Robynettely

First Draft “Limering”. Now around 30,000 words. Not sure where it’s going. I mean, I know the story, but the worldbuilding is weak. This has happened before, so I’m not worried. Clearly the second draft is where the magic happens.  Editing “Wind/Water/Salt”. Read the whole damn thing with pen in hand. This actually went better than I expected, once I got a plan together. About 11 days from the end of the month I realized I was averaging one chapter per day, and that wasn’t going to cut it, with 47 chapters. So, I made a schedule – realistic, with days I could read a lot, and other days I could read just a little. Getting through it meant I could throw out the handwritten stuff. I deleted the really repetitive bits I mentioned last month and used up some notes I’d made whilst typing. As usual I found myself trying to move more and more things forward in the story, and revised chapter 1. Then I switched chapter 2 and chapter 1, and now I think I have a start at ...

“A Natural History of Dragons” by Marie Brennan. I basically told the boy to buy me this for Christmas, so he did. He started reading it on the subway on the way home from the store, and then had to find another slipcover to put on it so he could continue reading it in my presence. I was sort of wondering why he was reading “7 th Sigma” by Steven Gould again (not that there’s anything wrong with that book), but it   turned out it was the only hardcover he could find in the house that was the same size. So he’s carrying on the family tradition of reading books before giving them away, so when someone gives a book, the recipient can say “thanks, how was it?” He found the author photo at the back intimidating. I loved the narrator’s voice, especially when she dissed her previous book. So charming! “Vicious” by V.E. Schwab . Got it for Christmas because I asked for it. There were some stressful moments reading this book, but VES did a good job moving things along so the stre...