Pico, Day 2

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Here's today's post for your snippets, comments, thoughts.

Let the words pour out ;)

Comments

[kerravonsen]

No actual writing yet, but I tracked down my old notes for the story ("By Any Other Name", a Doctor Who fic which I wrote a while back, then took down), and re-read them, as well as the earlier version of the story. So that's something.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Whofic is always good!

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Good foundation-laying work! It is indeed something!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Reading old work always takes courage, so kudos!

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Finding and reading the notes is certainly progress! Hope they helped you decide what needs doing next.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Sounds intriguing! Here's hoping it sparks some inspiration.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

You're getting ready to write! That's the first step :)

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Always a start :)

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good start.

My Pico project for July

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

So, I've picked my Pico project for July: I'll try to continue "An Excellent Mystery", while working on the new Cadfael story idea on the sideline.

Analysis, background, characters, etc, are listed here (http://wiseheart.livejournal.com/675270.html), if someone is interested, while the already existing chapters can be read on FF.Net, here (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10472377/1/An-Excellent-Mystery). Some of you may even remember the story from former Pico sessions.

Excerpt:
From the partially written Chapter 5

In the meantime, Dr Watson steadied himself to follow “the London thread”, as Holmes had called it – which meant finding and questioning Mr Anderson’s relatives. A not very joyful task, to which he wasn’t really looking forward to, but one that had to be done. And it was still better if he dealt with a bereft – and likely elderly mother – than leaving it to Holmes, whose compassion was limited in the best of times.

He took a hansom from Queen Anne Street to Tatchbrook Street, as his wound was bothering him again in the wet and cold London weather, and when he got out of the cab in front of Number 64, he briefly wondered how his wife was doing on the long train ride, with Holmes in the state of pre-investigation catatonia and only a novel of questionable literary value as her company. But again, she used to be a governante. She could deal with obnoxious children – even with the grown-up sort of them.

Question: Is governante the right word to use for ACD canon Mary Morstan's former profession? If not, what would you suggest?

RE: My Pico project for July

[saki101.livejournal.com]

I do recall and await more excerpts!

Governess for Mary Morstan.

...with Holmes in the state of pre-investigation catatonia and only a novel of questionable literary value as her company.

I love that description. I hope the scenery is pleasant.

Re: My Pico project for July

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

So this is BBC Sherlock in ACD London? That's always an interesting set up. I particularly like how his wife was doing on the long train ride, with Holmes in the state of pre-investigation catatonia and only a novel of questionable literary value as her company.

Oh, and I'm with Saki101 on governess.

RE: My Pico project for July

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting set-up! I like Watson's thoughts on the likely dynamic between Mary and Holmes.

With everybody else on 'governess'.

RE: My Pico project for July

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Oh, this one was very interesting, I'll be glad to see it continue! Wouldn't mind seeing a bit of Cadfael either.

RE: My Pico project for July

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

That's a good promising excerpt :)

RE: My Pico project for July

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

An intriguing snippet there.

RE: My Pico project for July

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to reading more of this story and the new Cadfael one sounds interesting.

Very sensible of Watson! It will be interesting to see what he learns.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

#400 words on the Firiel story - and the story marches onwards (the council is debating if Arvedui should become king of Gondor....). No snippet today as I don't have enough brain to edit into a snippetable form (one problem being that most of the characters in the scene don't have proper names yet - I really should stop and name everyone and add them to my character list).

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

That sounds like excellent progress, and on a difficult scene. Good luck with finding names for all the characters; it can be quite a time-consuming task, I find.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

I edited another chapter today, while sitting on the accidental chaise longue. Tomorrow I need to work at least one new scene into the next chapter, since I need to get Linda more involved in the run up to the grand finale. Meanwhile, Edward is stressing that Rupert has neither come home or been in contact, and has taken Linda with him to find out if Kate has any news. She does, but not quite what he's hoping for -- so now he's returning the phonecall Kate took on his behalf:

Edward propped himself against the wall by the telephone table and dialled a number he obviously knew from memory. "Ah, hello. Is Her Grace there? It's the other His Grace."

Linda wondered whether she should make conversation with Kate so as not to be obviously eavesdropping, but the other woman was apparently keen to listen in on the phone call.

"Grace," Edward said after a few moments' wait. "How are you? Now, I've told you not to call me that – I'm not five any more... Well, I never had a chance to tell you: we've been rather busy over here, and it's not like you've had time to visit us since... It's very kind of you to say so, under the circumstances... And very kind of you to do that as well... No he's not back yet, but I'll make sure he rings you once he returns... Of course he has to thank you properly."

Edward glanced over at the women in the room, while seeming to only half-listen to the conversation on the other end of the line. "Yes, we'll visit soon... No, I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew, but she's playing her cards very close to her chest this year... It may be indeed. Look I'd love to talk all day, but I'm sure you have better things to do. We shall definitely have to catch up soon."

Having replaced the receiver, Edward crossed the room, and sat down on a rather battered Chippendale chair.

"Well?" Kate said.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

This is a marvellously aggravating conversation - I share Kate and Linda's interest in knowing what the other half of it contained!

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

The edits are going much faster than I'd expected - now I'm past the first few sections, which I had to rewrite almost entirely from scratch to bring them all into one character's point of view, I'm zipping along and am approaching the half way mark. I've got a lot of them transferred from paper to the file, too, so you can have a snippet. Not, in fact, from that character's point of view - I couldn't get much infodumping into the story in tight third, so I have chucked it in the chapter headings instead


The harshest critic would struggle to fault the setting of Stancester cathedral. Built on the site of a Saxon minster, presiding over the crossing of two Roman roads, it dominates the north side of the city. Its yellow-grey stone is echoed all around the old town, and, should one be fortunate enough to visit on a sunny afternoon, the overall effect is charming.

The buildings that compose the University of Stancester cluster around Markham Grange, a frigidly elegant Queen Anne mansion. Once upon a time, the Grange sat solitary on top of Markham Hill, looking across the river to the cathedral, aloof from the Roman road and its workaday traffic. Then the railway came to Stancester, the lines coming in from north and east and joining just outside the main station to run down towards Exeter, and the city crept southwards, across the river, up the hill. In the fifties and sixties the university buildings billowed out around the Grange like a starched petticoat. A few formal lawns and venerable trees remain between the concrete blocks and the repurposed Victorian villas and the campus is a pleasant place to walk or study or lounge.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Hooray for this zipping along! This is great progress!

In the chapter headings is a good solution. As a reader, I enjoy that format. It makes embarking on each chapter seem special.

So many beautiful descriptions, such as ...the university buildings billowed out around the Grange like a starched petticoat. I can picture this. (I am opting for the sunny afternoon version.)

[saki101.livejournal.com]

250 words tonight, not a lot, but not so bad. The snip is the beginning of it.

***

John walked into the sitting room towelling his hair. “You haven’t even taken your coat off,” he said.

“Gray’s comfortable,” Sherlock replied and gestured towards the mound of blue cashmere next to his laptop as evidence that he had undressed some.

Gray had pushed the coat collar down, snuggled beneath Sherlock’s ear and gone to sleep.

John ran his hand along Sherlock’s free shoulder. “Mycroft would be pleased to know you’re giving his message top priority.”

Sherlock glanced up. “That was blatantly manipulative, John. It works better if one is subtle.”

[elmey.livejournal.com]

It may work better if one is subtle, but I'm pretty sure it still works :)

You're moving along quite well!

[julesjones]

Internal email this morning from my publisher saying that in celebration of the Supreme Court's decision, they'd like to see follow-up stories for their LGBT romances that don't already end with a wedding. This evening I have 833 words of a wedding story for Nice Tie. About half of which will probably get cut, but they were in my head and now they're in the file in case I decide to use them after all. :-)

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on getting the writing done--but I'm tickled by the thought that the publishers now want weddings in LGBT romances; a side effect of the ruling here that hadn't occurred to me :)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I finally got my teeth into the next chapter, which was a long one, and split it into three this time. I've edited the first part, which was largely ok, and now I'm working on the second. Still need a title. A short snippet of edited stuff...

Ash tapped the topmost leather case with one slender finger. She’d stripped off a single glove, the right one. She wore her nails long, longer than seemed sensible given this side to her profession, and the nail clicked on the box like a clock tick-tick-ticking its way down to a hanging.

I'm trying to decide whether to insert a clue to pep up the pacing a little. In pure mechanics, it's an obvious point to do so -- and indeed some skulduggery has been needed to evade it -- but it means that a thread I'd been planning to plant clues to the clue later would be overwritten and a lot of conversation in the remaining 18k might need to be rethought. I think I need to grit my teeth and actually read the whole bit with the pacing problem before making my mind up whether it's worthwhile. It might be more dramatic to delay it a little.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

It's hard to know how to reveal information sometimes--I tend to keep it away from the reader for as long as possible, but when you're working with something this length, you have to cough up something on a regular basis. I like the detail of the clicking like a clock.

[candidlily.livejournal.com]

127 words written tonight. I'm starting to think I'll have this fic finished by the end of this month. Here's hoping!

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Yay for timelines behaving!