Robynettely

So we'll see how I do. The boy was casting about for a book to read a few evenings ago, so I gave him a pile of things he hadn't read before. He asked which I recommended, so I pulled out Uninvited by Justine Musk. He read it. He liked it. He said he thinks there ought to be a sequel. Rachael Ray should be paying me a commission. I have raved about my RR meals so much that two of the people who sit in my area at work have bought a RR book in the last month. Last night I went through my giant filing cabinet. My god, I have a lot of first drafts that have never seen eyeballs again. I had come up with the crazy idea that I should apply to Viable Paradise , so I was looking for something to brush up and send in. My brain had fixated on one particular story, which I never found (however, I did find the stocks I was looking for about three years ago). I guess when you write a page per day for 15 years, that piles up. Ugh. A lot of the books I read come from the library. Unfortunate...

Why I read it: Part of the Cybil awards last year. I'd requested it from the library on January 2, 2008 (1) and about five days ago the library website started listing it as "in transit". You know how ominous those words are to me, after the Nicola Barker "Darkmans" episode. Anyway, so yesterday was Kagami Baraki in my dojo (I kept calling it Kobiyashi Maruk, but I know that's wrong), which ran from 10am until 6pm. The only time I can ever get to the library is on a Saturday (it's across the street from karate, which is why I request books be sent there, since I go there 2x per week). So I wasted half of my lunch break getting out of my gi and running across to see if the book was there, because if it was, then the clock starts ticking, and if I don't pick it up within the seven days or whatever (and I'm not totally believing of when those days begin, because I've had some bad experiences in the past) then I go to the back of the line. And I...

Why I read it: I am beginning to evidence a little bit of a theme here. First a vampire book with no vampires in it, then a Very Popular YA vampire book, now a less-well-known YA vampire book. I can stop any time I want. Oh, okay, just one more and then I'll stop. I bought this for the boy for Christmas 07 not because I thought he would like it, but because I fell in love with the title, and it was an excuse to bring it into the house. I'm not sure he finished reading it. He may have found it disturbing and creepy. Tastes like chicken: The Black Company, The White Rose, Shadows Linger (actually a series I read because of the fabulous title of that last one... There's only one other book I can think fo that I read because of the title: "Rumors of Spring") And those books go back to that bio of John Hawkwood that I read a couple of years ago and totally recommend to anyone who wants a history of the basis of fantasy literature. Stylistically, a lot of the Garth Ni...

Why I read it: The boy read the entire series twice, and then he saw the movie, which he said was bad. I didn't let him know I was reading this, because he'd forbidden it to me. Naturally, that made it all the more intriguing. Also, a lot of people on the internet have opinions about it. Bookmark: Envelope for a yarn gift card from the boy. Tastes like chicken: I hate to say this, but it reminded me a lot of my dad's novel. Mostly that's because I felt like they came from the same place -- the ongoing soap opera in our heads that tell ourselves over periods of months or years, to entertain ourselves when we're bored standing in line, or before we fall asleep at night. (Everyone else does that, right?). The same way my dad had many, many references to the tear in Fiona's sweater, Twilight had many, many references to Bella's clumsiness. I get the idea. What I liked: It was certainly a quick read. The boy read it the first time in the car on the way to Mai...

Several years ago, I received what was perhaps the worst piece of fortune cookie advice ever, "keep your plans secret for now." The problems stemming from this advice are myriad. When does "now" end? Which plans? Secret from whom? Okay, maybe not myriad, but three. Somehow I chose to keep all my plans secret from everyone forever. Which makes it kind of hard to act on them, you know? It's easy to not move forward, not even make plans, if I'm keeping them to myself. There's no commit there, no failure to live up to promise. It's too easy. So now, for the whole world, I say this: I have a novel (okay, I have about seven, and they're all in rough draft). I plan to edit it, and get it published. Mmmm, black belt. Me want. A little scared of how it might change me, but we'll work through that. There, not secrets any more. That felt good.

Why I read it: I read her blog, which is entertaining because of the celebrity stuff I suppose, but also because she is very open about her life. Also, she did Tai Kwon Do. A couple of days ago, she said she writes "vampire books with no vampires in them". Excellent. I got the book for Christmas from Ed (because I'd provided him with a list of "a book by..." type items). Bookmark: Envelope from a Customs questionnaire I received back in August, the last time I crossed the border. Tastes like Chicken: Tough one, this time. (Edited later to add:) I think if Tim Wynne-Jones were to write a different book than the two I read that were exactly the same, it might come out like this. That is a good thing. What I liked: So very much. The voice was good. It made me laugh. I found Kelly really believable as a teenager, I found her parents believable as parents of teenagers, I found her brother believable as someone who had expectations placed on him that just weren...

Thoughts some people seemed to be thinking whilst driving home after karate last night in the snow: It has snowed an inch in the last half hour! I shall drive faster, in order to get home quickly, in case conditions get worse! There are three lanes on this street, and one other car. Perhaps I should tailgate her. One of the sweetest moments of my life was one evening last winter when I was driving to band practice. it was snowing. I glanced in my rear view mirror, and there was an SUV driving way too close to me, the way they do. I glanced at the road in front of me. I glanced back in the rear view mirror, and the SUV was now facing the wrong direction in traffic, maybe 50 meters back, and miraculously, no one had hit it. Sometimes when I just need a smile, I think of that.

Why I read it: I'm back from my vacation visiting my dad and seeing my sisters, and almost all the reading I did was probably about 100,000 words of my dad's novel mark VII. That means there are six predecessors (although he claims to have "lost" the first one). That 100,000 or so words was 230 pages. There are supposedly another thousand pages. I read maybe 32 chapters. there are over a hundred. It was really long. I suggested he take out about ten of those 32 chapters. I hope he does. Tastes like chicken: maybe Rick Blechta's book, because it takes place largely with North Americans trying to find their way around in Europe (the parts I would have him keep, anyway). Bookmark: none. Loose sheets. What I liked : There are two storylines that converged a few chapters before I stopped reading. I liked the one about the Gutenberg bible, or maybe the weapons. Not so much : The storyline that followed the messed-up teenaged girl had way too much repetitive detail. W...

Why I read it: My sister asked for it for Christmas, and we have a little bit of a tradition in our family: when someone gives you a book, you say "how was it?" Also, I read a review of it in Salon , and the review said 80% of it was good, and I was curious about both the topic, and whether the last bit was as bad as the reviewer had said. Bookmark: Paybuck with Margaret Atwood's picture on it. Tastes like chicken: The Amy Vanderbilt Etiquette book I bought last week. Not so much the other MA books I've read before, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I had a strong aversion to Surfacing. What I liked: First of all, I really enjoyed the way she connected debt to wrecking the environment. As Elizabeth May said in the CDN election a couple of months ago, being Green means living within your means, which is a matter of fiscal policy as well as environmental. Also, I've read some of the same books that MA referred to in this one. That made me feel smart. And the...

...because we seem to have lost all sense of perspective. We're having a snowstorm right now. It's snowing. It's cold. But it's a Snowpocalypse ? The Snowmageddon ? Apparently we're going to get about 20cm. I'm sure we'll all die.

On the weekend I went to see my friend Nadine. She asked me to send her a short story. Except at the same time, she told me the tale of her friend who writes songs, who always gets upset and defensive when she tears their work to shreds. Sell it to me, this idea of sending stories your way! Yesterday, I emailed two short stories to her. I wonder if that was a bad idea...

There's an ad for a funeral home that runs in my local paper. It reads something like: "Shan Jahan built the Taj Mahal in his favourite wife's memory. What's your plan?" And I always think to myself, "Inadequate, in comparison."

Usually I avoid those royalist documentaries on the CBC, but I was trying to finish knitting a sock, and surfing to find something better would have used one of my hands, so I left the channel where it was. And thus, I watched "Prince Charles's Other Mistress", the story of Dale Tryon. The whole time I was thinking to myself, some future Phillipa Gregory is going to write an awesome historical novel about this. In her sad demise, Dale jumped out of a window, or was pushed, and broke her back, and apparently went mad. I can see why people would want to write semi-biographical historical novels. If it was fiction, people would say it was too over the top, and no one would ever do that in real life. More shockingly (if that's possible), in my lifetime, women are still more eligible to be the mistress of the Prince of Wales if they are married, and a woman will stay faithful to her husband after marriage until she produces a male heir, at which point it seems sort of li...

Why I read it: It had been lying around my house for a long time. I think I got it from my friend Shari when she got rid of most of her books when she moved to England like seven years ago. The boy has been reading "The Chrysalids", also by Wyndham, for English class at school. I was wondering if this would be a good thing to recommend to him, now that he's finished the Twilight series for the second time, so I read it. I'm not sure it's a good choice for the boy, because it doesn't really have kid protagonists. Also, I might be going through a stage of "reading from the stash" just a little bit. Tastes like chicken: HG Wells, which is referenced a lot later in the story, and maybe the new Battlestar Galactica. Bookmark : One of those cheque-ordering forms from my chequebook. What I liked: The very British style. There were moments that were quite funny to me, because they were just so deadpan. I love the deadpan style. I liked the way it didn...

That's my total word count today on Watcher. Surely I can remove three more words. Time for a new draft!

Last night I typed up the story I wrote for the Toronto Star Short Story Contest. And you know what? This one is almost a thousand words too long, too! Is everything I write 40% longer than I intended? Today I will print it, and I already thought of some ways it could be less crap. 29 days...

Why I read it: I bought this two or three years ago at the Fryeburg fleamarket because I needed something to occupy the boy with for a few hours (those trips to the fleamarket with my relatives can be interminable). And then, this book appeared on a list of good books that shouldn't be forgotten (get them out of your local library!) in the back of I think "The Thief" by Megan Whalen Turner. That moved it up the list. And then, I used it for a while as my carry around book. And then I just decided to finish it. Bookmark: Mexican 50 peso note. Tastes like chicken: While the intro referred a lot to Lewis Carroll, this seemed more like "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" to me. What I liked: The magic was not treated like magic at all. Maybe it's because the main character starts out as eight years old, and is maybe 10 by the end. But the magic was just there, and treated like nature. There was a wonderful acceptance of the world just as it is, without t...

Why I read it: Last March I wandered over to the Chapters across from the YMCA, and I went up the stairs to where the good books are, and there, sitting at the signing table, was Rick Blechta . I played for him years ago at the RCM, and I'd bought one of his books then, and read it, and it was great to see him again. And of course I bought a book. It's kind of scary to read a book by someone you know and like. What if I hate it? What if it sucks? So it took a little while to get around to it. Also, crime fiction isn't really my genre. Bookmark: Promo for "A Case of You", Rick's latest book. Tastes like chicken: Probably the other book by Rick that I've read, "The Lark Ascending", which features the same characters. Other than that, well, I dunno. I don't read much crime fiction (I generally find the hard-boiled voice not florid enough. Not enough metaphors or something. Too many short sentences, not enough commas). What I liked: First, I ...

Yep, I entered my blog into this little thing: http://www.typealyzer.com/ And I am... ESTP - The Doers The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities. The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time. Somewhat true.

It's very hard to write a story in third-person when you have been deeply engrossed in a book written in first-person. Especially when that book switches first-person viewpoints.