Work, Writing and WiPpet Wednesday

Work has exploded.  Brains over the wall, blood pooling in awkward puddles you'll never get out of the carpet, exploded.

Okay, well, maybe not quite so literally but we've had a lot of new hours scheduled, which means that it's time I'm spending not writing.  'Even more time I'm spending not writing' would probably be more accurate.  Yes, excuses excuses.  It's also time I spend thinking longingly about writing, but never seem to get any done when I do have the time (for various reasons).

So while I'm getting next to nothing done, I am getting the story fixed in my head, which is an improvement of sorts.  There are scenes I'm looking forwards to writing--including the return of a character I became unexpectedly fond of in the first story, despite their very little 'screen time'--and one in particular I'm really not, for the same reason the first story hitched and stuttered while I was writing.

I did, however, manage to render a picture of Kirill with a very awkward smile.  It's for my Goodreads profile, working on the theory that since you're getting a picture of me the day hell freezes over (or heats up, depending on your beliefs), you might as well have one of a character of mine instead.  My previous one was a sullen and glare-y Milos flashing his chest, but pretty much no one reads my Unravel stuff and it's a bit awkward to turn into any sort of an eBook.  Not least because I've not actually finished Milos's introduction to HEL, the first arc is all over the place, there's a NaNo in the middle of it and the second arc is occasionally ongoing, not to mention the section about Alex's schooldays or the disturbing stuff when Milos was a teenager...  so I doubt anyone actually knows who Milos even is.  Poor sod.  These days I'm not sure even he knows any more.

I might work on it some more in what free time I have.  This doesn't actually eat much writing time because while fiddling with things does take up some of it, most of any kind of 3D work is spent waiting for it to render.  Might go quicker on Echo than it ever did on Sixteen, but hair is still a massive timesink.

Fun fact: I re-read The Destruction of Kirill the other day, just to double-check some things and remind myself of events I'd semi-forgotten.  It took me a lot longer than it took my lovely beta @SplitShilo and just made me appreciate her all the more.

With that in mind...

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is K. L. Schwengel's genius idea: a blog-hop with excerpts from works-in-progress.  You can find other blogs and add yours here.

My brain is still refusing to compute any WiPpet maths (I brained too hard at work and I cannae brain nae more, Cap'n) and I'm slightly embarrassed by the sheer lack of progress on The Reconstruction of Kirill, so today you're getting something slightly further along: The Rose Queen.

Since it's the 14th January, 14/1, you're getting 14 lines from the first chapter, which I coincidentally wrote while not wholly well.  Turns out, catching 'flu does a lot to kickstart projects you thought you'd long abandoned but doesn't do so much for your coherency.  One of my friends had to point out that I'd forgotten to write half a sentence; the missing half was in the middle.  It's been patched up since, but... yep.  First draft ickiness, as ever.

Here the hero, Fayth, has infiltrated a kidnapper's ship to return his target--who he knows only as 'The Rose Queen', and has very little information on...

He'd hesitated to stare at a flower the size of his head hanging from halfway up a tall pillar when he realised that the curve didn't exactly follow the walls: he was a bare ten meters from the rich brown trunk of the central tree and the only thing hiding him from view was the dense viney growth that wrapped thickly around the dull grey metal.  Worse--or better, depending on his point of view--was the kneeling figure at the base of the tree.

His breath caught in his throat.

The Rose Queen.  Her straight black hair fell in front of her face, obscuring it from view.  Fayth waited for her to brush it back, tuck it behind an ear and reveal her features, but instead it cast them more deeply into shadow as she began work on a second hole, less than a foot from the first.  She was completely unaware of his presence, blissfully unaware of everything except for her work.

Including the man who stepped from the path that ringed the tree.  Fayth opened his mouth to shout, then clamped it closed again.  Idiot; announcing his presence now would be suicide.  He could only watch, heart climbing into his throat, as the crewman grabbed the Rose Queen's shoulder and shoved her onto her back.  She let out a surprisingly deep grunt, squirming as the crewman forced her brown trouser-clad legs apart, and snapped, "get the hell off me."

She.

He. 

Just in case, y'know, you thought the 'Rose Queen' was a title that actually meant a damn thing.