Robynettely

First Draft “Limering”. Around 59,000 words. Editing “Wind/Water/Salt”. Sometimes I feel guilty that I ignore this wretched thing for days on end. Then I have an epiphany and I can work like crazy. This month’s epiphany was who the real bad guy is, so I had to go backward and seed that in a bit. So so much for this being a “don’t look back” draft. I am 2/3 through, though. Now I’m trying to work that character into the end of act II. Connecting -- Circulating -- Knitting This month I came up with a stupid new rule for myself so I would finish some things. That’s because I’ve got three projects hanging around since 2013 (two I started in December, but still). If I finish one thing and finish a stage of another, I can start a new project. Here’s how it went: “Portree” (Martin Storey Scottish Collection). Finished. Ran out of the main color (black) so I did the neck in pink instead. It looks fine. Probably better, actually, since I don’t really...

“ China Mountain Zhang” by Maureen McHugh . It kept winding up on my list, which is stupid, so I just requested it from the library. Problem solved! The trigger actually was an Atlantic article about other literary references that might better explain the NSA/Snowden thing than Orwell. In Orwell, everyone is surveilled pretty much equally. In Zhang’s world, only certain people really have to worry about surveillance, which is more true of our current situation. Zhang was a really well-drawn character, and I was happy to see him come to an optimistic end. “The Blue Blazes” by Chuck Wendig. His blog is one of my daily stops. I had meant to read “blackbirds” by same, but I didn’t buy it, and then this one was on (one day only!) for 1.99 on kindle, so I bought it instead. Twice actually, by accident. I started it, then I got some library books so I set it aside, then I started it again. If I read this to see if his advice was worth taking, um, yes, yes it is. The plot moved along...