About Nico


I'm a senior business analyst, writer, blogger and tarot consultant based in Toronto, Canada.


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5 Book Blogs You Should Be Reading

By Nico on Tuesday the 9th of March, 2010 at 4:14 pm

RSS IconThere are hundreds of literary blogs out there and I subscribe to several dozen of them, but recently I’ve pared down my RSS subscriptions again, and thought I’d share five of my favourites.

So I present to you, in no particular order:

1. Bookninja

George Murray posts several times a day, commenting on the latest in book news, reviews and miscellanea with snappy asides and acidic author bias. It’s lovely.

A few recent posts: “The literary Devil don’t want Toronto’s soul“, “Amazon and Apple bringing ebooks bar fight to Canada?“, “Sargent rallies the troops“.

Bonus: Free snark! (Read more…)

Re-writing, a common theme this month

By Nico on Sunday the 7th of March, 2010 at 6:02 pm

I’m at work on a short story I first started about six months ago. After a few initial re-writes around that time it’s been sitting abandoned in a folder, though not forgotten.

Today was the first time I’d re-read it in full since that time. It’s better than I remember it, though not as good as I know it sounded in my head when I first began drafting the idea. They never comes out as well as I want it to on the page. I understand this is common, but it’s still frustrating.

More tinkering today, but the last five pages need a complete re-write. I probably ought to scrap them all together, but it would mean re-writing or completely re-designing some 500-800 words. It’s for the best, but it still hurts.

I’m hoping to have it finished by the end of the week, but we’ll see how it goes.

I’m really enjoying working on these stories again, and just being in this world. So many ideas to play with.

Back to work!

Another submisison

By Nico on Friday the 5th of March, 2010 at 6:50 pm

WritingI mailed out another submission this afternoon; a short story to a Canadian magazine I recently discovered and enjoy.

I wrote the first draft of the story a few months ago and have been tinkering with it incessantly for the past few weeks. It’s been driving me mad, but I think it’s ok. I hope so, anyway.

It’s very short, less than 2000 words. It’s set in an alterante Toronto and features a thoroughly dispicable narrator (though I rather like him). Many of the characters and situations relate to two other (longer) short stories I’d written earlier set in the same world.

Time to get to work on the next one. So far it’s already 3600+ words.

Wish me luck.

A Nico-eyed view

By Nico on Thursday the 4th of March, 2010 at 7:31 pm

In 2009 my husband took a series of pictures he described as my view of the world. I thought it might be fun to reproduce them here.

Nico's World

I imagine you can guess the theme. (Read more…)

Submission (or Tales of an Aspiring Writer)

By Nico on Monday the 22nd of February, 2010 at 7:45 pm

WritingI submitted a few poems today to one of my favourite literary journals. I had a few poems rejected last year for inclusion in an anthology, one of which was reworked and mailed today, hopefully better than it was before.

It’s been a long time since I’ve submitted something. Though I’ve been writing more than ever, I’ve been so caught up in other projects that nothing’s been done about it.

I rationalize to myself that, after enough editing/fixing/tinkering, it’s necessary to finally print and send, but it’s so utterly terrifying. Yet, I’m even looking forward to getting a rejection letter, should that be the case. At least that means it’s been considered.

With that, it’s now time to get back to work and massage a new short story into something that might one day become publishable.

Wish me luck.

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