Day 29

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Here's today's prompt for you to post your updates and any excerpts and thoughts etc in comments.

Comments

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Zack's father worked for Rob's father (in the sense of being Chief of Security to the Prime Minister rather than a direct personal employee), but the boys knew each other from school before Rob's father took office.

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Way to go! I"m looking forward to reading the whole thing.

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Hah! A man who wears a brocade dressing-gown to work is my kind of spy.

Keep going, almost there!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Gosh! Not at all how I imagined him, but suitably eccentric in his dress. :-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I hope it will be up in a couple of days. :-)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Come to that, the movers used blankets round my cheap posters in clip frames (didn't entirely work!).

Clumsiness must at all costs be avoided.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I find myself quite liking the Admiral - a tough bastard, possibly a nasty bastard, but not a mindless bastard ;-)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

If I am ever a (female) spy, I shall certainly wear a brocade dressing gown.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Not done any serious writing this weekend - too busy, too tired, that's what this stage of term does for one. But this evening I _did_ sit down and not only edit the previous ficlet, but have a bash at another "it's a short, fun idea, might as well write it now as put it off" piece. Not quite finished - though I think there could be only a para. or so to go (if I'm lucky), but quite pleased with 472 words in an hour and a quarter.

It was in fact the first occasion on which Harriet had spoken in public since her trial, and the inch-deep carpets, excessive gilding, and faint smell of coffee that permeated the building had gone a good way to quell the sense of being back in the dock.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

This sounds interesting. I hope you'll post a link to the finished story.

[tawek.livejournal.com]

Doh! For yesterday, I gave the correct figure for the amount written (2632), but did some double-counting for my grand total. This means that, despite writing 1411 words today, my grand total has hardly inched forward at all.

Still, it is progress. I've nearly completed part 3, and as the total written is 1300 less than I thought, that means the story is bloating less than I feared, perhaps to 13000 or so. If later, I can prune a further thousand or two, that'd be even better.



For my extract, I'll give the start of part 3:


It always sticks in the throat, when scarred thugs are slapping clubs against their hands, as you count out your protection money. But it feels a lot better if the coin was previously stolen from their master.

We had needed a base, and the boarded up old shop was as good a place as any. For several days, we agonized over how to explain how we could afford it. Charade came up with the solution. With an ever-changing string of disguises, and comings and goings at all times of the day or night, to our neighbours we were the resting place of a small army of grooms, cooks, chandlers and other craftsmen. They never saw more than three of us, but to their eyes, we were never the same three.

With a place to sleep, a dozen caches around the city, and the money to buy rope, grapples, and other necessary tools, we had everything we needed. My first task had been to plunder the strongboxes of Chatrock and Marshroud. When they blamed each other, I thrilled at the sweet revenge. But when news came of a dozen deaths, including three innocents, we sat for an hour, white-faced.

For a while, I contemplated simple thievery. Cutting the purse of a merchant, stealing a silver candlestick, might incur the wrath of that 'taker, but it never killed anyone. Then I imagined Mr Chastable, pale faced, examining a broken shutter, and traipsing through his inn to find what had been stolen. In penance for the thought, I had Charade slip a silver coin through the slot in the Shrine of Justice.

[tawek.livejournal.com]

Writing most of a ficlet in an hour and a quarter is great productivity. And editing a ficlet is important progress too. Well done :-)

[tawek.livejournal.com]

Good idea to put the other project to one side for a bit, and even better to keep writing on another project as you do so!

Your "Man From UNCLE" writing sounds fun.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Yes, he is.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

That he is ;)

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Oh, the mystery deepens. Great suspense and wonderful progress.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Nice bit there. Poor Illya with a hangover and Beldon's booming voice.

Congrats for almost finishing.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

I love that little bit. Hoping to see the full thing.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

An exciting and dangerous world! Is this a novel?

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I'm looking forward to this! I'm trying to guess where it is she's speaking - coffee suggests an institution, excessive guilding that it is not an educational institution. The Society of Crime Authors?

[azdak.livejournal.com]

I like this a lot. Breaking the law suddenly becomes much harder if you don't want innocents to suffer as a result.

Who is Mr Chastable? Someone who's been kind to them?

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

That thump you heard was me, falling off the Pico wagon back after my last posting on the 19th. I mangaged to find my way back, and have written my way 1015 words closer to my goal.
If anyone wants to read it, I posted half of it on yesterday's comments because it's too long to put here in its entirety. Here's the second half:
----

A hobbit from TransGlobal - A surreal calmness crept across Esai’s frontal lobe as he tried to make sense of the woman’s answer. He plainly heard the confusion and worry in her voice. That, at least, he understood. And something else. She sounds afraid, he thought. She was a hell of an actress. Esai rubbed his forehead and let her babble. Keep the line open.

Now she was asking him, “Mr. Case, are you’re Ned’s boss?”

I’m his partner.

The involuntary words nearly spoke themselves. He turned away from NP. “No, I’m,” – he stopped. Have you lost your mind, he asked himself. “Karen.” He hesitated, thinking what to say to pass Ned’s test. It’s Hooper. He’s not married.

NP held his phone up. A phone number and address displayed on the screen. Esai recovered his bearings.

“So Karen, you’re married to Ned?”

A soft choke. A snuffle. A whisper. “Please help us.”

Esai leaned closer to NP’s phone, reading the GPS output. “Karen, are you calling from Bowden Road?”

“Yes, I’m at home.”

“Am I supposed to come there?”

“I, oh, no, the detective said I have to leave, I can’t -”


Detective? Esai stood up, frowning, and asked her, “What detective?” He was moving and NP was following him, out of the bedroom, down the hall, through the living room,

“From the police.”

Down the hall, through the living room. “What police?”

She ignored his question, hurrying the words. “But the number, in the book, in the secret room, I think Ned left it for me, to call you -”

They were outside now. Esai jangled the keys impotently at the car door, his hands suddenly useless. NP took them and pushed him aside, sliding into the driver’s seat. Esai ran around the front of the car, yanking the passenger door open, getting in.

“Karen. Listen to me. I’m on my way. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t talk to the police.”

NP was pulling Esai’s gun from the glove compartment, checking the load, dropping it into the cup-holder in the console between them, starting the car, and fishing his phone from his pocket, calling it in. Esai strained to catch her chopped words from the phone’s little speaker over the noise of the car’s motor starting up.

“He went away...roses…digging…room under the…in the room, he’s in the room.”

He’s in the room. Esai wanted to scream at her. “Let me talk to him. Get him.”

“He’s dead, Ned is dead, the police are -”

Esai nearly dropped the phone. Her voice kept talking, and he was saying Karen, Karen, Karen.

Backing out of the driveway, pulling onto the street, NP continued speaking into his own phone, then listening and answering in tight, over-calm words. Reported dead. Woman. No. Wife. Yes. No. Unknown. Local police. Yes. He punched at the car’s GPS, and a female robot voice said twenty minutes.

Then NP smashed his foot on the gas pedal, and the car screeched, speeding to Bowden Road.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

the movers used blankets round my cheap posters in clip frames

See? All professional art moving requires blankets.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Gosh, this is exciting. Good old NP, being calm under pressure and doing the right thing in spite of all his anger at Esai. And Esai thinking it's a test, and then finding out Ned is dead.