I'm not a fan of the public commit, but...

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!

This New Year’s resolution, if kept, can’t help but be good for me.

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: January 2024

"Morgan is my name" by Sophie Keech. Office book club selection. It gets exhausting to read about plucky young heroines who are terrible at needlework all the time. I should probably read some Jo Walton. I mean, you can be good at needlework and other things too! I didn't find this book very surprising. The first half was kind of boring, but it got better towards the end. LHC #233: "The Shifter" by Janice Hardy. I read her writing advice website regularly, so I thought I should maybe read an actual book to find out if she was worth it. Oh my, the voice of this book grabbed me immediately. The worldbuilding seemed shady but the voice was solid. It wasn't very subtle, but I might not be the target audience. LHC #234: "Ragnarok: The End of the Gods" by A. S. Byatt. At this point with my library account, I'm just guessing. I know there was something by Byatt there? I suspect there was. I did not know what to make of this book. Strange, but it w

What I read: March 2024

LHC #240: "Vita Nostra" by Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko. Translated by Julia Meitov Hersey. All I knew going in was dark academia. This was a neat thing to read after A Deadly Education last month. The students can leave this school at summer and winter break, but maybe they shouldn't. Also, interesting education method, providing Sasha with a CD player and punishing her if she leaves it in the mode where it plays all the tracks in sequence. "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman. When I finished Ragnarok by AS Byatt (last month? January?) I was thinking it might have made more sense if I had any knowledge of the subject matter. The boy had left this lying around, and it was not a tough read. LHC #241: "Science on a mission: How Military funding shaped what we do and don't know about the ocean" by Naomi Oreskes. I deferred this once because it was so long. History of science is challenging for me to read, because of the need to get a grasp on dispr

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