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Showing posts from December, 2016

What I read -- November 2016

“The Essence of Budo” by Dave Lowry. A friend lent this to me back in maybe February, and it was time I gave it back. And also why leave stuff around the house if I don’t need to? Probably I shouldn’t read more than one of his books in a year because this seemed… the same as the previous one. They’re interesting and well-written, but I felt like I’d read some of the essays before. “The Grace of Kings” by Ken Liu. It was the oldest thing in my library queue, so I set it to active and… well, it’s really fat. By the time I was 200 pages in I was engaged in the story, but I had a hard time keeping track of the characters. I was having a hard time with the style, and then I realized he’s turned something I’m always trying to purge from my writing into a strength.   “Voyage of the Basilisk” by Marie Brennan. I will be completely honest: I did not finish this book in November. It just feels kind of lame to have only read two books, so I waited until I finished this one. Ed got it

In process, November 2016

1st draft Continued Season 11 Writing Excuses exercises… Got to write one short I’d kind of thought about for a while, but it sort of turned into a high school English writing exercise. And then Rabbits (see below).   Editing “Labyrinth Moon”. Did a final draft before letting beta people read it, including the beta readers in my house, who I asked to help me solve the problem of what the OWW beta readers all commented on. “Top of the Stairs”. This was on OWW. “Rabbits”. I’ve apparently been carrying forward a note to do another draft of this one for FIVE YEARS. Though the note was something about fixing the main character, and to be honest, that is the main problem with this story. I’ve been thinking all along that plot was my problem, when maybe it’s always been character. And then I read The Yellow Wallpaper, and realized this story is a descent into madness. So lots of rewriting! Connecting Critted 8 My goal is to do two a week. I’ve been following a