Robynettely

"The Absolute Book" by Elizabeth Knox. I got it for Christmas. It was delightful, even if maybe some stuff wasn't explained completely. Or maybe that's part of why it was delightful.  "Crucial conversations" By Joseph Grenny and three other old white men. Another office book club selection. The word "candor" comes up a lot. I really resented this book.  LHC #220: "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt. There was a girl at my previous company who wanted to have an office book club, and she had this book on her desk for months and months. I can totally understand this. I found portions crazy stressful to read. Like, I would be skipping ahead to see how much more in the section, could I get through it, pacing around, etc. I wanted to know how it ended, sure, but I was having weird stress dreams and stuff. If it wasn't a library book I might not have finished it at all. It was such a relief when Boris showed up again and something happened. I di...

Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): Nothing but thoughts.  Short Stories:  Finished that short story.  Posted it. Submitted it. Worked on another one.  Critted  5  Got back  3    I read the endings of three of my peers' novels here this month.  Submissions  1  Out there   0   Rejects   0 Knitting Cathar  (self). Started the month just about done with the body edging. Finished that during a team call (it actually keeps me from reading the internet during the call so I don't feel guilty).  Sock yarn hoodie  (self). Finished the second sleeve. Started sewing in the zipper.  Pinner socks  (Knitpicks). Started the month with the toe of the first sock done.   Sashiko project:  Nothing Ruffle skirt:  Cut and sewed the ruffle

  Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): Nothing but thoughts.  Short Stories:  As I mentioned last month I had a dish-washing epiphany on a story that wasn't going well. I'd already changed the POV character, but I knew that wasn't enough because I had no ending. It has an ending now.  Critted  4  Got back  0    I really need to post something new. Submissions  0  Out there   0   Rejects   1 Knitting Tay Tartan cardigan  (Martin Storey). Finally finished the danglers and minor seaming and chose buttons, then had to wait to block because the space I normally block in needed to be cleared, and this would be very disruptive to my work, so I waited to block it for the night before I went on vacation. It would appear that the finishing of this sweater took 4 months, which may be a new record. It fits for the most pa...

 LHC #216: "The Braver Thing" by Clifford Jackman. Audio book. Canadian. About 18th century sea-pirates. I felt like the accents slowed it down, but considering that I was tying in loose ends of Tay Tartan sweater for the bulk of the listening, that didn't matter much. I was not surprised it was written by a lawyer. It would have been like a half hour shorter if the narrator hadn't made some kind of annoying choices (I eventually dealt with this by speeding up to 1.15x). I was thinking it would have been nice to have a list of characters, except everyone's roles change so often that it would have inevitably given something away. At least it had a good ending.  LHC #217: "Poets and Pahlevans" by Marcello Di Cintio. Hard copy. Persians and a martial art (wrestling), totally my research jam. It was exactly what I wanted it to be.  LHC #218: "Everyone knows your mother is a witch" by Rivka Galken. eBook. The voice of this one was so great, very en...

Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): If I can trick myself into opening it, I can often easily write 400-500 words.  Short Stories:  Desperate to get something on OWW because it's been months and months and I feel bad for never having anything new there, I came up with a system: No more of this 15 minutes thing. That's great for Persephone, but I need to have a 2-hour block to sit down and read a story through and make whatever changes need doing, and I need to do this a maximum of four times per story. Like, I have no trouble immersing myself in it and coming up with things to change, but then I never actually make the changes, instead I write them in my notebook. And nothing ever gets finished. No good!  I did write a little thing, 400 words, and I worked on another one, where I had the usual dish washing epiphany, so maybe I'll be able to finish a draft next month ....

  LHC #213: "Deep Secret" by Diana Wynne Jones. I read the first chapter and was dubious, but then I got on a roll and it was a delight. Weirdly fat-phobic, not sure what to make of that.  LHC #214: "It's complicated: the social lives of networked teens" by Danah Boyd. I started off kind of jaded. What, these kids are requesting a video camera from their school? How 2001! Somehow Deep Secret seemed more modern to me. it predates Covid, DJT and Tiktok, things I think have shaped current socials. But I persevered, and this book was really good. I incredibly relate with DB's perspective on youth. More people should read this book.  But then, I love teenagers. So I would say that.  "When women were dragons" by Kelly Barnhill. I got this for Christmas. I got three copies, so my sister took one, and she read it a couple of months ago. Half-way through, she was loving it. Then she got to the last quarter, and she said it kind of fell apart. Boy, was she ...

LHC #209: "Pre-industrial societies: anatomy of the pre-modern world" by Patricia Crone.  Hard copy. Really good, I liked the voice, sometimes a list of things would end in "or whatever" which I always feel like I'd get in trouble for.  LHC #210: "The hummingbird's daughter" by Luis Alberto Urrea. No clue why it was on the list. If I knew anything about 1880 Mexico it might have been an easier read, or if I knew any Spanish. Still, I got the idea and it was very good. Somewhere inside my head I had decided this was in translation. Probably racist of me.  "What Strange Paradise" by Omar el Akkad. Office book club, hard copy. I would never have picked this on my own, but it was outstanding. Loved the ending. Though I think Vanna is supposed to be 15 and she seemed kind of 10?  LHC #211: "A Declaration of the rights of Magicians" by HG Parry. Much funner. I was reading along and thinking how unrealistic it was that William Pitt was...

  Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): I did write some words, but everything took a back seat to the tax prep project.  Short Stories:  I was using ChatGPT to research because Google sucks (what's a good poison for my location and time period, what's the cure for that poison in the time period, etc.) and then I asked Google for a cure for Arsenic poisoning, and Google told me garlic and onions! Which I thought was an appalling answer, until I thought about it, and if you're diagnosing your As poisoning via Google, then you're not going to be chelating yourself or hopefully not treating yourself with activated charcoal. If you really think you have heavy metal poisoning, see a medical professional! Not in 1880, though, they'll probably bleed you until you die.  Critted  5  Got back  0  but also posted nothing.  Submissions  1  Ou...

Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): This 50-word minimum thing was great and then I fell off the wagon again. And also, some days I would write 62 words and just watch this Bucimis video for a while (the last minute is the greatest thing ever). I also found a playlist on Spotify that is nothing but different versions of this song, and printed out the sheet music, but I'm not obsessed. I suppose it's a nice change from the 20 different mixes of Unholy (Sam Smith) that I also listen to?  Short Stories:  worked more on it, never finished.  Critted  5  Got back  0  but also posted nothing.  Submissions  0  Out there  1  Rejects  0 Knitting Tay Tartan cardigan  (Martin Storey). Worked on danglers. Still not done. I estimate 12 more hours of danglers. Can that be correct? No wonder it's not done! Then buttons, and bloc...

LHC #206: "The City We Became" by N. K. Jemisin.  Is this the seventh book I've read by her? This one did not immediately grab me. I, uh, read a Rick Riordan presents book a while back that did the same thing?  LHC #207: "Blackwater, the complete saga" by Michael McDowell. eBook. More gothic than horror if you ask me. It's was written in the 80's and it's kind of like those epic, sweeping generational sagas that were popular back then (the Thornbirds, e.g.) except in this family, occasionally someone will turn into a water monster and kill somebody (often someone who deserves it). Like others of its genre, it's very long.  "Radical Candor" by Kim Allen. Read this for the work book club. Walking is clearly a big part of her creative process. It's the first time I've ever been in a book club!  LHC #208: "Seconds out: Women and fighting" by Alison Dean. This really spoke to me, not just about karate and reffing etc. I ...

LHC #204: "The once and future witches" by Alix E Harrow.  Hard copy because the eBook had like a 7-week wait. Takes place in about the same timeframe as "The Jungle", interesting juxtaposition. Good book, start to end.  LHC #205: "They can't kill us until they kill us" by Hanif Abdurraqib. Hard copy, because the e-book had like a 14-week wait. This one must get stolen a lot, they got brand-new copies in and I got one of those. I did what I do when I read something about music, which is I listen to the artist or work as much as I can as I read. This totally exposes me to things I know nothing about. It was also amusing when people would ask what I was reading, to explain to them.  "Harrow the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir.  I want to read sequels a little closer to the book they're near, where available, rather than putting them on the list and reading them two years after I read the previous. So here we are.  Ebook. I spent a lot of time wonderi...

Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): More words, read an interview with Sarah Monette who said "minimum 50 words per day on writing days." That's a goal I can get into, and so low it got me to open my manuscript on a not normally writing day. And then somehow I wound up writing 400 words and progressing the story, using some scraps I'd had hanging around and progressing plot and character.  Short Stories:  Maybe my process is just ridiculously slow? I worked on the same one as last month, quite a lot actually. I feel like I'm just working on this to have something to post on OWW, and maybe that's not a good reason.  Critted  9  Got back  0  but also posted nothing.  Submissions  0  Out there  1  Rejects  0 Knitting Tay Tartan cardigan  (Martin Storey). Started the month with just the finishing to do. Sewed the shou...

LHC #201: "The Lover: A Sufi mystery" by Laury Silvers. In the acknowledgements, Murat Coskun! And I thought, the drummer? What's he doing here? The writing wasn't very elegant. Too much sufi, not enough mystery, like the plot is a distribution mechanism for the research. And the dialog seemed kind of modern. "The Essex Serpent" by Sarah Perry. I got this for Christmas, and I'd finished a hardcover from the library and had three more on the way but they hadn't arrived yet, so I picked this up to read on the bus one evening, and I was totally hooked. No supernatural to speak of, though I often expected it to veer into Lovecraft, but great just the same.  LHC #202: "The invisible life of Addie Larue" by VE Schwab. Hard copy because the eBook had like a 16-week wait (!). As this book moved up my hold list, I was growing increasingly ambivalent to it. The boy's book club read this in the fall, and they had some issues. I remember the boy sa...

Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): More words Short Stories:  Read one, decided the ending was crap, rewrote the ending (after thinking to myself, "What bad thing could happen to start the third act, rather than having everyone get together and do exactly what's expected of them?").  Critted  6  Got back  0 but also posted nothing.  Submissions  0  Out there  1  Rejects  0 Knitting Tay Tartan cardigan  (Martin Storey). Started the month with about 20 rows to go on the upper sleeves. Finished these and knitted through to the shoulders, bound off and cut the steeks. This is not a nicely graded pattern.  Cathar  (self). Started month with 3/4 of the body edging done. Didn't progress. Thinking about starting again with smaller needles.  Lotus  (Norah Gaughan). Started month with 4 inches of back. Finished ...

"The Cartographers" by Peng Shepherd.  This fantasy novel about maps was definitely written just for me. And maybe also for my sister who bought it for me for Christmas but didn't have a chance to read it before she gave it to me. I went to a hoop class and was reading it in the waiting area, and one of my classmates asked what I was so engrossed in, and I totally shilled for it.  LHC #197: "The final revival of Opal and Nev" by Dawnie Walton. I few days ago I was watching a political pundit being interviewed on the news presumably in her home or office, and she had this book on her shelf. Anyway, it started off like far too many things I've read lately, but took an interesting turn. There's a great scene where one character tells another "so, you got me fired from my dream job" and the other one doesn't really care.  LHC #198: "The View from the Ground" by Martha Gellhorn. No idea why this was on the list, but it's interestin...

Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): More words Short Stories:  Read one, decided the ending was crap, rewrote the ending (after thinking to myself, "What bad thing could happen to start the third act, rather than having everyone get together and do exactly what's expected of them?").  Critted  7  Got back  0  Submissions  0  Out there  1  Rejects  0 Knitting Striped long-sleeved t-shirt  (self).  Second sleeve and neck, and done!  Tay Tartan cardigan  (Martin Storey). Started the month with about 40 rows to go on the upper sleeves. Did 10.  Cathar  (self). Started month with 3/4 of the body edging done. Didn't progress.  Lotus (Norah Gaughan). Got "Knit fold pleat repeat" for Christmas, and want to knit so many things! Started it to see if the yarn I had worked for the gauge. Now to see if I h...

"The Calculating Stars" by Mary Robinette Kowal.  Got it for Christmas last year. Very readable. As much as I don't want to like MRK (sometimes seems kind of sanctimonious?), I kind of have to. This book is a delight, though there should have been a trigger warning for all the puking. I forced it on Ed when I was done, and he liked it too.  LHC #196: " Mad World:  An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s"  by Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein. eBook. I made great use of Spotify while reading this, it's really fun. Though there are almost no references to drugs and alcohol. I guess it's about the music?  "Elatsoe" by Darcie Little Badger. Hard copy, last of the books I got for Christmas last year. I need to let go of my whole past-perfect thing I guess. This was a great, fast read.  "Terciel and Elinor" by Garth Nix. I will read anything set in the Abhorsen universe. The boy gave it to me for Christmas. ...

Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): Wrote a few thousand words about one of Lindsay's nemesises. Nemeses? Is it a word that even takes a plural? Maybe there can be only one.  Short Stories:  I started a notebook about progressing them.  Critted  7  Got back  0  Submissions  0  Out there  1  Rejects  0 Knitting Striped long-sleeved t-shirt  (self).  Just the sleeves left, of which I did one. Oh, and the neck, didn't do that yet.  Tay Tartan cardigan  (Martin Storey). Started the month with about 50 rows to go on the upper body, did 10 maybe.  Extra Whip socks  (Coffeehouse knits). Finished the last two pairs, for seven total. I'm going to take a break from socks.  Cathar (self). 3/4 of the body edging.  Sashiko project:  Nothing.

LHC #192: "The Sisters of Straygarden Place" by Hayley Chewins. Hard copy. I guess middle grades don't read as many e-books? Not the book for me, maybe. I had trouble keeping track of the characters. The boy and I were talking about Themes a week or two ago, and I couldn't really see one here.  LHC #193: "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda. eBook, also middle grade. Much more to my liking.  LHC #194: "The Mask of Mirrors" by M.A. Carrick. The start was too stressful, I almost abandoned it. That was partly because it's really fat. The constant trying to guess who the rook was seemed silly, and some characters seemed sort of abandoned, but I guess that's what sequels are for. At least I don't have to rush; book 3 comes out next August.   LHC #195: "The Fireman" by Joe Hill.  Audiobook. Started it because I'd run out of podcasts and was doing deploy prep at work. I meant to listen to it while finishing the last 60 ro...

Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:  Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): Worked more on the ending (which despite what I wrote last month wasn't done, just rewritten what I'd written before). The one POV's ending is kind of done-ish, and I had a revelation about the other POV's, which makes the whole story make sense.  Short Stories:  Went through all the comments on the one I put up last month and pulled out another one from the archive. Then the boy challenged me to read the crits on the one I posted recently, so I did, and we talked about the ending, so maybe I'll work on that. Then I was reading twitter which gave me an idea about how to fix another story, which I started to do instead. The point is, lots of plans, no action.  Critted  9  Got back  4  Did I mention I decided to scale back my reviews to two per week to give myself time to actually work on my own projects? I did. Did...