Robynettely

“Alabaster: Wolves” by Caitlin Kiernan, Steve Lieber, Rachelle Rosenberg, Rachel Edidin. Wow. I tend to avoid reading comics because they go by too fast. I don’t feel like I’m doing the story justice, but I don’t know how to slow down. It’s probably a “money’s worth” thing, which is stupid. I didn’t know anything about Dancy Flammarion prior to buying this. “Directive 51” John Barnes . When Ed finished this, he said it was a great read. When I mentioned I had picked it up (he left it on the kitchen table – what else was I supposed to do?) he said it was Meh. But it was too late. I’d already read 100 pages. I found there to be a tremendous amount of “as you know, Bob” dialog, and the constitution was sort of the main character, which is kind of dry. It’s a disaster novel where a collective called “Daybreakers” have unleashed stuff to destroy all oil and plastic. Unfortunately we didn’t follow many of those characters past p. 160, so they could see the error of their ways. The a...

Writing first drafts has never been a problem. In fact, maybe it's been the opposite problem -- an overabundance of first drafts. So, a while back I decided that I needed to do a little bit of editing every day. This has, I guess, worked, in that there are two stories circulating right now, which is a big win for me in itself. This weekend was Ad Astra, and my brain is a little writer-baked. So, I'd done my page and read the whole internet, and it was 12:45, so I was just going to go to bed. But then, as I brushed my teeth, my brain told me to go delete the first paragraph because that would make a stronger opening, and that the first interstitial needed to say something else. So I went back downstairs and made the edits. It took about five minutes. And then I could sleep. This habit thing, I might be too good at it.

First Draft “Meet my Mother, Miss Cegenation.” Finished first draft, around 6000 words. Too long. I was actually considering a different approach with this, editing as I go. I write first draft stuff in the morning before work, and normally edit before I go to bed. So my idea was to start editing the beginning as I worked on the back end, since this story doesn’t seem like unmitigated crap like so many of them do. Butt, I worked on DCA in the evenings instead.  “The Fruit of the Summer Tree.” Part of WaterLeopard I think. Might be the first time ever, I started too late in the story, didn’t realize it was about a love triangle and I needed to set that up earlier. Editing ·          “Don’t Choose Astronaut”. Two more drafts.  Back last year at the Ad Astra Sunday morning writing workshop I said something about kept cutting and cutting a story until it became a sad, thin little thing. Last night  I might have figu...

“Soulless” by Gail Carriger . Book 1, after reading book 2 in Jan. So much fun! I wonder if you have more freedom to do omniscient when you’re writing something somewhat historical. “Blackout” Mira Grant. The boy finally finished this so I could read it. He said we needed to talk. The divergence of the two Georges was fascinating. And the little interstitial emails conveyed so much story. Without them, the book would have had to have more POV characters I think. It really worked. “Blameless” by Gail Carriger . I’m addicted. “The World of Jeeves” by P.G. Wodehouse. I apparently received this for my birthday in 2003, and while some of the stories seem familiar, I’m seeing them with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, so I think I saw some of the episodes, but didn’t read this before. There are 34 short stories in this collection, and the formula is very clear. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! The writing is so entertaining, the voice so clear, it proves that formula...

There's a rule or guideline or suggestion I keep seeing: Kill your darlings. I hate that suggestion. Sometimes my darlings are the only good thing in these wretched little stories. It goes along with that other fear of mine: cutting these stories and editing them until they're little anorexic skin-and-bones things, with all the beauty excised. I won't do that.

First Draft “Useful Things to Know”. Turned into a fun little steampunk Dr. George story, which wasn’t expected. “The Last Flaw of Nandini Taylor.” Well, I had to start something, but I didn’t really know where I was going with it. “Meet my Mother, Miss Cegenation.” So I had read a piece in Toronto Life about the rise of mixed race kids, and I was thinking about a person I know who doesn’t know who her father is and hence may, I don’t know, obsess a bit on this topic. And selkies. I know they’re for losers, but I wanted to write one anyway. Editing   “Don’t Choose Astronaut”. The second draft was little better than the first, because it went from (mostly) 3 rd person past to 1 st person present. Also, once there was text there, I could decide where the tension belonged. I got this wrong in the first draft, so wound up having to fake tension. Once the fake tension was gone and their resolution was a proper climax, the end worked better. I’m on the fourth...