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!

[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.

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

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

[avon7.livejournal.com]

I like the middle verse particularly.

[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.

[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!

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

No, we've moved onto a "Trees" theme, and this week it's "Apple".

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

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

[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."

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

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

[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."

[azdak.livejournal.com]

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

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ominous!

[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.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Targets are good. It helps to have something to aim for.

Slight iissue of not knowing where my character fits into canon

Canon? Pah! Who needs it?!

[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.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Great progress!

Such a sad passage.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

That's interesting research.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Hehe. More progress though and that's always good.

[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.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

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

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

its living colours
Of leaves never gathered

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

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Plot and I have only the narrowest of acquaintances.

*g*

Pah. Plot. Completely overrated nonsense. Or, to vaguely paraphrase E. M. Forster, such an outdated, silly, atavistic thing, oh dear.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Great word count so far -- your diligence seems to be paying off. :)