In process -- January 2012

First Draft

“Fairfax”. Started month with 54,000 words, near the end of Chapter 20. Now it’s around 61K, in Chapter 23. Lots of stuff has happened, which is good. I’ve moved some of the characters finally out of their comfort zones, and created lots of problems for them. I think I will be going over my initial draft target of 90K.

“The X Tree” (where X is whatever the tree is; When I started I hadn’t quite figured that out yet). This short story came out of a chat with another TW. And also I wanted to try e-prime. When I was at VP, Jim MacDonald went through a few pages of my manuscript and pointed out every instance of “There was” etc. I remember despairing. We’ll see if, long term, this experiment improves the quality of my first drafts. I carried this around to work and stuff with the intention of writing on it when my computer was rebooting and things like that, but it didn’t quite work out.

On the weekend I just sat down and wrote until the draft was finished (total: 7000 words or so, on the weekend I probably wrote 1700) because I have a karate essay to write, and this was in its way in my brain.

Editing

Nothing. Bad writer!

Knitting

“Joy” from Rowan Vintage Knits. Back done. I was reluctant to do the beads, but now that I am, I’m loving it.

Best TW feedback ever

Over at the dayjob, SMEs are feverishly trying to get documents back to me all marked up, in preparation for the release that's supposed to happen the week I'm back from VP. Today's best comment: Unfortunately not true. SMEs, they're so cute.

What I read: August 2023

"The Absolute Book" by Elizabeth Knox. I got it for Christmas. It was delightful, even if maybe some stuff wasn't explained completely. Or maybe that's part of why it was delightful. "Crucial conversations" By Joseph Grenny and three other old white men. Another office book club selection. The word "candor" comes up a lot. I really resented this book. LHC #220: "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt. There was a girl at my previous company who wanted to have an office book club, and she had this book on her desk for months and months. I can totally understand this. I found portions crazy stressful to read. Like, I would be skipping ahead to see how much more in the section, could I get through it, pacing around, etc. I wanted to know how it ended, sure, but I was having weird stress dreams and stuff. If it wasn't a library book I might not have finished it at all. It was such a relief when Boris showed up again and something happened. I di

In Progress -- July 2023

Wind/Water/Salt Chapters 39-51: Still n eed to take up comments and revise. Persephone (probably not its real name): Nothing but thoughts. Short Stories: As I mentioned last month I had a dish-washing epiphany on a story that wasn't going well. I'd already changed the POV character, but I knew that wasn't enough because I had no ending. It has an ending now. Critted 4 Got back 0 I really need to post something new. Submissions 0 Out there 0 Rejects 1 Knitting Tay Tartan cardigan (Martin Storey). Finally finished the danglers and minor seaming and chose buttons, then had to wait to block because the space I normally block in needed to be cleared, and this would be very disruptive to my work, so I waited to block it for the night before I went on vacation. It would appear that the finishing of this sweater took 4 months, which may be a new record. It fits for the most part. Yay! Cathar (self). Started the month just about done with the body edging.

Robynettely

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