By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-20
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tags:
update, nanoprep
With Project Eden (part 1), the yearly Nanoprep season ends as it started -- with me not writing enough!
But this year I wrote over 25k words in 20 days. 8 of the stories I did were nearly or well over the daily minimum I'll have to write for NaNoWriMo and it went extremely smoothly compared to previous years. The longest I sat waiting for inspiration was maybe 15 minutes, whereas the longest last year was over an hour.
No frustration, just writing. It was fun. It was some of my best work so far.
It was a great success.
So now what? NaNo is in 10 days, do I just relax? Not at all!
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By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-20
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tags:
nanoprep, scifi, unfinished
Vickers took manual control from Jay and pointed the ship's nose at Horus' side bay door. He didn't have to do this maneuver manually, and Jay was far better at docking the ship, but sometimes he enjoyed the thrill of performing difficult maneuvers. Jay, as the ship's Virtual Intelligence, could see everywhere, feel everything, since the ship was as close to a body as he could possibly have.
But this ship was new. He'd received it as payment for a job done well enough. And Jay had had some issues coming to terms with his new body surrogate. Vickers didn't want to take any risks, so he preferred to do it himself for now.
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By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-19
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tags:
nanoprep, personal, sad
They had had a fight. He had said things he regretted, but so had she. He didn't feel either of them was more in the wrong than the other, but he could feel something wasn't the same any more. Something felt broken.
She sat across him, not next to him. She'd left the apartment the day before and it had not been a good point to leave on, but it had been necessary. The antipathy had been escalating and the conversation had become less and less about what it started about. And what had set off the by then angry conversation hadn't even been all that important.
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By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-18
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tags:
jerry, coffee, nanoprep, saga, rebecca
This is part 5 of the Coffee Saga, find the rest here.
Jerry signed the contract and sighed. He had given it his all, but sometimes dreams only come true for a short while. Coffee Snobs Unanimous hadn't really been able to run properly after Kate and Dave had left. He'd found it incredibly difficult to find good people, since most of them were being snatched up by the new Java House around the corner.
Rebecca. She had ruined everything. Again. He had said he didn't need Kate and Dave, but he'd soon realized he actually did. A lot. He found out quickly that he actually knew nothing about running a coffee house at all, and had been leaning on their combined knowledge to keep everything running smoothly.
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By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-17
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tags:
nanoprep, fantasy
They had told her she had a weak immune system, when she asked why she had to take the medicine. She'd been taking them for as long as she could remember, but this was the first time she questioned it. Her parents gave it to her, and she trusted them implicitly, like children do. Parents are safe. They keep you safe. They won't make you do anything that's bad for you. Ever.
But the question had been bubbling up in her mind every so often, and the rate at which it bubbled up had been increasing significantly lately.
A weak immune system. And the medicine kept the bad away, so she would be healthy and able to play and it was all good. She trusted them and the question ebbed away again. For a while.
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By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-16
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tags:
nanoprep, personal, sad
Loss is difficult. Not just losing a sock, or a game, but more specifically someone passing away. I remember the first time it happened to me in vague shreds of almost unconnected memories. I was 8 when my grandmother from my dad's side passed away. I was young and distracted by anything shiny, and didn't fully realize what it meant.
We wouldn't go visit her anymore. I had never done that very often anyway, as far as I recall, but I do have 4, maybe 5 specific memories of visiting her. I'm told I was at the service, but all I remember is being told that she had died at school, and then I got to leave early. I wasn't sad, just confused. My 8-year old brain couldn't comprehend what exactly had happened.
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By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-15
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tags:
nanoprep, scifi
The bodies came to life and there was nothing he could do to stop them. They moved awkwardly, their movements unnatural and robotic.
They were not inhabited, Lucas knew, they were just being controlled. Steered, like a vehicle, from what he presumed would be a remote location. He had gone too far down the rabbit hole, and someone had noticed him snooping around.
She had come to his office last Tuesday. A job. A simple one, she said, but Lucas knew no job was ever as simple as it seemed. Her husband had disappeared and emptied out their joint bank account, and she was sure that it had something to do with his far younger secretary Elissa. He had asked for all the information he felt she could provide and she had been about half as forthcoming as he would have wanted.
No job was ever as easy as it seemed, he told himself yet again.
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By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-14
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tags:
nanoprep, scifi
It had been 60 years, at least, since anyone had gone there. Abraxas. The Lost Colony.
It was a small planet, somewhere between the Earth's Moon and Mercury in size, but it was in the goldilocks zone around its star. Lush forests, fresh water, a molten core and a healthy gravitational field keeping the radiation out. Abraxas was a paradise. It had been the most popular outer system colony since it opened up for general colonization up until it all went wrong. By the time it went wrong, there were millions of people, a handful of huge cities, a lot of towns, and a lot of conflict.
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By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-13
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tags:
nanoprep, scifi
It was a beautiful day in the zoo, and there were a lot of people around. Good weather always brought out the families with the yearly passes, coming to see the animals they'd already seen multiple times that year. You could also very easily recognize the parents who really didn't want to be there, but found it easier to acquiesce to their children than to tell them they couldn't go to the zoo one more time.
Democracy was there with his son Blade, too. And it was Blade's first time in a zoo. And he was obviously enjoying himself greatly, running from one pen to the other.
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By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-12
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tags:
nanoprep, contemporary
Ethan was working from home this week, to allow his new parrot to settle in a little easier. He didn't want to leave her alone during her first week in her new house, and he also didn't really trust her. He'd taken in Jackie after his mom has asked him to. She said she could not take the incessant talking anymore. It was cute at first, but eventually it had worn her down.
He was sitting on the sofa, trying to review a new contract one of his juniors had written up.
"Jackie wants a cracker," the grey-feathered parrot said, cocking its head and bobbing it up and down.
"You've had enough crackers," Ethan said, sounding annoyed.
He had very quickly started to understand why his mom had wanted her out.
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