Robynettely

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.

Subs in 2012: 1/52 “Bezoar”. Sent to market #4 Jan 9. “Cats”. Sent to market #1 Sept 30. This year's writing goal is to submit once a week. I have one more thing I need to get out to a market. And clearly I need to take all those first drafts I've written and maybe bash one into shape per month. That sounds so fun right now.

First Draft “Fairfax”. Started month with 54,000 words, near the end of Chapter 20. Now it’s around 61K, in Chapter 23. Lots of stuff has happened, which is good. I’ve moved some of the characters finally out of their comfort zones, and created lots of problems for them. I think I will be going over my initial draft target of 90K. “The X Tree” (where X is whatever the tree is; When I started I hadn’t quite figured that out yet). This short story came out of a chat with another TW. And also I wanted to try e-prime. When I was at VP, Jim MacDonald went through a few pages of my manuscript and pointed out every instance of “There was” etc. I remember despairing. We’ll see if, long term, this experiment improves the quality of my first drafts. I carried this around to work and stuff with the intention of writing on it when my computer was rebooting and things like that, but it didn’t quite work out. On the weekend I just sat down and wrote until the draft was finished (total: 7000 words ...

OWW: 0. Bad member. “Anansi Boys” by Neil Gaiman. I actually finished this a bit after midnight on Dec 31, so it should have appeared on last month’s list, but whatever. It’s been lying around the house for years, and I finally picked it up and read it. I don’t know why I put it off for so long. It was very funny and charming. NG has such a comfortable voice to read. “The Freedom Maze” by Delia Sherman. Another novel shot through with references to other books, which is neat. This was a quick read that I didn’t expect to tie up as nicely as it did. I think what I liked was that the changes that happened to Sophie were real, she really did have a growth spurt in the six months (20 minutes) that she was gone. That’s something that’s always bothered me about Narnia and its ilk, and also about more adult (is there a better word for this subgenre?) portal fantasy, like “the Mirror of her Dreams”, “Fionavar”, etc. is that the characters don’t seem to be temporally affected by their secondar...

Updated to add: Actual content! Apparently I can’t type text in the content field, only in the title and tags fields, from my phone. The Toronto Standard has (or had) an entertaining feature, “Ideas, free to a good home”. I’m full of this sort of idea. Christy Matheson is one of them. You know how Pat Robertson said a few months back that if your spouse has Alzheimer’s disease it’s okay to divorce them , because they’re dead to you anyway? And Newt Gingrich kind of had affairs on his sickly wives (at least one of them) instead? Well, I was thinking: how does someone who needs to have an affair on their sickly spouse go about meeting the right person to do that with. One thing I learned from “ The Other Boleyn Girl” was that it’s more appropriate for a king to have an affair with a married girl than a single one. So clearly, my hypothetical person married to an Alzheimer’s patient would need to meet another like-minded individual in similar circumstances (of the opposite sex of cours...

Do you ever have a thought, and then it disappears because someone distracted you, and you spend a whole lot of time wanting that idea back, and then you remember what you think it might have been and it’s actually something quite stupid, like “I should google my coworker’s name” or "I wonder what John Scalzi is up to today?" I wonder if I’ve ever really forgotten a brilliant story idea, or if they were all that crap.

It's been weeks and weeks (at least four weeks) since last I did one of these challenges . I'm fighting the idiot self-imposed conviction that everything I write has to have a supernatural or fantastic or SF element. That's just stupid. “The name of this place is pretty offensive,” the woman said as I set her beer on the bar. "Not my fault," I said. "It was named that when I got here." "Still, you're making light of people's suffering." She might have been 43 (just a guess), with long hair in a ponytail, still mostly blonde. She wore paint-spattered jeans and a tee-shirt. "They're all dead. And I think it's more a statement about our cleaning staff. Lanes should be clean." The man who came in and made a bee-line to her would have been two or three years older, fit like a runner and suited like a lawyer. His hairline was receding. He wore a wedding ring. A bowling alley must have seemed like a good place to meet; neithe...