Robynettely

It's unlikely I'll read another book tonight since I guess I should do my taxes instead, so I'll just post this now. OWW: Nothing. Yeah, I'm not sure this is valuable for me anymore.  “Throne of the Crescent Moon” by Saladin Ahmed. Library book! Stylistically very different from the last few books I read. I was having a hard time with it until I realized that it’s sword-and-sorcery, and the tropes are for that sub-genre, not the high fantasy that I usually read. This realization led to an interesting conversation with the boy where I tried to explain the difference between the two sub-genres. I’ll be interested to see what characters pop up in the next book in the series. “Not Cold Enough”. Not sure it counts to read things I wrote myself, but I did read the whole thing. 

So there I was at Ad Astra on Sunday morning, doing a workshop on editing/revising and pitching, led by Julie Czerneda. She put us in groups, and when we were all introducing ourselves (the three of us in my group), Leo asked "so what do you write"? And I froze. Which is pretty bad when you're in a workshop about pitching. I thought about Fairfax, which is historical fantasy I guess (since Bucklepunk wouldn't ring a bell for anyone). I thought about Apocryphal and Toothbrushing club, which are both Urban Fantasy, and I said something lame and vague and didn't answer at all. We were supposed to register for the workshop on Friday night, but I didn't know that, either because I didn't read the program very closely, or because it wasn't really in there (?). So I wandered in, and she asked me if I was on her list, and I said was I supposed to put my name on a list? And she said she had room, that was fine. I said did I have to do any writing, and she sai...

I actually had the idea for this story the evening before the challenge came out. We were standing around after karate class talking about how I broke Mike's nose (this was like two or three years ago, and I was the third person to break it in about two months, so I don't feel that guilty; it was getting pretty weak) and how it's never going to heal now, and it will just get longer and longer, that bit that's never going to reattach, and he'll be able to swing it and hit people like a third arm... anyway. "Have you been taking your meds?" Simone asked. If she was calling, she was probably at home, bored. "Yes," he lied. He could feel the skin stretching on his nose, the cartilage pushing outward and, like a faun growing antlers, he wanted to rub the stretched flesh. "You aren't, are you?" Simone said. She sounded like she was pacing, probably tidying up her condo. "Yeah, I am," said Jack. The meds were between him and his ...

OWW: Nothing. “In Ashes Lie” by Marie Brennan. Sometimes I let Ed read something when I’m done with it, and he loves it and goes to the library and requests everything else in the series. And then of course I’m committed. This was good, but I liked the first one better. “A Star Shall Fall” by Marie Brennan. It was nice to have less Lune. “Fairfax”, which is my current major project, is a historical fantasy, I suppose. It’s neat to see an example of pulling off successfully all the research that is required to make that work. It seems like every day I write something and think to myself, “I’ll have to look that up later,” whether it be about what the houses would have looked like, what they would have been made out of, what the people would have eaten... The two books I’ve read are not enough. I’m not sure anything will ever be enough. “With Fate Conspire” by Marie Brennan. Toronto Public Library provided me with a bit of a respite on finishing the fourth book of this series (Ed had ...

First Draft “Fairfax”. I’m on Chapter 28 now, with something above 70,000 words. A couple of days ago one of my friends asked me what it’s about, and my elevator pitch absolutely failed me! It wasn’t there! So I should work on that, I guess. “Lucky Kate”. Short story, just a pile of notes right now. I get to write this when I have an actual main character, rather than just a situation, and once I do Draft 4 of Chickpea (Done, why doesn't this place have a strike-through?), a final draft of Apophis, and get XTree on OWW. Totally doable, right? Editing “XTree”. (short story) Started the month part way through the third draft. Finished that... Next I want to get it on OWW. “Chickpea”. (short story) On March 12, I went through my piles and files until I found the current draft of this story. At first, I couldn’t believe what I’d found was the current draft, because it’s not at all close to the version in my head. After a couple of pages, I set it aside and filed for two hours. Ed a...