power-washing the leavings of the other geese from the parking lot ) say “There’s something weird about that goose.” Even Dan, who knew nothing about whatever widgets the company made, could tell what the gander was seeing was confidential and extremely proprietary, so he entered the specially marked-off protected goose breeding zone to try to shoo the gander away. Fortunately, one of the goslings chose that moment to tug on the gander's primary feathers and led him away, making him look like a normal goose after all, as he transmitted the corporate espionage he'd gleaned to...

The challenge was this . I’d written the name Circe on a scrap of paper, wanting to use it in the story ever since I saw a commercial for the movie “Hanna” (my brain went on a long digression of trying to guess how the lead actress’s name is pronounced). And one of my karate buddies mentioned in passing something about carrying his dad around in a box, so someone else said “you should write a novel about that.” Well, there wasn’t really a novel in the story. But whatever. Circe couldn't have been her real name. Probably the staff at the grocery store made their own name tags. She showed up around dusk. He hadn't told her he was going to do it tonight. He didn't remember telling anyone else either. She came to his home; he didn't really know she'd known where it was. She was all gothed up, dark nail polish and lipstick, a black wig, and a long black shift that hid her figure. "Where are they?" she asked she pushed her way in. He didn't know what she was...

Last weekend was Ad Astra , what I think of as my “home CON” since it’s the first one I ever went to, and I can ride my bike to it. Though to get there Saturday morning I rode through Charles Sauriol Park , and the hill at the south end coming out to Winford Drive is killer, and I wouldn’t want to do it in the rain. It’s paved like a real road, but not maintained, and extremely steep. I was worried about losing traction the whole way up, a feeling not improved by the pine needles strewn about in patches. I didn’t ride back the same way, because I’m chicken and didn’t want to go down that hill. Anyway, I went to three panels on Friday (weapons check guy, Where do ideas come from, and How will you survive the apocalypse). I was surprised how unprotective the ideas people were -- they talked about ideas they were still working on that they hadn’t managed to get to work yet, that they still wanted to use. But I guess ideas really are a dime a dozen, and it’s what you do with them that coun...

First Draft Limering. Page-a-day, 4000 words, finished 29 Mar. One Degree. I mentioned last month someone’s process on OWW, where they had blocks of exposition and action and dialog splines, and I wanted to try that. But first I needed an outline and some character descriptions. So this is maybe 100 words of notes. Pause. Page-a-day, just started. Seems to be about geese, to some extent. Editing "The Rabbits". Tried to read it, couldn’t. “Bezoar”. I thought I was almost done, and was just being lame and sitting on the story. I’d read the feedback (again) that I got on OWW last year, and then when I sat down for a “final read-through, clean up and send out,” things did not go as planned. I wound up rewriting the beginning and the ending, leaving the middle pretty much intact. I need at least one more draft again, mostly to look at the ending, which I think I’ve cut too since I moved two pages against each other. Apophis. Fourth draft done. Watched a documentary about a...