Robynettely

Due to changing management and something to do with how unused holidays appear on balance sheets, some of my US colleagues are complaining about having to use up nine weeks of vacation time by the end of the year, or not being able to come up with something to use those last 53 days, etc.(Canadian employees were never allowed to carry over more than ten days of vacation into the next year so I've never had this problem.) I keep wanting to yell at them, "You could go to Clarion!" But they just don't get it.

First Draft “Limering”. Around 36,000 words. I really would like to write something else now, like this short story that’s in my head. Editing “Wind/Water/Salt”. Still working on the don’t look back Draft 2 (the same approach as draft one, actually). I hope it starts to get shorter rather than longer soon! I didn’t really remove that many words, but with this draft I did get rid of a lot of chapters. I would have got more done, but for that trip to Mexico. Stupid day job! I caught myself doing a very bad thing, and that was trying to make the words there work, rather than deleting them because they made no sense anymore. Deleting is hard! But I wrote about 1800 words of Chapter 12, and moved a whole bunch of stuff, so I’d guess I’m about 1/3 through the second draft. Even though this is what I’m thinking of as the “plot/gross story structure” draft, it’s getting a lot more tension and action, which is good. Connecting  -- Circulating -- ...

“Nightwatch” by Sergei Lukianenko. People talk about this one. I don’t know what I expected. It’s three novellas really, and proves once again that stories are about characters. The Russian perspective on good and evil was really fatalistic and interesting. “One Salt Sea” by Seanan McGuire. I finished this book standing crying in the line for customs in the Houston airport coming back from Mexico. Ed skipped this one, reading the series, because the boy was reading it,but there was a lot of background explained, and I’m glad I have it. “Ashes of Honor” by Seanan McGuire. I was glad I grabbed this one too, since I still had a few hours of flight. SM really has a way with dialog. April’s dialog was the best. Reading these back-to-back, I was kind of wishing Toby did something other than missing children sometimes. “Desert” by J.M.G. Le Clezio. Got it for Christmas as a random gift from my dad. You know how when you start a fantasy novel, sometimes you just let go and...

I usually like Laura Miller's taste in books. But maybe she should take a break from reviewing. Honestly the thing that bothered me the most in this piece was the part about all the community going "read my book" and not looking for something to read. Because I can't imagine writing more than, say, Seanan McGuire, so maybe three books a year. And I read way more than that! Possibly 20x as many! Where else am I going to find out about what to read? Please, suggest away!

“The Ocean at the End of the Lane” by Neil Gaiman. Bought it to give it to my mother. It was so beautiful. Short, and no words were wasted. “Radiant Days” by Elizabeth Hand . Got it for Christmas because I asked for it. EH’s short story collection “Errantry” blew me away -- it had more memorable stories than most collections do – the themes and characters really resonated. This was what I had meant to read after the KJF last month. EH is a punk rock star, wow. “Siberian Dawn” by Jeffrey Tayler. He had exerpts in The Atlantic, I think. The current page-a-day has portions set in Russia, so I thought I’d give it a shot. It had a map in the front! That makes it a fat fantasy, as far as I’m concerned. The book is a travelogue of JT’s trip from eastern Siberia to Poland in 1993. It was delightful, especially the parts where he keeps trying to tell Russians that the US is not perfect, has corruption too, etc. They never seem to get it, and he never seems to get why they don’t. T...

First Draft “Limering”. Around 37,000 words.  Editing “Wind/Water/Salt”. This is the plot-fixing draft. Thur, Feb 6 - Switched chapter 2 and chapter 1. Mon, Feb 10 – wrote 1390 words into Chapter 1. Wed, Feb 12 – Finished fixing Ch 1. Thur, Feb 13 – Fixed Ch 2, moved part of Ch 1 to Ch 6. Mon, Feb 17 – Started writing a new Ch 3. Thur, Feb 20 – Wrote another page of Ch 3. Sun, Feb 23 – Stared blankly at Ch 3. Mon Feb 24 – Outlined Ch 3 since it wasn’t going well, then made an outline for chapters 1 – 12 so I could get things on paper rather than just in my head. Wrote and typed Chapter 3. Wed Feb 26 – Broke chapter 10(b) into chunks and divided between chapters 4 and 7. Thur Feb 27 – Broke chapter 11(b) into chunks and divided between 5 and 15. Draft 2 has become like draft 1 – don’t look back. I would never get past the first three chapters if I didn't just keep plugging away.   Knitting Hella Finished neck, blocke...