Robynettely

LHC #72: "The Hare With Amber Eyes" by Edmund de Waal.  Recommended by a coworker. This is the first thing I've read where I was actively glad I was reading on a computer, because Google was so available. I looked up a lot of paintings and words. The sections about suffering through world wars 1 and 2 certainly put my own not-very-difficult situation in perspective.  "What if this were enough?" by Heather Havrilsky.  I think I like her better when she's trying to help other people solve their problems, rather than going on (and on) about her own. LHC #73: "Silver on the Road" by Laura Anne Gilman.  Two-week wait on Overdrive. I loved the worldbuilding and the dynamic between Izzy and Gabriel. Highly recommended. LHC #74: "The Wrong Stars" by Tim Pratt.  Another book I read on overdrive. This was a fun read, and it helped me understand what one of my peers on OWW was going for last year. Sorry I misunderstood the style before, dude! ...

Wind/Water/Salt Chapter 24: Read again and posted. Chapter 26: Read and posted (with an explanation of what happened to Chapter 25 which I deleted). Chapter 27: Read and moved the second half to chapter 29, then expanded the first half so there was some tension (I hope). Chapter 28: I considered deleting this one too, but the world needs more Abigail. Maybe I'll move it into the Chapter 25 spot? Worked on my synopsis, which I will need.  Chapter 29-31: Read for new continuity, because I changed some things that had ripple effects.  Persephone (probably not its real name)  I was wandering about outside one day and my B-plot fell onto me, basically. And it's a good B-plot that makes sense I think now. It basically came with locations and a rhythm that meshes well with the A-plot and uses my characters in an interesting way. Short Story Notes for two. Connecting Critted 8 Got back 8 Subs 2 Knitting Sunny skies of winter  (KP 2015 FI) Finished cuff ...

LHC #67: "The Falconer" by Elizabeth May. I might have put this on my list because the author shares a name with the current leader of Canada's Green Party. I wasn't fond of the main character. It's written in first person present, and my lack of connection with Aileana made that rough. It was a quick read. LHC #68: "We Will All Go Down Together" by Gemma Files. This must be the fifth or sixth book I've read by her? It really helped me focus my main witch character in WWS, and also I learned from the pronunciation guide that I've been saying one of the characters' names wrong for about 10 years. Oh well. LHC #69: "The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories" by Joan Aiken. Strange is so true. I'd just received this book when the library closed for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. On the day I started reading it, I took it with me to visit my mechanic, because the check engine light was on, then walked over to...

Wind/Water/Salt Chapter 21-22: edited based on OWW feedback.  Chapter 23: Posted   Chapter 24: Fixed a huge continuity error; refined the motivations of the three characters that are in this chapter (Preston, Metatron, and Sumiel). Chapter 25: Read it, decided it was not necessary, deleted it. Chapter 26: (I'm keeping the numbering system going forward because I added a chapter 13.1 last month, and it's just easier to keep track of this way.) Read. I also went through my notes and worked on my character lists and descriptions, which many reviewers have said were lacking. This does not seem to have made people like chapter 23 but whatever. It's useful for me.  Persephone (probably not its real name)  Started the month with 82,000 words. I mentioned last month, this is hard to work on with a pandemic going on. I got over that by writing how my pandemic learns from that one and is different. I haven't really gotten very far with this, but it's fixable. ...

I think I have been deluding myself. I got let go from my job of 22 years back in mid-January, and suddenly had tons of time to do whatever I wanted all day, which meant I got up at 9 then walked over to one of the dozen or so Tim Horton's within walking distance, then walked home, then read the entire internet, then tried to write for a while.  It's been really nice. I can get to the pharmacy when I have a prescription to pick up, I don't have to plan my workday around when I can get to the library to acquire my holds, I can read every day, I can knit. I don't have to take a day off if I want to meet someone for coffee or take a dance class. However. Before, when I had that job for 22 years, I thought I was writing every day. I got up in the morning and did my morning stuff, then sat down in my writing spot and looked at my writing, and for the last few years because I have enough first drafts already (and a lot of that page-a-day stuff I used to write would be k...

"Danagerous Ages" by Rose Macaulay. Marissa Lingen read this last month, and made me want to read it. LHC #65: "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge.   The tines (wolfpacks) were fantastic, and so was the galaxy, with the slow zones, etc. I'm not sure I truly understood it, but it was really cool. LHC#66: "Permutation City" by Greg Egan.  The last from the  Jo Walton SF list  that I've been reading for months and months! For some reason I put this on my book list that I make while reading Locus (a very different list than the LHC list let me tell you -- I will never read all those) on about the same day I was setting new books to "active". Anyway, this book really drove home how I don't want to go live in the singularity. It seemed awful.  "The Raven Tower" by Ann Leckie. Got it for Christmas. Really awesome. This is one I will try to force on others. The POV character was great, I loved how it was sort of omniscie...

Wind/Water/Salt Chapter 21:   Posted Chapter 22: This chapter was finishable, so I did, and it's posted too.  Chapter 1 3.1: I wrote half a chapter here, maybe Chapter 13.2: This was why I had to write 13.1, actually. I moved half of chapter 40 (!) to here because the tension it adds is way more useful early in the story, and to make that work I had to alter a whole bunch of other stuff.   Chapter 23:  Chapter 24: I did manage to read this and made some markups.  During the process of relabeling all the chapters, I realized the first half of chapter 40 needed to be somewhere around Chapter 12, which meant I had to add some time and figure out what my various characters are really up to in the background (when they're not on the stage). This reinforces the idea that I should go back to the beginning and redo those introductory 20 chapters while I continue to push to the end.  Persephone (probably not its real name)  Started the month wi...

LHC #62: "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner. I was intimidated by the length, and got confused by the vast cast of characters, but it was still really good. "The Book of Dust" by Philip Pullman. The boy gave it to me for Christmas, and I devoured it. Now I need to watch the HBO His Dark Materials series, and also read some other books in the series. LHC #63: "Cyteen" by CJ Cherryh. The first 30 pages were a slog, but then this one was no problem at all to read. Apparently it was originally published as a trilogy. I cannot see how that could have possibly worked. There didn't seem to be wasted scenes anywhere, either. I don't feel like it answered the question it asked at the beginning, really, and I felt like it was going to. Apparently that's in the sequel. LHC #64: "Spin" by Robert Charles Wilson. Weirdly, I have a different book by RCW in my TBR pile. But I own that book, so the necessity to read it is so much lower! Thi...

Wind/Water/Salt Chapter 21:   I read some of the comments on Chapter 20, and tried to use that here.   Chapter 22: Did some drafts, made some changes based on reading chapter 24… Chapter 23: At this point things fall apart. I realized there is absolutely no thread of the goal of the bad guy in this novel, and started just making notes and thinking about going back to the beginning and starting over. So I might actually do that – go through a couple of chapters per month and try to make the first half of this project a little more cohesive. Chapter 24: I did manage to read this and made some markups.  Navigationally, I’ve been really enjoying what I can do with Persephone, so I went back and renamed all my chapters with POV character and a bit of what happens so I can find things faster. I’m also considering moving it to Google Docs. Persephone (probably not its real name) Last month ended with me discovering a horrible, horrible thing that one of my character...