Robynettely

When I searched, there were six instances in the same story. And that was after I'd already taken a couple out.

(No one else on the planet, probably, remembers that song by the Hothouse Flowers) One of my favorite blogs right now is Debra Doyle's . The posts are short and to the point. So last night I was working on the story I work on every night, and I read the post at midnight, and searched my document for Very, and Somewhat, and Rather. Nothing! And Seems... x12, in 5000 words.The other ones, also nothing. And then I was looking for something else, and I searched for "In the morning" in order to put myself on the right page. That phrase appeared four times. Clearly I need to learn how to manage the passage of time. But at least I'm good at knitting.

Here’s something I’m appalled by. As you don’t know because I haven’t mentioned it, my New Year’s resolution is to get 50 rejections on worthy stories honorably sent out. So last night I pulled out a short story that I had a note on that said “tighten the language and send away.” I went through the printout especially looking for some of my tics, like “maybe” and “there were”, looked at the beginning a bit, thought about how to connect it better to the end. And then I went to the computer and pulled up the folder for this story.  The most recent draft was dated March 2, 2012.  I checked all my USB drives. I compared the files. Indeed, that was the last time I worked on this story, ten months ago to the day.  I know I’ve been busy. I did NaNoWriMo. I did two drafts of the zombie novel. I finished the bucklepunk thing. But still! It’s an almost-finished story that I just left in a pile, meaning to get back to it in a day or two, for ten months!  Thi...

“Rasputin’s Bastards” by David Nickle. I bought this at SFContario in November from the Chizine table, where Sandra said “Dave’s around here somewhere, get him to sign it!” And I said “I just saw him leaving the dealer room.” And she said “Oh, he’s going to his coffeeklatsch. Crash it and get him to sign it.” So I did, and that coffeeklatsch is my best and most awesomest memory of SFContario. Anyway, so I’d heard some people found this book challenging. Maybe because I’d heard some of where the ideas came from, it was no problem for me. Good clean fun. And I see he’s got another book in the works! Wicked. “ORNGE: The Star Investigation that broke the story” by Kevin Donovan. Ed brought this home and left it on the table, and every few days he would ask me if I’d read it yet. Having read all the individual stories as the story unfolded in the paper, I didn’t really feel much urgency, but one day when I was making dinner, I opened it up. Ed said, when I was done, that it was a...

First Draft “Fairfax”. Around 143K and done, finished on 16 Dec, 2012. “ESD Issues”. A flash. “Royal Purple”. A short story finished new year’s day actually. Editing 66885 – I’d done about two drafts. For some reason I didn’t save it at some point, so I had to do some work again which is lame. For once, I thought there wasn’t enough detail, so I added rather than removing content. This was different for me, that’s for sure. I was able to trick myself into editing it (two more drafts!) by saying I was just going to sit down and give it a read-through, but holding a pen just in case. Knitting Biohazard (pullover) Finished first sleeve, started second. CTH’s Marielund. Fronts, sleeves, finishing. The buttons are from Martha’s Vineyard. I was afraid it was going to be too small, but being rib it stretched nicely. “Ceremonial Armour”. KF cardigan.Didn't work on it. “Tinker” socks.   Finished #3 and 4. “Tenny Park.” Bought the long-re...