Robynettely

If that's not a racist thing to call it, it's what we're having now. I made it up, but it's defined as when the weather goes back below zero after the first commercial patio day. And we went to the Firkin's patio last Friday. Indian winter is nice for running, though. There's a construction site on my run, and a lot of mud. Today it was nicely firmed up, though I had to run around, not through, because they were working (on a Saturday!). I guess they're behind schedule already.

I first encountered this word a few weeks ago on Leah Bobet's blog , but I skipped over and paid it no nevermind. Anyway, it caught my eye again today when I was reading a short story . So I googled it. In November, I did like an hour of research of first-nations (specifically ojicree ) mythology when I was writing the zombie karate novel. How did I not find this? How did I not learn about wendigos (wendigoes?) when I was learning mythology in high school English? And manitous? One of my friends goes to Camp Manitou every summer. How did I not know? Was I asleep? Is this proof of my ADD which no one else agrees I have? What? I'm not needing to culturally appropriate or anything, but it would have been cool to know. Also, this is awesome: http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.fan.heinlein/msg/0920b2f01ac0a248?hl=en . Not sure I ever finished a Heinlein novel. I know I didn't finish "The number of the beast" on account of I found it totally sexist. When I was 15.

Last night I opened the file with my newest short story in it, and found the spot where I'd left off, and put my fingers on the keyboard, and about 600 words fell in. Nice.

So I started writing new, fresh words. How can I make things not get worse when I edit them? I am so scared to even look at the zombie thing.

Today I was surfing a job posting website in my field, and I came across this skill/requirement: Ability to gather, clarify and apply information transmitted verbally, while exhibiting a genuine interest toward the speaker. Too funny.

Last Sunday we went cross-country skiing. Yesterday (Sunday) we went rollerblading. Weird.

Yesterday my friend finished reading the karate zombie novel, which I find amazing. He got through the whole thing! He suggested I add a couple of chapters to give closure on some of the minor characters, which I don't know, may be necessary. I haven't read it. And I sent off Dolphin to the TPL writer-in-residence, which should provide interesting feedback. We'll see. So I think I'll give Dolphin a couple of weeks of rest, and work on Bezoar in the meantime. And maybe start reading my karate zombie novel.

Manners. First draft novel. 85% complete. "Dolphin". Short Story. Editing -- just finished the 4th draft? Got the POV right now. Trying to heighten the horror or tension or, well, anything. If every story has a flaw that you just have to get the reader to ignore, I think the flaw of this story is that nothing much happens in the first half. Maybe somehow I can fix that, or make my poor innocent readers ignore it. "Bezoar". Short Story. Third draft. "In a Nutshell". 233 words of start.

"Unicorn" - Out to market #3. Still. I need to get something else in circulation.

I intended to read five books this month so that I could keep on track to 52 books this year, but somehow that didn't work out. I blame Maire (sweater) that I was knitting. "Sun of Suns" by Karl Schroeder. He's the TPL writer-in-residence right now, so I thought I should read something he wrote in case I decide to go to one of his lectures or submit my work to him (I was thinking I would submit something, but I'm afraid he'll be all full up by the time I'm ready). He thanks David Nickle in the acknowledgements, another Toronto one degree of separation thing. Does every F/SF/H writer in TO owe David Nickle? V. strange. I didn't like the italic font, and the love interest sub-plot for the main character seemed very sudden. Other than that, it was a neat world, with neat characters. Way better than Ringworld. Clearly I don't read enough hard SF. "The Invisible Hook" by Peter T. Leeson. An entertaining look at how golden age pirates (1716-1...

...which is kind of lame. I did get to go cross-country skiing twice this weekend. These were probably the only two times I'll get to do that this winter, because the snow is going fast. It was nice to get some, though. I think it's time to start planning my approach to editing the karate zombie thing. I'd like to not wreck it. Finished Maire by Margaret Mills. Maybe later I'll photograph it and put it on Ravelry. It came out well.

Today while I was having my (adult) karate class, over in the kids' class, I heard a black belt tell the 10 to 14-year-olds, "Yesterday I went to a really interesting kinesiology convention." And I thought to myself, they probably don't think that's a really interesting convention. Also today, my karate friend who is reading my karate zombie novel told me he's on page 205 (of 285). I'm amazed by that. He said he was trying to guess which characters were based on which members of our dojo. I guess that could keep you going. And I just spent the last hour rolling grape leaves for a potluck tomorrow. The problem: we're having a snowstorm right now. The potluck might not have anyone at it, if no one can get to work. At least stuffed grape leaves are a meal, if I'm the only one there. What if it's only me, and someone who made a cake?

One of my karate buddies volunteered to read the karate zombie novel from November, but then never gave me his email address. Maybe he's waiting to give me his business card or something. Maybe I shouldn't have told him so many times that the novel is unreadable. I need to practice in a mirror saying "just skip the boring parts" perhaps.

Boston Cupcakes: according to the cookbook, mace gives them a special New England twist. Um, yeah. But everyone liked them. I am happy to say I don't hate the dolphin story so much anymore. Sick to death of it, yes, but not hatred. This is an improvement. A couple of days ago on 43folders.com there was a suggestion about taking things from conception to completion (shut up, despite having posted a link, I'm writing this from memory rather) in the shortest time possible. With the dolphin story, I have not done this. For some reason a few weeks ago in editing, I dumped like four pages of exposition into the first act of the story. It's a short story. It can't take that sort of weighing down. In the last couple of evenings, I've taken most of that back out. What I think I can improve: 1. Write a better first draft (probably less with the endless exposition). 2. Edit more efficiently. Maybe if I practice editing things I've written recently, I will start to write ...

So it's like the third or fourth day in a row that I've been looking at the Dolphin story, and the beginning is SO boring, and nothing happens until about page eight (of 26), and there's tons of exposition. And the writing is crap, and there's no point even fixing it, until I know which paragraphs should actually stay. And I've moved so many things around now that there is no flow. Every place where two paragraphs used to flow one to the next, now there's invariably some chunk of nonsense dropped in the middle. I will never finish anything, not even this 5000-word story. But at least I got it back down to 5000 words. That's something, I guess. Oh, and the ending is pretty good, I think. At least, it's good compared to the rest of the story, which is crap.

Manners. First draft novel. 80% complete. "Dolphin". Short Story. Editing -- just finished the 3rd draft. Got the POV right now. "Bezoar". Short Story. Third draft. Made some really good progress with this one this month. Last night in my big mission was to make it clear in the first five pages what this story is about, because I seem to have a problem with that. And rather than write first, then knit, I edited and knitted at the same time. When I try to make the changes in the soft copy today, I guess I'll see how that worked. Printed some of the karate zombie thing, never really worked on it. Felt like going back to Toothbrush maybe. Extremely poor focus this month. My interior life has gone all haywire. I need beta blockers or adderal or both.

"Unicorn" - Just came back again. That's twice. On today's list I have to get it out to #3. This is the first time in my life, I think, that I've ever sent something out twice. Always in the past, and remember this was in the dark ages of juvinilia, I would send something out, and no matter how pleasant the rejection letter (and I did get a few personal ones) I would always decide that the story sucked and file it away. I probably still have those files. I should pull the stories out and find out how badly they really did suck. Writing avoidance project: Instead of actually working on the novel, I bought several books to read for research. So I guess at some point I'll have to actually read Dante and Milton, and some actual apocrypha. This time next month, it would be sweet to have another story circulating. God, I wish I didn't edit so slowly. Though last night I did manage to do the "write first, then knit" thing that I mentioned before, and ...

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" by Mark Haddon . I saw this book on many "best of year" lists maybe four or five years ago, but I'm not sure I ever put it on a list. The boy was reading it for school, so I picked it up and read 106 pages the first day, and then finished it two days later when the boy brought it home special so I could finish it (he'd already finished it). He thought Christopher was arrogant. I thought Christopher did some amazing things, especially considering his challenges, and his parents were a pretty disfunctional lot, and it was a good thing he had Siobhan, a sane, rational adult. I gather from the intro that the author spent a lot of time with autistic people, which made the characterization good. The details -- lists of items, etc. -- were hysterical and totally appropriate for the character to notice. Some of them I sort of skipped over, like the descriptions of the signs in the train station, but the box of meusl...

Yesterday, 23 days after I sent Unicorn out, I got my first rejection in about 15 years. I guess that's what I get for not sending anything out for that long. Task for today: send it to the next place on the list. Yesterday I also tried something new: Instead of starting the evening by knitting, and then abandoning that at like midnight to try to work on the story-of-the-moment, I worked on the story first. And I actually got through the draft! One more pass, and maybe I can let people read it. And I still managed to do the 10 rows of Morrigan. It would be so sweet if I finished the sleeve by the end of January. There are only 1.5 inches to go until the armhole decreases, which is, best guess... 16 rows, or about 2.5 hours of knitting. My other goal for January (aside from writing goals) is to finish reading "The Magicians". This book just will not end.

Read this Jo Walton article, and then come back. When I was in college, my boyfriend and I took Science Fiction as Lit as an elective. I thought the course readings were awesome, but he had a terrible time with Ringworld (L.Niven). I told him, when you get to one of those really long exposition paragraphs, skip it, and it won't really harm your enjoyment of the story. He didn't love it, but he did finish the book. Same person, I let him read a short story I'd written, and he said it wasn't as good as Mark Twain. Well, duh.