Robynettely

This is sure to become a scene when I finally get around to writing my Christopher Guest-style sendup of a community band. Last night after I arrived at band practice, one of the other members sought me out in the washroom to ask me if it was okay if another member (who currently plays bass) plays second oboe. She's playing oboe in "the other band", and having so much fun, she just doesn't want to play bass any more. Did they think I was going to lock myself in a stall and have a crying jag at the prospect? I said yeah, she was fine, it would be fine. I am secure in my first oboe-ness. But then the conductor came up to me (in the actual band room) to ask if it was really okay. And I said yeah, it would be good to have someone else playing oboe, for those times when for some reason I can't make it to a concert, and I have guilt, and I'm on vacation in Maine, sitting there thinking to myself that if I was home right now, I'd be at some mall, playing a concer...

Last night I started reading my karate/zombie novel, because after 9-and-a-half months, I really couldn't put it off any longer. Okay, actually the real reason I started reading it was because I was on the TPL website, and I discovered the writer-in-residence this autumn is a YA author. If I want to submit the first 25 pages to him for crit/review, I probably ought to read it first, and do at least a little bit of clean-up. The first chapter, the way they are, is about three-quarters giant stinky fish head that needs to be lopped off. The second chapter didn't offend me, the third chapter didn't offend me, and I liked parts of the fourth chapter very much. That's probably as much as I'll get to submit. I think I will focus on the first chapter before I send it in, I hope by the end of the weekend... I lay awake last night rewriting the opening in my head, and at 1:30, I had to turn the light on and write it down. Sad but true.

Yesterday I earned my first bee on OWW! A few days ago I was chatting with one of my karate buddies, and he said to me "you're by far the most naturally athletic of the people in your Kyu." I nodded and said thank you, and thought to myself, "Yeah, but that's just because I'm the youngest (!). It's because everyone else is injured right now." And then I thought to myself, "hey, wait a minute, I don't have to make excuses for being good at something." And anyway, we all know my karate problems are mental.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/Families+donors+misled+death/3525136/story.html As Miracle Max in The Princess Bride says, "Your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. "

Something Catherynne M. Valente said on her blog a few weeks ago is nagging at my brain. She said she can smell a story written to fulfill a SFWA requirement a mile away. And then a few days later, someone asked me why I write, and after having a hard time coming up with an answer, I said I couldn't imagine not. And that's true. And then somehow in the same conversation, I said that I turned from editing my novel to working on some short stories because they seem like something I can finish. Not like a novel, which seems like it will go on forever. I can't even imagine writing a story to fulfill membership requirements in SFWA. And if I did, I can't imagine anyone buying it. But do I look like I fall into that category? I don't know.

" Unicorn". Back from market #6, with a nice note. Need to get it out of here again, but vacation got in the way. "Dolphin". Still at market #1... Kinda sucks, because there's another thing I would have sent it to if it had been rejected, but that's closed now.

"The Bezoar". A short story, up on OWW during crit marathon. Got seven crits, useful stuff. "The Rabbits". Short story, first draft completed August 14. Typed August 16. It’s over 14,000 words long, and I’m now working on the second draft. I want to get this on OWW. The Water Leopard. Started a short story for this (it’s linked shorts with connectives). Would like the short done by the end of the week. “Succubus”. A short story started, just wrote a few words and a page of notes. Probably I’ll write this to its conclusion when I’m done the Water Leopard short. Morrigan. Armholes! We have them! Tempting II. Fin. Gift Socks. First started. Kingdom Gloves. First started.

"The Great Wall" by John Man. Ed had gotten this out of the library. It’s part history, part travelogue, part a description of modern China. Ed had recently read a few books about Ghengis Khan, and we both read GGK’s “Under Heaven”, and this gave a nice historical perspective. The only problem I had was sometimes I would lose track of what historical figure we were talking about. I wished he used what I think of as the Rolling Stone style – where after you mention someone, you come up with a mnemonic for that person – you know, Kublai Khan, grandson of Ghengis, or something like that. Oh, the other annoying thing was occasionally the author would say “for that story, see my other book.” Um, no. “Who Fears Death” by Nnedi Okorafor. A book about genocide and female genital mutilation, how can you go wrong with that? People need to talk, write, think about these issues, because the alternative is even more horrific. It is a truly beautiful book. I loved the main character, th...

"Unicorn". At market #6, but I got actual comments on rejection #5! Ed thought they were harsh. I thought they were one editor's opinion. "Dolphin". Still at market #1. I followed up. They're still deciding.

"The Sorceress of Venice" by Salman Rushdie. I'd read somewhere that if the SF community could go back in time and save Salman Rushdie, they should have given him a Nebula for his first book, and then he would have fallen into genre obscurity forever after, and no fatwa ever would have been issued. And that made me curious. I'd never read a book by him before. It reminded me of Catherynne M. Valente. After a while I started to get the characters all confused, because there were a lot of them. This book really seemed to want to be read out loud. It's a story-within a story, and the inside story steals bits of the outside story. I felt like I didn't get the maximum value out of this book, because there were in-jokes I'm sure I missed. You know those footnoted versions of, say, TS Eliot, that you have to read in high school or university English classes? This book seemed like the modern equivalent of those, but without the footnotes. I found myself wishing I...

Manners. I wrote "Done" on this sucker on July 5. I'm so glad it's over. Don't know why I kept going on it. "TheBogWitch". Fifth draft included changes from the two crits I got on OWW. Needs at least one more draft. Karate Zombies. Brainstormed to define the zombieism disease. I have some outstanding questions: How did patient zero become infected? Climax -- time and logistics? "The Bezoar". Seemingly abandoned, though I'm still carrying a draft around. Strange, because I think it's not that bad of a story. It might have made it up on OWW if my USB key hadn't stopped working on my desktop computer at work (I'm pretty sure it's the computer, not the key, because my iPod doesn't sync properly either). "The Rabbits". Short story that needs a better title. Started writing this as my page-a-day on July 6. It's nice to have a page-a-day that I'm actually enthusiastic about. I musst have been at one point...

Yesterday I found out from Tor.com or somewhere that Kelley Armstrong had taught a week-long workshop at U of T about writing dark urban fantasy. And I thought to myself, I should have gone to that, if I had qualified, and I could get the time off, and, and, and. But the real problem was that I didn't know about it until afterwards. So today's question, for all my faithful readers out there is, how would I have found out about that? I don't think online stalking of Kelley Armstrong is the answer, because what if it's not her, it's Carrie Vaughn next time? I can't online stalk everyone. I can't keep watching U of T wherever they would have listed something like that, because what if next time it's at York, or Ryerson? I can't watch all institutions. And what if it's not even at an institution? Is there a clearinghouse type place, preferably online, that would tell me about things like that happening in, say, a 100-mile radius of my house? Even a b...

We've had sackings here at the dayjob. There are people who are "affected by the layoffs". These are people who have been laid off. Well, not really. There's no hope of rehiring, and that's what I always think of layoffs as meaning. But firing isn't the right word, either. I guess restructured it is. Anyway, the woman in charge of transferring a satellite office's stuff to my office told me someone was "very affected by the layoffs", which meant not only was she being laid off, she was also angry about it. You know how your high school English teacher said that no sentence is ever enhanced by the addition of the word "Very"? This one was.

I got an email from the CEO of the professional organization I belong to (it wasn't personal -- I assume she sent it to everyone). In it, she outlined in over 500 words why she'd changed her name. It reminded me of this woman I worked with (same first name, now, actually) who sent us really long emails about how much flute therapy (playing her flute for seniors) was helping her depression. I sit to the right of the flutes in my band, and I wear an earplug. This actually makes the nearest one, who used to be an audiologist, happy.

I'm not going to be able to wear out these rope wedge platform sandals before they go out of style (mostly because I can't get up sufficient speed to go anywhere in them). I wish termites would discover them, so the heels disintegrate as I walk. Today would be a good day for this to happen, because I have spare shoes in my desk.

This evening I took the boy to the mall to buy season 2 of Smallville. Whilst there, I continued my search for the perfect nail polish. And I found it. Turns out the nail polish of my dreams is "Rumple's Wiggins" from OPI's Shrek ever after collection. And all the 14-year-old girls beat me to it, so it's sold out at the mall, because being 14-year-old girls they don't have jobs. The color I wound up with (because once I'd found the color I wanted, and discovered it was not in stock, I was committed to buying something, somehow) was "Panda-monium Pink", which I think is a Kung-Fu Panda tie-in color. There's a whole world of movie tie-in nail polish that somehow I had missed out on before. And now I'm wearing it, at work. Normally I don't wear nail polish at work (just on my toes, which my coworkers rarely see), because I have enough problems being taken seriously already, what with the bad seated posture and whatnot. But now I am weari...

I don't know how long the link will work, but http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/baby-inside-blast-walls It kind of reminds me of when I was pregnant and one of my (male) coworkers came up to me and asked me if I really thought I should be riding my bike, in my condition. And then someone else who overheard the comment went to human resources, and HR made him come and apologize to me. I continued riding my bike, to my doctor's appointments, even. I hope scientists "discover" soon that being extremely bored and housebound is bad for fetuses. And also, the themes of the short story that is in my brain and needs to be written make me feel awkward.

"Specials" by Scott Westerfield. He's really good at the ending that concludes the story and yet leads to a desperate need to start the sequel. Most irritating. This one took me a little while to get into, but then I finished it in about two sittings. I found the ending satisfying, and don't really feel the burning desire to read book 4, which is fortunate, because we don't have it around the house. "Under Heaven" by Guy Gavriel Kay. After all the YA stuff I've been reading, the first chapter of this book was harrowing. Ed told me the first chapter of a GGK book always is, except the first book of Fionavar. The second chapter just flew by. I didn't really finish this book in June, but I felt ridiculous only having finished one book. That's lame, I guess. I love how he manages foreshadowing, and how he ties up various characters with expository sections (i.e., Rain), and handles multiple POVs.

Manners. First draft novel. 98% complete. A few days ago I wrote a list of the next five things that need to happen, and then I can end this wretched mess. I think it will be done and gone in July. Maybe even next week. "TheBogWitch". I hadn't reallly finished the fourth draft (character/dialog) in May, so I finished that (4500 words). Then I let Ed read it and did the fifth draft (prose) which took me to 4080 words. By the time I put it on OWW for feedback, it was down to 3934 or thereabouts. After reading the feedback I got, I think I may have cut too deeply. It has less than half the words it had before, having started around 8900. Atmosphere, setting, and characterization may have suffered. The only thing I really added was a different ending. This should be done-for-real by the end of July. That's a reasonable goal. Karate Zombies. The boy became my third reader on this novel, and when he finished it, he asked me "What do you think was the climax?" I...

"Unicorn". Still at market #5. "Dolphin". It had been read by five people now, so I figured it was time for a last pass and then to ship it out. And so I have finally graduated from VP. That only took me seven months. At market #1... I so wanted to have a third thing out there by the end of June, but it was not to be. I think I was trying to fit the story into too short of a package, and now I need to add part of a thousand words back in. Different words, though. And it's not so far from being done, really. I totally want to send that one to Weird Tales, as I've heard really entertaining things about their rejection form, not that getting rejected is the goal, but, oh, you know what I mean.