In Process -- August 2016

1st draft
Continued Season 11 Writing Excuses exercises.

This month I got to write a couple of short stories for these.

“The Stairs Going Up”. 2500-word short story, done.

“The ex-magician’s apprentice”. 4000-word short story, not quite done.

Editing

“Labyrinth Moon”. My crazy plan with the Online Writing Workshop is to finish stories, send them out and get them their rejections (if that’s what they garner…) and then put them on OWW in order to get critical feedback because I get rather a lot of the form rejections. There are only two stories in my backlog that meet the requirements, so this month my goal was to finish a couple of things and get them circulating so they can accrue those rejections. And here we are, sigh. I got to the point where I couldn’t look at it anymore and set it aside. Maybe next month?
“The Cicatrix Diary”. Ignored.
“Volcano”. The problem was the first scene was 3x as long as it needed to be. It’s shorter and better now. The rest? Ugh.
“Imp Face”. Ignored.

Connecting

Tweeted some circus stuff.

Critted 7; close to my goal of two per week.

Got back one more crit on the one story.

Circulating
2

Knitting
Ann Boleyn (1998). At the start of the month I was getting ready to rip out seven rows of the first sleeve, do eight more rows of the body, then start the sleeve again. But then I changed my mind and just kept on with the sleeve I’d started. Then I ripped out four inches of sleeve and added seven stitches of width to it and I think I’m happy now, but I have about 20 less rows than I did.

Folded mini dress. Finished.

Gift sock. Don’t tell anyone.

Eir by Elsebeth Lavold. Kind of based on the tee in “suicide squad” because I don’t have enough white. I cast it on because I need to always have something with vast expanses of stocking stitch. I used a cone of Silk-Cotton and a skein of purple silk, and used up most of the white and all of the purple, which is good.

Baby booties. Two pairs, both gold. One is for a work shower, the other is for a friend.

What I read: September 2025

LHC #295: "The Last to Leave the Room" by Caitlin Starling. Audiobook. Workplace horror? Loved it. "Careless People" by Sarah Wynn-Williams. Hard copy, for office Data Ethics book club. The stories about Sheryl Sandberg really made me like my boss better. LHC #296: "The Fated Sky" by Mary Robinette Kowal. Hard copy. This got moved up the list because Ed had read book 1 in the series and got the rest out of the library. Loved it. He's got the next one in the series upstairs, I suppose I'll read it when he's done. LHC #297: "Bluegrass: A History" by Neil V. Rosenberg. Hard copy. No idea why it was on my list, I don't care that much about bluegrass. Nevertheless, the second half was interesting. I guess the first half was necessary, as it described in great length the way people came and went in Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys band, and also how technology and social pressures affect how music is made and performed. LHC #298: ...

What I read -- October 2025

"The Moomins and the Great Flood" by Tove Jansson. eBook. I read this because Marissa Lingen loves them. It was fine? This was the first one in the series and the only one available online; maybe the later ones are better. Maybe they're better if you read them as a child. "The Relentless Moon" by Mary Robinette Kowal. Hard copy. Read it because Ed had the whole series out of the library. It took a long time to get going, and sometimes I find MRK exhausting. Her white main characters all seem oddly aware of the Black experience. "The Martian Contingency" by Mary Robinette Kowal. Hard copy. Read it because Ed had the whole series out of the library. I don't often read subsequent books in a series in quick succession, and my reaction to this one is a lot of why: I found Alma's voice too similar to Nicole's -- sure, Nicole obsessed about food much more, but they both went on and on about "must support black guy in management" an...

In progress - January 2026

Wind/Water/Salt Chapters 39-51: Nothing Persephone (probably not its real name): NOthing Vinterlys: Worked on Chapter 2 some more. Critted 4 Got back 1 Submissions 0 Out there 0 Rejects 0 Knitting Georgia (Norah Gaughan). Started the month with one sleeve and half a front to go. Finished. Love this sweater. Aberlady (AS Celtic Collection). Did a few rows while listening to podcasts. Summer in Tokyo (Isager): Started. I was looking at the pictures and the charts, and the pattern as written is not what is in the pictures! So odd. I am going to finish up two cones of yarn with this project! Pretty exciting. I hope I don't run out of light blue. I was working along on it, and if you go and look at the sweater, it's knit bottom-up, and I was at the part where I only had two colors, about 5" maybe. And I was thinking, "wow, this is pretty ugly! Maybe I should stop...

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