Robynettely

I wish I remember how we got on the subject, but I don't so I suppose I should let it go. But Ed asked me would I take advice from Anne McCaffrey (yes), Robert Jordan (yes), Nathaniel Brandon (yes), GRRM (yes), Orson Scott Card (yes).* And then he said "who wouldn't you take writing advice from?" I can't think of anyone. Advice is what it is, I think. As a writer, I'm open to people giving it, though I can pick through and choose the bits I want to actually use -- an acquired skill, from OWW and VP and working as a TW. But then, later this may change. Updated to add:  I just remembered who I said I might not take advice from, after thinking and thinking. I said William Shatner, because I'm not sure he really wrote all those Tekwar books. But thinking about it later, being an actor and having read many, many scripts, I bet he's got a really good sense of plot. *Not sure I got all the names right, but they're not important -- the gist is.

Yesterday I had a dentist appointment very early in the morning (8:30), and so I didn't have a chance to do my normal Fairfax writing routine. Normally I sit down and write as fast as possible to get the page (250 words) down before 8:15 when it's time to nag the boy and go to work. So I wrote my page in the evening instead. And because I was avoiding an editing project, I wrote it much earlier than I normally would have, for an evening. On weekends I write my page in the evening because I'm asleep at 8-8:15 in the morning, and when I get up I have a different routine that doesn't end with nagging the boy before going to work, or start with making myself a lunch to take with me. Anyway, all of this is to say, that I wrote p. 367 on the top of the page and had a mild epiphany. I have been working on this thing for over a year. If you subtract out the times when I had punishment pages (where I forgot or was too extremely exhausted to write my page one day, so the next d...

One of the places I go when I need a brain break is zenhabits.net . I don’t always agree with Leo, but he’s got an interesting perspective. He recently did a post called “the three-day monk habit” (go read the post  and poke around, he’s got lots of good ideas, and come back). This one is one of the ones I disagree with. See, I write every day, and I don’t do any of the stuff he suggests.   I write 1 st thing in the morning so I circumvent free will, I don’t listen to music because it would distract me, I doubt constantly, I don’t gradually increase because there’s no time in my 20-minute writing block, and I don’t have any momentum.  I am apparently totally a three-day monk. The best way for me to do something is to find a way to turn it into a sprint. Editing, I have to sit down and slog through as fast as possible. Last year when I was editing that novel, I broke it into six sprints, and sat down with it for hours at a stretch, then took some days off from it...

First Draft   “Fairfax”. Yeah, so I’m up around 85,000 words now. I may be eight chapters from the end, so I’m going to wind up with about 105,000 words. That’s more than I’d planned, but gets it done before November. This year I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo again, so I’m already planning for that. When this is done, one of my activities will be to type up one of the other novels, I think “St. Praxis”. These are the carrots I hold out in front of myself to keep things progressing.  “Lucky Kate”. First draft started. Editing Wrote about 15,000 words into something that I won’t really talk about right now, that I also took some words out of. Might have written more than 15K there, actually, as I did remove some blocks of text as I was putting in those other ones. The net gain was 15K.

Two of these I had started in April, so that month wasn’t as much a wasteland as it looked like (and I was sidetracked for a good reason!), and this month isn’t as awesomely prolific as it looks, either. “Headhunter” by Timothy Findley. At Ad Astra, this was described as an urban gothic fantasy, so I thought I’d read it. I’ve read at least one other of his books, “Not wanted on the voyage”, which I read at least twice, so I figured I’d like the style. The story is Heart of Darkness but takes place in Toronto, which even if I didn’t like the story and the characters would make it an entertaining read for me, since I’m deeply involved with the setting. (I often say that there are a whole lot of different reasons I’ll watch a movie, and it doesn’t necessarily have to have a good plot, decent characters, or engaging acting to keep me entertained – it can also have really awesome art direction or fabulous costumes or an amazing setting. Many people are not so tolerant. Books are simi...

First Draft “Fairfax”. Worked on my elevator pitch. I can tell I’m in the middle of this book now, because I hate its boring plot and boring characters, and feel like they’re just wandering around doing nothing. Or maybe they are. God, I want to write “Lucky Kate”. May! Editing “Apophis”. Went through the OWW notes that I could find and did another draft. Then I was at the flash fiction panel at Ad Astra, and one of the editors said “Why are you the person writing this story?” (not to me, but in general). With Apophis, I thought about that and realized that one of the characters is not autistic, he’s a robot. So that meant a lot of the dialog could go. I had a plan to finish this story “by the end of the week” and send it out, because everything needs a deadline and I can’t just keep writing the same story for two years, but then something else came up and I abandoned it because that was more important. I’ll do it in May. Not Cold Enough. At Acro during March break, we h...

It's unlikely I'll read another book tonight since I guess I should do my taxes instead, so I'll just post this now. OWW: Nothing. Yeah, I'm not sure this is valuable for me anymore.  “Throne of the Crescent Moon” by Saladin Ahmed. Library book! Stylistically very different from the last few books I read. I was having a hard time with it until I realized that it’s sword-and-sorcery, and the tropes are for that sub-genre, not the high fantasy that I usually read. This realization led to an interesting conversation with the boy where I tried to explain the difference between the two sub-genres. I’ll be interested to see what characters pop up in the next book in the series. “Not Cold Enough”. Not sure it counts to read things I wrote myself, but I did read the whole thing. 

So there I was at Ad Astra on Sunday morning, doing a workshop on editing/revising and pitching, led by Julie Czerneda. She put us in groups, and when we were all introducing ourselves (the three of us in my group), Leo asked "so what do you write"? And I froze. Which is pretty bad when you're in a workshop about pitching. I thought about Fairfax, which is historical fantasy I guess (since Bucklepunk wouldn't ring a bell for anyone). I thought about Apocryphal and Toothbrushing club, which are both Urban Fantasy, and I said something lame and vague and didn't answer at all. We were supposed to register for the workshop on Friday night, but I didn't know that, either because I didn't read the program very closely, or because it wasn't really in there (?). So I wandered in, and she asked me if I was on her list, and I said was I supposed to put my name on a list? And she said she had room, that was fine. I said did I have to do any writing, and she sai...

I actually had the idea for this story the evening before the challenge came out. We were standing around after karate class talking about how I broke Mike's nose (this was like two or three years ago, and I was the third person to break it in about two months, so I don't feel that guilty; it was getting pretty weak) and how it's never going to heal now, and it will just get longer and longer, that bit that's never going to reattach, and he'll be able to swing it and hit people like a third arm... anyway. "Have you been taking your meds?" Simone asked. If she was calling, she was probably at home, bored. "Yes," he lied. He could feel the skin stretching on his nose, the cartilage pushing outward and, like a faun growing antlers, he wanted to rub the stretched flesh. "You aren't, are you?" Simone said. She sounded like she was pacing, probably tidying up her condo. "Yeah, I am," said Jack. The meds were between him and his ...

OWW: Nothing. “In Ashes Lie” by Marie Brennan. Sometimes I let Ed read something when I’m done with it, and he loves it and goes to the library and requests everything else in the series. And then of course I’m committed. This was good, but I liked the first one better. “A Star Shall Fall” by Marie Brennan. It was nice to have less Lune. “Fairfax”, which is my current major project, is a historical fantasy, I suppose. It’s neat to see an example of pulling off successfully all the research that is required to make that work. It seems like every day I write something and think to myself, “I’ll have to look that up later,” whether it be about what the houses would have looked like, what they would have been made out of, what the people would have eaten... The two books I’ve read are not enough. I’m not sure anything will ever be enough. “With Fate Conspire” by Marie Brennan. Toronto Public Library provided me with a bit of a respite on finishing the fourth book of this series (Ed had ...

First Draft “Fairfax”. I’m on Chapter 28 now, with something above 70,000 words. A couple of days ago one of my friends asked me what it’s about, and my elevator pitch absolutely failed me! It wasn’t there! So I should work on that, I guess. “Lucky Kate”. Short story, just a pile of notes right now. I get to write this when I have an actual main character, rather than just a situation, and once I do Draft 4 of Chickpea (Done, why doesn't this place have a strike-through?), a final draft of Apophis, and get XTree on OWW. Totally doable, right? Editing “XTree”. (short story) Started the month part way through the third draft. Finished that... Next I want to get it on OWW. “Chickpea”. (short story) On March 12, I went through my piles and files until I found the current draft of this story. At first, I couldn’t believe what I’d found was the current draft, because it’s not at all close to the version in my head. After a couple of pages, I set it aside and filed for two hours. Ed a...

While reading this , I realized that although "Chickpea" is a zombie story, it has no zombies in it. I wonder if I should fix that in the next draft, or if it's better this way?

I've been trying to edit "Chickpea". Mostly, I had this brilliant idea for a story, "Lucky Kate", and I really want to write that, but I kind of said I would edit some stories instead of just writing first drafts all the time. So, while sitting in a meeting, I wrote a little schedule for myself that said I would do a draft of "Chickpea", and then a final draft of "Apophis" and send it out, and then get "Walnut" onto OWW, and then I could write the draft of "Lucky Kate". Except. More about this story later, but last night I caught myself doing that thing I do. I was trying to edit "Chickpea" without actually reading any of the words. This does not work.

So I said I would edit some stories, rather than just write first drafts all the time. And I’m trying, really I am. But then I had a great idea for how to make a story work, and I just so badly wanted to write it... Lucky Kate! And Mishepishu!

Also, if you're writing a story, and you know the climax involves giant robots, and you've written approximately 70,000 words and there is no sign of any giant robots on the horizon, perhaps you have a problem. And by "you" I mean me, in this case.

At “Magical Words” there was a post about characters, and I realized that all three POV characters are outsiders. I wonder if that’s bad? They’re outsiders for different reasons, and I suppose it might make it easier to fake up the research rather than doing it properly... but that’s a bug, not a feature.

OWW: 1 “The Book of Five Rings” by Miyamoto Musashi (Kaufman translation). I had to read something for my karate essay, and I had this, so I read it. I’m totally glad I read it, but wow, it was a tough read. It seemed like every sentence was quotable, and some of it was so deep that my head would periodically explode. I mean, “There is no such thing as yin/yang. That does not mean yin/yang does not exist.” Oh dear. “Midnight Never Come” by Marie Brennan. I’ve wanted to read this for a couple of years, I think since the book entered the Scalzi household and Krissy took off with it. I got it for Christmas. It started fast and kept moving. I might have forced it on Ed when I was finished. “The Poisoner’s Handbook” by Deborah Blum. I love the microhistories, and this one was fascinating. And it was great carrying it around, because it conferred on me all sorts of notoriety. One person told me he wasn’t eating any of those brownies I brought, because I’d pulled the book out while waiting...

First Draft “Fairfax”. Started month with around 61K words, in Chapter 23. Now I’m on Chapter 26. There was actually a day when I got two pages, instead of just one! “What Would Musashi Do?” This is the essay I had to write for karate class. I did it from start to finish this month, and I’d say it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write. I’m not even sure if it ever got read. Editing “XTree”. (short story) Typed this one up. It turned out to be 9600 words, which is absurd. Still, I find when I edit, sometimes I just chop, chop, chop, and don’t improve things really, just gut the tale. However, this time I’m trying to do better, work with a plan. Last night I did the second pass on the first 28 (of 40) pages. At VP, Jim MacDonald talked about leaving little presents for yourself that you can decide to use later, or not. Some of them I use, the ones I don’t need, I’m taking out. Also, Hal Duncan had a blog post a couple of days ago about editing good sentences. This was g...

Yay, another challenge! You can find it here . Considering one of my known writing issues is all those scenes where my characters sit around eating, this is right up my alley. The bread was obviously poisoned. Kendra was the only one who ate the 12-grain. The child ate wonderbread, or the local grocery store's equivalent brand, because she was ten. The old woman ate that cheap white stuff too, because her gums couldn't tolerate the lumpy bits. So they had to buy two kinds of bread every time they went to the store, and often the bread went stale before it was gone, because who wants a sandwich every day. So the old woman knew Kendra was the only one who ate the 12-grain bread, and she infested it with whatever mould made the medieval people go mad, that infested their grain silos and made them hallucinate religious experiences and eventually sicken and die. The old woman knew Kendra would pick off the green bits, leaving tendrils of poison still deep in the bread to be eaten, g...

I have an essay due on Saturday. It's insane how attractive other projects are, when I have to work on that one. Tonight, if I get through a draft, I get to type up that first draft story from last week. Okay, maybe what's insane is that somehow copy typing has become a reward.