Day 4 (Team July)

[kerravonsen]

Yes, I'm butting in here to post, because it's evening of the 4th here, and there is no post! So join me in the boasting progress reports and encouragement for this day's creative work!

Comments

[kerravonsen]

And I wanted to post because despite no progress whatsoever yesterday, this evening I made a lot more progress with my craft thing, which means I'm closer to being able to get to the writing stuff. (Hooray for being able to craft while listening to podfic!)

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting. Hooray for progress with the craft project. It is brilliant listening to stories while working with the hands. (Have I commented on how much I like your icon? Well said.)

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Yay for crafting under pressure :) Hope you get to the writing soon!

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Yay progress! :)

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to seeing your HP writing, so good luck finishing the craft!

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for craft progress!

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Yay craft, and yay podfic!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting because I actually wrote something and I want to go to bed.

I have completely lacked the will to write or even just post lately due to winter depression and stress, but today I managed about 530 words at work instead of doing something for a very annoying person who has been adding to my stress levels.



An excerpt (more about the sort-of revolution):

Avon frowned. "What do they hope to achieve?"

Tarrant shrugged. "Management takeover?"

"They found a high councillor outside shot in the back," Dayna said with relish. "In his underclothes."

Avon raised an eyebrow. "You mean he was shot in his underwear?"

"They didn't say."

I've caught up with reading here but I was so far behind I couldn't manage comments. I will try to do better but I can't promise I will.

[kerravonsen]

I love the way Dayna is relishing the mayhem. (grin)

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Good progress today, then. I like the little quip at the end.

Hope the stress abates.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

I wonder if she's relishing the shooting or the underwear? I hope you feel better and keep going, I always look forward to your snippets!

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Good progress! Hope you feel better soon!

Great scene!

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

Hah! Picturing the possibilities of when the councilor lost his clothes. Good for you, getting back to the writing, in spite of everything. No worries about commenting, or trying to keep up on reading for that matter - that just increases the stress. Be content to write a little bit here and there when the mood strikes, and post a bit of it! Better days to come, I hope.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I hope the annoying person gets stuck in the nearest shredder and that your energy levels are back again soon.

Intriguing excerpt - there is a desire to humiliate there obviously on the part of the murderers.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on making progress in spite of everything.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Very close to the conclusion now...

***

“They weren’t dreams,” John says quietly, his fingers flexing. “You promised not to drug me again.” John curls forward. “No. You promised not to be wrong again. I knew it.” John shifts his knees apart, drops the couple inches to the floor, slowly straightens his legs and presses in with them from either side. “I know I’ve threatened to kill you.” John takes a deep breath. “Don’t let me have done it.” He frees his left hand, begins rubbing circles again. “Don’t.” John hunches his right shoulder and rocks more to the left as he leans forward. “I don’t care what you’ve done. To me, to anyone. I don’t care. I forgive it all, everything. Just don’t be dead.”

There’s a vibration under his hand, against his cheek. John’s fingers dig in.

“Ev’rything?” The sound is more croak than word, but John understands it.

“Everything,” John repeats and pauses to breath. “So far,” he adds, lifting his head slightly. “It’s not carte blanche for the future,” John clarifies. His whole body clenches to keep his voice even, but he fails on the last word, the final syllable scraping over his lips. He had almost relegated that concept to fantasy. Future.

He can feel the muscles work against his cheek.

“Oh.”

John knows that tone, disappointment. “What? You want me to forgive you in advance?” He breathes, but it isn't easy. His hands move, scrabbling a little ways, clutching wherever they stop, moving again. John pulls his head back a bit and turns to look into an eye whose colours are brighter than he remembered, the white tinged with pink, the iris iridescent.

There’s a cramp in John's chest. His eyes squeeze shut as it twists. It makes him gasp.

[kerravonsen]

Intense.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

My sincerest apologies for the delay! I had to work today, very early in the morning, but I hoped that I could get home for an hour around 10am and post today's prompt - well, I could not. I got home less than an hour ago and had to deal with some domestic stuff before I could attack the computer.

Real Life is such a bitch sometimes.

[kerravonsen]

I hope you don't mind that I went ahead and posted...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Nothing done today and not much will be done, most likely. I'm dead and barely on my feet.

Buuut - yesterday I actually finished Chapter 14 of "Arthur's Quest" - you can read the complete chapter with all the jousting and Lancelot angst at hiddenrealms. It's the newest entry.

I also nearly finished Chapter 10 of the Torchwood fic, "Smiths & Joneses", which I hope to complete tomorrow and post as well. No excerpt today, I'm sorry. I'll just roll up in a corner and die for a while.

[kerravonsen]

There are an awful lot of Smiths and Jones in Doctor Who/Torchwood, aren't there? Martha Jones, Ianto Jones, Sarah-Jane Smith, Mickey Smith (and possibly Doctor Smith...)

Lunch pico, as will be out later tonight

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Still Maurice, still yelling at inner critic. Will respond to other snippets later on this eve...400 words over lunch.

A Sad Story

I was about to beat it for the afternoon when my editor Barry Kenyon joined me in the kitchen.

"Quint." He shuffled past my swinging leg and opened the refrigerator, whistling "You Can't Take That Away From Me" as he reached in for a pie. I hated when he had pie. He would heat it up then and the office would stink for hours.

I could have called him "Ken" in response. Instead I said nothing. I didn't feel like it that day.

"Oh, did you hear the news?" he said casually. "Your mate, Roma Feilding. Found dead this morning. Been that way for weeks apparently."

"No, I hadn't heard. My God, what happened? Heart attack?"

Kenyon shook his head. "Note." he said succintly.

He meant: Roma Feilding had commited suicide.

Kenyon patted me on the back. "Sorry, Maurice. I know you and she were thick together. She was a game old girl, our Romie. Could drink any of us under the table." He shut the oven door and moved off. Of course he had forgotten to preheat the thing. His pie would be indigestible.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Very efficient use of lunch hour!

Gruesome and glib. Not liking Kenyon. Romie and Maurice must not have been that thick if he not only hadn't heard the news, but hadn't been in contact with her for weeks, so Ken is inaccurate as well, but as he thinks she and Maurice were close, his remarks grate.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Still working on the part after the prologue. It turns out that Illya may not have been having a particularly pleasant daydream about Vienna:


(Illya) moved away from the window, leaned back against the wall next to it, keeping himself in the shadows. He crossed his arms to hide the betraying twitch of his hands and tried to order his jumbled thoughts.

"Before you came back tonight, I was thinking about Semenov. About Vienna. About what happened that night. There are... things I don't remember." He could feel the subtle change in the intensity of Napoleon's attention, saw the way he leaned forward to listen, the way it took a beat for him to respond.

"It was five years ago", Napoleon said very carefully.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

He could feel the subtle change in the intensity of Napoleon's attention, saw the way he leaned forward to listen, the way it took a beat for him to respond.

I love this description of Napoleon's concern, how judiciously he responds.

Given Illya's milieu, if the memory takes a turn towards the darker side it won't be surprising.

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

500 words which may never see the light of day. I got this wild idea while on my walk and got home and wrote it up, but I poked a great big hole in it while I was writing it, so I put it away, Maybe something will occur to me how to use it, but I doubt it. Well, it was fun while it lasted:)

Here's the next part of Solo on the ladder:

Solo hurled his body against the ladder and managed to wedge his free knee onto the third rung down, stopping his fall. Regaining his grip on the top of the railing, he hung there, half in and half out of the ladder, catching his breath, and thanked his lucky stars for escaping what would have been an excruciating blow to his manhood. He wished they hadn’t taken his underwear. Not that it would have provided any protection, he thought resentfully, but still, a man deserved a little dignity.

[saki101.livejournal.com]

I like the slow reveal of Napoleon's state of dress, or undress. If anyone could manage to escape nude, on injured feet, and with his dignity, it would be Napoleon (or Illya). Any THRUSH would look totally ridiculous.

Very relieved by this phrase, managed to wedge his free knee onto the third rung down, stopping his fall. ;-)

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

~400 words on the Firiel story. I suppose it is progress, but I'm struggling to fill in gaps and try and work out whether it is one story or several...

Firiel on the morning that she is to leave Minas Anor
"You came up here for one last look at the city before you leave?" Pelendur asked, leaning on the wall beside her.
Firiel glanced round at him.
"Yes. I know I must leave, but it is so hard to actually do so," she said softly, wiping away the tears on her face.
"I do understand, but you should try to be happy - after all you are still going to be among our kin, perhaps in time you can come to see Fornost as home."
"Not to throw away any chance at happiness due to the current pain?"
"Exactly," he said, slightly sharply. "I am sorry that there is nothing I can do."
She looked out at the sun, just coming over the horizon, highlighting the city in so many bright colours.
"I will try. After all this is my duty, and I know how important the alliance is with the Wainriders pressing in on our borders. I will do my duty."
“I would never expect anything else of you, my lady.”
She smiles wryly.
“You used to call me by my name, Pelendur.”
“That would hardly be an appropriate way to address the future Queen of Arthedain. However, I will always remain your friend, if you allow it. Now, you should go in, your family will be expecting you.”

[saki101.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is progress. It's an interesting question about whether it will be one story or a series of related stories or a collection of independent stories.

I'm trying to be hopeful for Firiel, but it isn't easy.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to multitask, and it's really not my strong point. I am: re-reading canon, to find out how the drawbridge works and useful things like that ('moves on rollers', apparently); re-reading my own story and plotting events onto a timeline to make sure everybody is alive/dead/out of the country/pregnant/in love when they should be; still writing bits to fill in gaps. The trouble is that tasks one and two tend to spawn more plot-holes, so task three expands exponentially...

Here, for example, we have just buried the late Duke of Elbe, and we are going to ridiculous lengths to ensure that, should his Duchess produce an heir, it will be indisputably his heir. If you see what I mean....

--------

The meeting, then, was a risible sight. A barricade of chairs, sideboards and screens bisected the ballroom. On the one side, the Duchess sat with her ladies gathered around her; on the other, Uncle Sapt, the Duke and my brothers stood around in attitudes suggestive of profound discomfort. A gap had been left in the middle, through which I was handed with great ceremony to join the Duchess and her ladies – before three of those last-named, evidently deemed the hardiest, closed it with a Louis XIV sofa.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Your lot are worse than my lot with the inheritance thing.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Heirs and Graces

Phase 3 -- July's writing:



Knuckled down this evening, and finished the fight scene, although I may expand it a little in editing. Now the aftermath:

"Lord Edward, what have you been doing this time?" Ada Bellows said, setting the kettle on the hob.

"That's a story for another day. I've no time for tea either," Edward said. He dried his hands on a tea towel, and pulled a comb from his pocket. First off he was going to remove nine-tenths of the Brylcreme from his hair. Then he was going to change his clothes, and get Ada to dispose of this set. He'd got her son out of a nasty jam a couple of years before, and she was a reliable sort when it came to repaying favours.

"As soon as I've gone," he continued, "I need you to go out to the phone-box, and call the police. Don't give your name, just say you heard a nasty commotion at the bottom of the steps, and you want someone to see what's been going on."

"Should I know what the commotion was about?"

"Best you don't." He'd left the Norton up at the Ace Café after a heavy drinking session the week before. If he took a taxi up there now, he could be well away from London before the police did more than seal off the area around where Jones lay. He'd head north, maybe spend a night in one of his old haunts before going back to Italy in a day or so.

He had a lot to think about.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Looks like you are making a lot of progress!

Intriguing... :)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

After several days of no or limited progress, yesterday went well. Typed up/edited yesterday's words and added about 450 new ones, so my sutcliff_swap story is now officially started! I think my shortened idea is probably a goer. Phew.

Still behind on responding to other people's work. Sorry.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Excellent progress there. Fingers crossed that it continues.