Pico, Day 28

[elmey.livejournal.com]

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

Comments

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Re-reading the Firiel story turned into editing - edited the first two pages of the printed out version, mostly just tidying things up a bit. I'm glad the story still seems to read well as I go back over it.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

That's good. You'll have a realatively easy time to pick it up again, then.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Reading turning into editing sounds very positive, and I'm glad it is still reading well for you. Kudos!

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Excellent! So just some more relaxing polishing to go.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Somehow re-reading always turns into some editing :) I'm glad you're so happy with it.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I'm glad too - it's always awful when you reread something and don't like it as much as when you wrote it...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Re-reading and thinking "hey, this is good" and getting into editing is really fun.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Great work getting started on the editing there.

A Matter of Time

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I've worked on Chapter 7 like a demon today, since tomorrow we'll be busy with my uncle's funeral and all the social stuff surrounding it. I've all but finished it, save for the last fighting scene. I'm optimistic that I'll manage to get the chapter ready for posting before this pico session ends.

Excerpt:
Sandra gives him a look of mock disgust. “You’re annoying, you know that? Have always been. You and your smug I-know-everything attitude.”

“Thank you,” Ianto returns, straight-faced. “I’ll take that as a compliment. The thing is, though: I do know everything, at least where alien species are concerned. It was my bloody job at One as a junior archivist.”

Sandra frowns doubtfully. “Did One ever come across these catfish people?”

“No,” Ianto admits, “but I read up on 22nd century aliens while with the Doctor. I was… interested.”

“And with that freakish memory of yours, of course, you haven’t forgotten a thing,” Sandra grumbles. “It’s not fair.”

Ianto shrugs. “We all have our gifts. I could never get into alien technology to understand it from within the way Suzie did… and you do, I presume.”

“Yeah, and a fat lot of good did it do her… or me,” Sandra replies flatly. “Getting obsessed with that fucking glove and killed for it… twice.”

“It’s always dangerous to tinker with things beyond our understanding,” Ianto agrees. “Well, come on then; the captain’s waiting and we’ve got to go down seventeen levels.”

Re: A Matter of Time

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Kudos for an all-but-finished chapter! I love Ianto's confidence in the extract.

RE: A Matter of Time

[saki101.livejournal.com]

More great progress!

Ianto shrugs. “We all have our gifts...

Calm. No false modesty.

RE: A Matter of Time

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Good scene, it really shows off the two characters. Congratulations on getting so much of it done this month!

I hope tomorrow isn't too hard on everyone.

RE: A Matter of Time

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

You've done so well, got so much more done than I can boast.

I like Ianto's dialogue, it is dry and sharp.

RE: A Matter of Time

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

“It’s always dangerous to tinker with things beyond our understanding,” Ianto agrees.

So says a man who learned that the hard way!

I'm sorry to hear about your uncle, I hope the funeral goes as well as these things can.

RE: A Matter of Time

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

“It’s always dangerous to tinker with things beyond our understanding,” Ianto agrees.

So says a man who learned that the hard way!

I'm sorry to hear about your uncle, I hope the funeral goes as well as these things can.

RE: A Matter of Time

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

They seem to be acknowledging that they both have useful skills for this mission.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I kept on editing the latest scene; added about 150 words but then I deleted some. Still no onwards progress but I'm hoping the deletion will make jump-cutting to where I want to be easier. I promised Saki an extract, so have a short edited bit; this is from earlier in the scene than the bit where Cobweb is crying at him...

All those stairs sure got the feeling back in my feet. They also reminded me I’d had nothing to eat. I sloped down the canteen kitchens to see what I could scrounge but the cooks were still nursing their hangovers, and the place was dark and cold and empty apart from the smell of yesterday’s fish. That never left. Neither did my dream. It just kept on rolling round and round in my head.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

That must have been some dream...
As always, I love the way you can create atmosphere with only a few words.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Maybe not onward progress yet, but stirring the pot and adding some bits.

I can smell the cold, old fish! *wrinkles nose and shivers*

[elmey.livejournal.com]

I love the bit: but the cooks were still nursing their hangovers. You almost don't have to say anymore, we know exactly what the place is with that.

I hope the editing starts pushing you forward again!

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Still rather tired this evening, but managed another 550 words. I've now moved onto the next morning, and Edward has let Rupert sleep late while he ponders various topics they discussed the night before:

Roo needed to earn money if he was to gain experience of budgeting and saving before going off to whichever university or college they decided on for him. Edward felt that one of the longer-established agricultural colleges would suit Roo better than Oxford or Cambridge, but the boy seemed to have his heart set on studying art. Still, that was all years away; Roo could decide in his own time, and Edward had no intention of forcing his son into doing anything he objected to.

Having mucked out, and given Roo's nag a cursory run over with a dandy brush – the memories of helping Julia with her horses had come flooding back as soon as Edward collected the wheelbarrow of tools and picked up a grooming kit – he returned home to find Roo up and about, and making coffee.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

It's hard to vanquish fatigue during the week. Kudos for writing despite it!

Will the book reach Roo's university years? I'm applauding Edward's intentions there and rooting for art.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

A weekend away and some not terribly productive days, but I'm managing to wade towards the end. The mystery has been solved, and the wrap-up stage is about to begin. I must try to finish it by the end of the month!

... fascinatin' as it has been to learn how the other half lives, I'm jolly glad that it will be over soon. Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better, and this inconvenience threatened to be considerable. I could not possibly carry off the profession of a mystery novelists, and you, Harriet, do not deserve my relations.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Yes! three productive days stretch before us!

I'm thinking about how much more understanding they will each have for the other after this. Will it ever happen to them again?

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Drabbit drabbit, I got muddled and thought I had more time to do the challenge story... until I saw a post saying "it's due!" So I have been scribbling madly, got 1000 odd words done and will hopefully get it finished tomorrow... well, I have to! Luckily, when really pushed I found I could TOO write something on the diplomatic chocolate idea... it won't be great but it will be something.

You would think - and Daniel has not only thought but mentioned it at length, and more than once - that in their secret billion dollar budge, the SGC would find the wherewithal needed to hire one or two professionals.

But you would be wrong, and for years he, and Stan Kovacek (a military attorney, wasn't that close enough?) and the two or three anthropologists who could be trusted offworld were it. For the entire planet. After all, what does a Highly Classified Secret Military Operation normally need with an official diplomatic core anyway? As Jack O'Neill says way too often and with way too self-satisfied a smirk, they can get by with charm, coffee, chocolate... oh, and C-4.

Or not.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

It is a funny solution!

[saki101.livejournal.com]

I did some editing, a fair amount of plotty thinking and wrote 263 words of dialogue, supposedly in furtherance of the plotty thoughts. Now I think I might not use it at all. At least not in its present form. *sigh* So, here's the end of the scene from yesterday, hopefully polished up a bit.

***

Sherlock leaned back in his seat and saw the bottle. “What’s this?” he asked, holding it up to the light and narrowing his eyes at the hand-printed label. He sniffed at the stopper.

“There’s a farmer’s market at the weekend near Mike’s house,” John said. “I walked through it and spotted that.”

“Blackberry melomel with wild yeast,” Sherlock read. “There are no quality controls on these sorts of things, John. Anything could be growing in here.” He looked from the label to John.

John grinned. “You can test it.”

Red streaked from the bookcase and out the sitting room door. Voices floated up the stairs on a cool gust of air.

“Or we could serve it to Mycroft,” Sherlock said.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

That's beautifully dry :)

[candidlily.livejournal.com]

65 words AND I'm packed for Orlando tomorrow! :D

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Yay, have fun!