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.

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.”

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[candidlily.livejournal.com]

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