Day 3

[tawek.livejournal.com]

Please post today's updates and any excerpts / thoughts / etc in comments.

Here's today's daily prompt for your updates and any excerpts, thoughts etc.

Comments

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

I have 95 words of a first draft for this week's drabble. I haven't written the final paragraph yet, though, so there will be some overwriting and trimming to get back to 100 words. I do have a title: "The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree". Good thing titles (up to 15 words) aren't included in the drabble word count!

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Keep up the pace! Is this another harvest-themed drabble? :)

[azdak.livejournal.com]

You're going to have to up your target at this rate :-)

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I'd say that your plan of writing more regularly this month is shaping up quite nicely.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Sigh. I still wasn't able to work on The Name is Avon because someone challenged me to write a serious piece of work. I decided on poetry. I have no idea why. This is a real test because I haven't written any since I was in junior school, which was many, many, many, sooo many years ago.

So here's my effort. I hope it somewhat qualifies as poetry. It's definitely dark.

The Shore

The fog of sleep
Obscures the vision
Of the cold
Meaningless memories
Of a life spent in
A drifting stream.
Carried along
Seeing the colourful shore
With its living colours
Of leaves never gathered,
Smells imagined,
But never dared,
The wind rustling through
Living instruments
Never heard.

Why
Did I never find
The strength,
The passion,
The courage
To step upon that shore?

The fog is thick now.
No more time to wonder.
No more time for dreams.
Only a faint feeling
Of regret
There is no longer time for
As darkness claims the shore.

[avon7.livejournal.com]

I like the middle verse particularly.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ominous!

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

its living colours
Of leaves never gathered

That's a great image for missed opportunities and past regrets.

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful. Full of feeling.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I haven't written anything yet (have only been awake for 30 minutes :D), but I used this half-hour to do some spontaneous research, and I'd like to use this occasion to declare my love for Wikipedia.

I really, really needed their overview of Spanish naming customs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs) for my story. Otherwise, the whole concept of paternal and maternal surnames, of double first names and nicknames, but no maiden names or middle names, would drive me insane.

Ironically, though, I did something right without being aware of the full implications when I wrote yesterday's passage. The heroine's mother is offended when her aunt suggests that she should name her (illegitimate) child after the day's patron saint -- ironically, I just found out that this was a traditional naming customs for foundlings cast off by their families, so the mother's resentment and anger is even more justified. Hooray.

Um, sorry to be rambling and boring you with all these details, but I love nit-picking and this naming stuff was kicking my ass.

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

Good morning! (ah, mid-day). Wikipedia rocks!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I find that sort of thing interesting too. What have you called your character?

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Spanish names are fabulous, aren't they? The first names are all things like Pain and Loneliness and Misery, and the surnames are all about ten names long.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

That's interesting research.

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

ironically, I just found out that this was a traditional naming customs for foundlings cast off by their families, so the mother's resentment and anger is even more justified. Hooray.

What excellent luck! Hooray, you!

[avon7.livejournal.com]

209 words and maybe more idea of where I'm going. Slight iissue of not knowing where my character fits into canon, but, hey, it's all about the pictures anyway. ;-) (Plot and I have only the narrowest of acquaintances.)

Oh and I've decided to set myself a target even though I think I won't reach it.

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

it's all about the pictures anyway. ;-) (Plot and I have only the narrowest of acquaintances.)

*gigglesnort* I'm with you there!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I stayed up late and wrote some more. Ha! 999 words now!



An excerpt:

"I've known people who were reprogrammed. Didn't take on me, but it usually does. They make you not want to do the things you used to, not steal or rebel or whatever, and that means something's gone from that person. Something that made them them. Sometimes it's not that big a part and they can still do stuff, work and suchlike, but there's a spark missing. Not always a bad thing in really nasty cases, but you see, if they took away all emotion and drive like Avon said, they wouldn't have a reason to do anything at all. I've seen that. People who just sit there and look at nothing much and have to be made to eat."

"Oh, Vila." Soolin squeezed his hand.

"It's all right. I mean, it wasn't, but I'm glad I didn't know them well." Vila wished he hadn't said that; it sounded so callous. And it was, really. You had to be hard to stay afloat in the Federation. He went on quickly. "So they must give mutoids something to make them good officers and soldiers, and they are. Maybe it's pride in what they are."

"Really?" Soolin sat up and looked at him. "That's... something, anyway."

"And Ilka, she's not a bond slave or anything like that. She's an officer, with officer's rights and all. Not a bad life really, compared to some."

"Not compared to who she was."

[azdak.livejournal.com]

This is really sad :-( It makes me think of Wolfgang's grandmother in the late stages of dementia ("People who just sit there and look at nothing much and have to be made to eat.") I'm impressed how you've managed to take an entirely undeveloped idea from canon and put so much meaning into it.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

I did quite well on The Blue Peter Elephant today, which is finally starting to develop a life of its own (thank you, Picowrimo! Thank you!), but not so well on Music II, which was mostly tinkering with stuff I'd already written and wondering which scene I could most easily get a handle on next.

I probably should explain, as I did in the comments yesterday, that the title The Blue Peter Elephant comes from a famous episode of an educational British children's TV show, in which a baby elephant, being shown off in the studio, gets out of control, craps on the floor and then proceeds to drag her keeper through it. You can watch it on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Cj2TtFd_E). It's fame, of a kind, hence its use as a title for a play about people obsessed with getting on TV.


TOMMY: And get Dildo on the show. Take her out to dinner, soften her up a bit, then ask her to do it as a favour to you. Works every time.

JIM: Soften her up a bit… Are you asking me to seduce her?!

TOMMY: It's funny, you don't normally strike me as a vestal virgin. In fact, if anyone asked me, I'd have said you'd had extensive sexual experience.

JIM: Quite extensive, yeah, but…

TOMMY: In fact, I'd have said you were the kind of slutty little skirt chaser no woman was safe from. If I had a daughter, I wouldn't let you anywhere near her.

JIM: You do have a daughter, boss.

Music II (it's a scene from Mr Rosen's early life, when he was a young man in Vienna, just before the second world war - his first encounter with Georg von Hardenstein, a playright, who soon becomes his best friend).

"It's not what I really want to write, you know," said Hardenstein. "My genius is all for High Tragedy, but that doesn't bring in the dosh. I have a crumbling castle and eight crumbling aunts to maintain, so it's comedies, comedies, comedies, at the mo."

"A castle?" said Arthur, who wasn't especially interested in aunts.

"Castle Hardenstein," said the Count. "You won't have heard of it. The Hardensteins distinguished themselves by never doing anything of note historically, and never building anything of any architectural worth. They simply squatted in their fortress for hundreds of years, living off the backs of the local peasants, and indulging in the occasional bout of looting and pillaging, until the nineteenth century, when my late lamented grandfather, the fifteenth Count Hardenstein, suffered fearful loss through putting money on a horse, which he believed, if it were pressed, would run far faster than the rest. Only it didn't. They never do. The family has never recovered, and since I'm the last of the male line, they all look to me to restore their fortunes to the dizzying pinnacles they once occupied. Or at least to raise enough cash to have the roof fixed. You wouldn't believe how the West Wing leaks. Going in there during a downpour is like walking through an Amazon rain forest. Only colder. And with mould hanging off the walls in lieu of lianas. So, you're Rosenthal. Jewish?"

"No," said Arthur, "Catholic. My parents converted before I was born."

"That was jolly prescient of them," said Hardenstein. "I wish my ancestors had shown half as much foresight, then I wouldn't have to sweat ink to earn my bread. But if you'll take a word of advice from Uncle Hardy, you might want to do something about the name. It's quite misleading, given that you are, in fact, not."

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

lol on the first one!

I like the interaction between the two characters in the second one and their cynical, world-weary tone.

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

I spent a good amount of time yesterday getting the plot plotted(hah). I'm feeling a little daunted because there's so much to write, but it did help to get the plan, such as it is, all in one place. It doesn't count toward the wordcount, but it was a worthwhile effort.

Here' today's 300 words:

The hole would need to be at least eighteen inches deep. She worked at the shovel with her foot, wiggling it down and pulled out several good scoops. When she plunged the spade into the hole again, it hit something hard. A root, or a rock, she thought, and shifted over a small way and dug there. After a few tries, the shovel hit the hard thing again. She began again, a little forward, so she had a good circumference going, if nothing else. Again, the shovel was stopped by the hard object. What in the world, she wondered. Would one of the flagstones have sunk this deep? She repositioned the shovel, chopping at the dirt, beginning an entirely new hole a foot from the first, in search of the stone’s edge. Eighteen inches down, the shovel scraped a hard surface. This is crazy, she thought, and sank to her knees to inspect the bottom of the hole. Using her hands, she scooped handfuls of the loose dirt from the hole until she touched something hard. She brushed a last thin layer to the side of the hole and saw a flat black surface. This is no rock, she thought.

She stood up, taking the shovel in hand and began again, a foot over, and dug in earnest, not surprised when the blade struck a solid obstacle, and again, another foot over. Her hands trembled and slipped, and a little cry escaped her lips. Oh my god, how big is a coffin? Six feet? No, you bury them six feet deep. She stopped digging and surveyed the scattering of holes, each with a flat hard surface at its bottom. Of course it’s not a coffin. It’s too big for a coffin.

Get a grip, Karen, she told herself. Make a grid.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Oo-er! Karen's a braver woman than I am - just the thought of coffins would have stopped me in my tracks. How horribly creepy to uncover something nasty while digging in your garden!

Your targets looking gooood - 16% done after only three days!

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

I managed 330 words today then added in another old scene of some 1140 words.So my word count's gone up, but so has my target.

And what I wrote today:

“Not the drinks, idiot.” Zack grinned. “Your thoughts. Care to share them?”

“Just thinking that it's good to be back,” Rob said. “There's only so much education I can take at one time.”

“That's why they give you shorter terms, is it? Your delicate, little rich-kid brains can't take the pressure any longer, while those of us who're going to be working for a living get to stay in school a whole extra week.”

“Hey, I'm going to have to work for a living too.” Rob punched Zack on the arm, causing some of his drink to slop out of its glass and onto the floor. “You don't think my Dad's going to give me an easy ride – or a job in his office when I leave school – do you?”

“It'll be University then a cushy desk job for you, I bet.” Zack looked away. “You won't get sent off to fight like me and most of the others in here.”

“Says who?” Rob slid his hand behind Zack's neck and pulled him in close. “I've applied for Officer Training. If they won't take me, I'm thinking of quitting school and signing up with the Regulars.”

Zack pulled back, staring at Rob.

“Your Dad'll never let you.”

“He won't know until it's too late. Once I've been accepted, they're hardly likely to let me back down, now are they?” Rob pulled Zack close again. “You never know, we might even end up assigned somewhere together.” He lowered his voice. “Don't say you haven't thought about it. It'd be just like camp in the old days. Sharing quarters, patrolling together, covering each other's positions.”

“Except there'd be real enemies firing real guns at us. I'm not sure I'd like that.”

“You're signing up, aren't you?” Rob asked.

“Yeah, but that's different.”

Rob thought about Zack's Dad. Maybe he'd feel different if his own Dad had vanished. He pulled Zack in closer still.

“We'll worry about it when – if – it happens,” he said. “Didn't we come out here to have some fun tonight?”

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

It'd be just like camp in the old days. Sharing quarters, patrolling together, covering each other's positions.”

Uh-oh. Good thing Rob's got Zack to keep him rooted in reality here.

I like this scene - the friendship, and the good use of dialogue to tell us about the characters.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

And now I've even done some proper writing for today -- about 600 more words!



Day 3 (http://having-written.livejournal.com/23197.html#cutid3) even takes off where day 2 left me hanging, storywise. Excerpt here:


Among the scenes from the Nativity in the church and the oil-lamps for Nochebuena in the windows, it was so easy to pretend that there was no war going on in the darkness; that the child’s wet, downy hair was her mother’s rich, dark brown instead of an unfamiliar blonde; that Teresa might be a respectable widow or an officer’s wife waiting for her husband to return on furlough and cradle his first-born in his arms.

Antonia was barely three weeks old, however, when Doña Agnes caught her niece showing off the sleeping girl at a New Year’s dinner in an afrancesado’s drawing-room. She had scarcely recognized Teresa’s demeanour on that evening. Partly demure, partly sly, she smiled at the enemy officers in an afrancesada’s drawing-room; she was acting for all the world as though she’d lost her honour to some English brute and was practically begging for the next best handsome sous-lieutenant to throw some money after her and her poor, fatherless child.

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

Great progress toward your goal - Good for you:)
Theresa sounds so intriguing, I had to sneak a peek at the larger piece.
Thanks for the link!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

250 and a bit words in half an hour (started late in order to watch the latest Attenborough). A pity I have to stop now, but it's a natural break and I had a hard enough time getting up this morning. I've got quite a lot of notes on this fic, but putting them together in coherent paragraphs is surprisingly challenging. Still, I'm satisfied with the bit I've done, and know more or less where I'm going next.

Not a quote from what I've written tonight, but from a scrap of note: "Startled goose in 2nd punt scene?" Take that which way you will...

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

*envies your writing speed*

And what's up with the poor waterfowl on the Cherwell?

[six-old-cars.livejournal.com]

275 words today, the first day I've written anything.

Actually that's not bad, considering I wasn't expecting to take part in Pico this year. I've got shed-loads of work to do and masses of Real Life getting in the way so I just can't commit any evenings or weekends to writing. But then I realised yesterday that I've got the best part of 20 lunch times that I won't be doing anything in. So today I took the baby laptop to work with me and wrote a bit of Traveller (chapter 15, continuing from last year).

Today's excerpt (actually the first words I wrote today) :

“I can assure you, sir, I'm not weightless,” Chris sighed. “I wish I was; I'm sure my leg would hurt less.”
“I don't actually feel weightless,” Gibbs explained. “But the fake environment that I'm seeing no longer has any reason for you not to float wherever the real world takes you.” He stopped short of voicing his feeling that the dream was learning, adapting. Demonstrating intelligence.

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

A great idea, to do a little writing over lunch! I'm new this year, so I haven't read 'Traveller', but it sounds good to me.

You're writing a book, I take it, and you've got fifteen chapters from last year? Excellent!

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Just about to go out for the evening thanks to a surprise invitation, so I won't get any more done today, but I did scribble a quick 189 words over lunch.

That makes 1574 words so far in November. (Since I didn't set a wordcount goal, it doesn't make sense to use a progress bar; instead I'll just keep track of my total count.) Already more than I wrote in the whole of October, so I'm happy.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

It's weird how good it feels to see the word count creeping up!

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Despite traditional avoidance behaviour like answering e mail, I did about 275 words on the story I'm supposed to be working on. I should get myself a little bar graph! Then to reward myself I did around 250 fooling around with something I've been thinking about for awhile. Something with angst.
Excerpt below, except it won't make any sense unless you're pretty familiar with MFU.


Illya looked at him in surprise. "The offer came from Waverly. Just after the New Year, he must have been thinking about it when he sent you after me. Semenov told me when I went back to Moscow that June.

Napoleon thought about it. "The old fox. We all thought it was one of Semenov's demands."

"Oh, Semenov was eager enough. He might even have brought it up if Waverly hadn't. But it started with Waverly."

"God. I wonder if Beldon knew."

"I'm not sure; he probably suspected. He invited me to dinner a couple of weeks before I left for New York."

"That must have been a bit uncomfortable."

"Dinner with Harry was always uncomfortable. But yes, this was stranger than usual. He was angry; with me a little I think, but his anger went deeper than that. He tried not to let it show, but it was there. He felt I put up too little resistance to the transfer."

Napoleon looked at Illya. "I always assumed you wanted to come. Did you?"

Illya's lips quirked. " I put up no resistance." He paused for a moment remembering again the fraught conversation and Harry's glittering eyes. "I think...I think that night he tried to recruit me."

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I should get myself a little bar graph!

Oh, you definitely should. Huzzah for steady progress!