By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-15
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tags:
nanoprep, scifi
It's been 3 years since they left. Life has become harder since, but we're holding on. The station is mostly empty, but those of us who were left behind have managed to make do so far, scavenging and using the equipment that's still working to our advantage.
It wasn't financially feasible to keep it open, Plutoid Corporation claimed, after the station had had its 10th year without profit. For a 60-year old station, this was considered to be a quick pull-out. They evacuated everyone over a period of weeks and shut down most systems, leaving the rest on in case they ever decided to come back. If they hadn't everything would have frozen over rather quickly.
We weren't supposed to stay behind, but they also didn't know we were here. It was illegal to procreate outside of Earth, since the gravities elsewhere were simply too different. We would never be able to go to either of the main human planets, as we would crumple under both their gravities and atmospheric pressure.
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By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-14
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nanoprep
The wailing wouldn't stop. She was trying to sleep but it would just. Not. Stop.
She'd never been allowed to have a pet by her parents. Something about how she wouldn't take care of it properly and they'd end up having to feed it and clean up after it. She'd cried and screamed the last time she tried, but they hadn't relented. No pets for Leila. A heartbreaking result for a 12-year old.
She'd gone up to her room to be alone and sad, when she found it. In the back of her wardrobe.
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By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-13
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tags:
nanoprep, personal, memories
Time to write, so it's time to go through the motions. Turn off the light, turn on the more subtle spot lights. Light some candles, get in that slightly pretentious mood that seems to work so well for writing.
I pick up the packs of incense I usually burn and think back to when I wrote a story that started with me burning incense. I wrote about important memories to me. That was 4 relationships, 3 apartments and over 10 years ago.
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By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-12
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tags:
nanoprep, creepy, photographs
Sierra tapped the shutter button and her phone made a 'click' sound.
"That's a really good one!" she said, and the group broke apart after taking turns looking at the resulting photograph. Then most of them simply drifted off to other parts of the party.
"Some cultures used to believe that photographs would steal a person's soul," Amiran said smiling.
"Did they? I thought that was just a condescending myth," Sierra responded with a smirk.
"Oh, it's not a myth," he said with a wide grin.
He leaned back on the bar and crossed his arms.
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By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-11
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tags:
nanoprep, unlucky, personal
You know those days? The days where nothing seems to go right?
He did.
It all started simple - he knocked over a cup of coffee. Sadly, the coffee had spilled all over his laptop, which powered off rather quickly after that. It had not turned on again and the tech guy said it was probably a lost cause. Some of the coffee had also ended up in his lap, leaving a stain. Even though the day then seemed to calm down, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was going to be one of those days for the history books. And not in a good way.
He was completely right about that.
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By Robin de Voh on 2017-10-09
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tags:
update
So where's that Fortnightly Story #4? Ehhhh, not coming. I had to update some pages on this here site and do other things, so it just didn't come to pass.
This is because, in 2 days, NaNoPrep starts again, and I'll be writing short stories for 20 days straight. I've upped the minimum word count per story to 400, since I hit that target consistently last year. Might as well up the challenge, I thought to myself, and then did so.
After that, I've got one day off and then November's here.
NaNoWriMo time!
And as such, I'll be writing my third novel-length piece of crap in a row!
This means no Fortnightly Story for the remainder of October or for the entirety of November. And since the first Fortnightly would be the weekend one day after NaNoWriMo ends, I'll be skipping that one too.
So the next Fortnightly? That would be some time mid-December, between the 15th and the 18th.
But I'll be writing. Ohhhh I'll be writing.
By Robin de Voh on 2017-09-26
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tags:
fortnightly
Holding up the cardboard sign, she chuckled. Years ago, she'd left her shitty hometown in the exact same way. Somehow it felt fitting that she was hitchhiking back.
The reason for it was different, of course. 6 years had passed and her life had changed immensely. She'd left home to find a better life, force one if necessary, and had managed to do so. It had taken longer than she'd hoped for, but it had been worth it. She was living with her best friend in a nice apartment downtown, with a dog they ostensibly shared responsibility for but was mostly hers to clean up after. Kate meant well, but she was more of a cat person. She'd paid her way through college, even if it was just community college, but she was working in the field she studied for and she knew that that was something to be thankful for.
A car whizzed past and the cardboard sign fluttered. It had started to rain and she'd forgotten to bring a coat. She sighed and stepped a bit closer to the road.
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By Robin de Voh on 2017-09-13
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tags:
update
Writing, for me, is a natural thing to do. I don't do it enough, however, and that's why I've started doing the Fortnightly Stories. I intend to do this all year through, mostly to stop myself from falling into a writing hole after NaNoWriMo like the past year (so far) and last year.
I've had submission windows for literary mags in my calendar for a year, and I've submitted nothing.
Yet over the past 2 years I've written 2 novels (quality notwithstanding) and at the point of writing this, about 46 stories.
So what happened?
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By Robin de Voh on 2017-09-11
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tags:
fortnightly
Lang could hear their footsteps in the hallway, right above him. They hadn't noticed him, but all they had to do was look down and squint a little to do so. He was in the dark, underneath the metal grating the ship used for hallway floors.
"So you're on the late shift?" one of them asked.
"Yeah, but it's okay. I traded with Jefferson, he's going to take the Saturday," the other said.
"He doesn't want to be at the party?"
"I guess not. But it works for me," the other said, laughing.
They walked on, and Lang wanted to sigh in relief but stopped himself just in time.
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By Robin de Voh on 2017-08-27
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tags:
fortnightly
I'd been working on Lorenzo longer than I'd care to admit. He's technically the 14th in his line, all previous experiments failing one way or another. They'd either never woken up (for various reasons) or they'd be flawed in such a way that the experiment was over before it'd really even started.
So Lorenzo the 14th was the one where all previous lessons learned came together, and I felt careful optimism as I powered him up.
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