Robynettely

One of the problems with teaching acro to adults, I gather, is finding coaches. We tend to wear them out quickly. Spotting kids is easy. Grownups weigh a ton, and our  brains get in the way of being able to do moves our bodies could do. Hence, it was a wonderful thing when I was doing "bouncy cartwheels" on the air track last night and I said to my coach, "I really feel like I could do an arial on here," and he said "Next turn I'll spot you." He doesn't normally spot unless he knows you can do a move already, and just need the little bit of confidence to push you over. Not like it helped. One of my hands still insisted on going on the ground. But, it didn't touch hard. Next class it will go better! Here's a drawing I did during a meeting last week. That's what my hands should do. Alas.

“Arctic Rising” by Tobias S. Buckell. When I saw Ed had gotten it out of the library, I asked if I could read it too. It was on my list because Twitter often sends links to commentary TSB has written, and also I have part of a near-future SF set in the Arctic, so I was curious what he did with it. If I was a copy editor, I’d have a very hard time with this book because his writing is stylistically so different from mine. I use past perfect way more than he does, and tend to comma things together rather than using sentence fragments. Nevertheless, it was an entertaining thriller with a strong female lead and I had no trouble getting through it. “War Reporting for Cowards” by Chris Ayres. Ed bought this at a book fair and loved it, and forced it on me. The humor was a little too British for my taste (like it was trying too hard, and I’m not sure Wodehouse is a good role model for everyone) but the story itself, of how a guy finds himself an embed in Iraq was pretty entertaining...

First Draft “Limering”. Around 50,000 words. “As light as a bird”. So I had written a couple of thousand words (!) of notes, while sitting in teleconferences and the like. I typed them up into something like a draft of a short story.  Editing “Wind/Water/Salt”. Still working on “don’t look back Draft 2: Plot/gross story structure.”   Maybe half done. In the first draft, the middle is the hard part. In the second draft, not so much. It’s mostly deleting.  Connecting -- Circulating -- Knitting “Kaffeklatsch” (self-designed).   Now have 6” of body; should just push and finish the wretched thing. It’s not like I can wear it until fall, but whatever. “St. Anthony’s Ribbon” (self-designed). Occasionally knitted two rows while standing around. Considering the rows are 12 stitches each, this was not a big time commitment. I’m still on the first sleeve.   “Ceremonial Armour” (Kaffe Fassett, knit from a photo). ...