Robin de Voh
there's never enough stories

Nanoprep 2018 Day 1: 180 Celsius

By Robin de Voh on 2018-10-01
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"76 Bradford Court, third house on the left," the radio crackled into the otherwise silent room.

They looked at each other while the voices on the radio continued. Dejected, they nodded to one another. Pete crawled over to the front door to look through the keyhole. Kerry got up and moved over to the fireplace, crouched, so she wouldn't cast her shadow on the blinds covering the front window. She gestured to Pete to hand her the box sitting near to him. He crawled back a little, picked it up and started handing it to her when he stopped.

He looked at it intently for a second. Then a whisper.

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I May Have A Focus Problem

By Robin de Voh on 2018-09-23
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I promised Fortnightlies. I did not deliver. I intended to write more over the past year. I did not do so.

On the one hand it's disappointing, but on the other it's telling of how I've been approaching writing the past few years.

October through November is writing season for me. Before I completed my first NaNoWriMo novel in 2015, I had gone through a few years of hardly doing any writing at all. Doing NaNoWriMo actually helped me get back to writing at all.

With Nanoprep and NaNoWriMo combined, I write 20+ stories and a (partial, at least) novel per year. Since 2015, I've written 60+ stories, and 3 (partial, at least) novels.

So I'm deciding not to be as disappointed as I originally felt I should be. Or, you know, at all.

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Nanoepilogue Time For Change

By Robin de Voh on 2017-12-03
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For the third year in a row, I finished my 50.000 words on time. And in record time, in fact, as I finished right at the end of the third week.

What I know now, after 3 wins in a row, is that the word count is no longer a hurdle for me. Not really. But for all the years I failed, writing daily (or at least semi-daily) and in sufficient amounts was the only problem I could see.

This year something felt off about the whole process, something about it bothered me a lot, and it took me the remainder of November to realize what it was.

I've got the word count. Now I need to focus on completely different aspects of writing -- whether it's a short story or a novel.

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Final Preparations For Nanowrimo 2017

By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-31
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It's about that time again. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to attempt to write 50k words in 30 days. That works out to 1667 words a day on average.

I've chosen to do a story focused on the main character of multiple stories so far (he was named in 1-800-Energixx and Pay Day, unnamed in Crashlanded).

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Nanoprep 2017 Day 20: To the Moon!

By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-30
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The moon had been colonized by Earth for a few very straightforward reasons. The most prominent was that it held helium-3, a very potent fuel source that had made Earth dependent on it in a few short decades. The second most prominent one was the far lower gravity, which made producing and launching space missions easier, cheaper and far more reliable. Earth had pretty much stopped producing space ships since the space elevator started operating. The third reason was simply that they wanted to, it was close by and they owned it, goddammit.

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Nanoprep 2017 Day 19: Monster Mash

By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-29
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The Halloween party was in full swing and the music was causing some of the crowd do dance rather wildly. The atmosphere was good, there was loud conversation and laughter, and there was a hook-up in every corner.

All in all, Constantin thought, this was a good night. He was dressed like Dracula, the most known and stereotypical vampire, complete with the red cape and the silly hair. He'd chosen the Bram Stoker's Dracula movie version. Sometimes it's best to just play into expectations.

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Nanoprep 2017 Day 18: the Cargo

By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-28
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"Shit, Jim, I can't hold it, we're going to go have to bail somewhere! The life support systems are about to go!" Jeffrey shouted over the blaring alarms.
"Ugh, you're right!" Jim shouted back, trying to put out a fire with an extinguisher.
"Scanner says that planet over there has a non-toxic environment, I'm setting us down there!"
"Fine! Just get us somewhere we can make repairs!"

Jeffrey nodded to a Jim who wasn't looking and locked in the coordinates. The ship pinged to acknowledge the course correction.

"Warning: The current course will cause you to miss your delivery date," the computer VI said with a weird lilt to its voice. The voice was hardly audible over the alarms. Jeffrey pushed the override button hard and turned to Jim.

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Nanoprep 2017 Day 17: Swipe Right

By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-27
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Noah switched songs and sat back again. He picked up his phone and looked at the screen.

Swipe left.

She had nice photos, but it just didn't click for him. It wasn't that he didn't think she was interesting, but he just felt that nobody was interesting enough. That was in no way based on their personalities -- what little he could gleam from these shallow apps' profile texts -- but purely on the amount of hassle he felt would accompany any attempt to connect. There was just something hollow about it.

Swipe left.

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Nanoprep 2017 Day 16: A Story

By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-26
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"Stop reading these words.

No, really, stop reading right now.

I'm not saying this for me, I'm saying this for you.

Stop. Reading. Now.

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Nanoprep 2017 Day 15: So Very Very Awkward

By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-25
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He'd been afraid to say anything, but he was also afraid of not figuring out what this all was. They had known each other for years and there'd always been this energy in the air, something he didn't have with any of his other friends, boys or girls. It was new to him, and it sometimes made it difficult for him to think. Over the past few months, that feeling had only gotten worse.

It wasn't always, mostly it was just regular ol' Andy, Elouise and others hanging out. Playing games, watching movies or just talking about random stuff.

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