Progress? And WiPpet Wedsnesday

Another week, another grand total of zero on the word counts, but there was one small breakthrough.  It just... wasn't exactly what I was expecting.

I finally realised what I wanted to write for M of the A to Z Challenge, or at least it turned up in my head and refused to go anywhere.  Really, considering the characters involved it shouldn't be a surprise, so I pinned the idea down as quickly as possible (which, really, is also what happened with the characters...).  So perhaps I did actually manage to write after all.

I now have ideas for A, J and M, and an inkling of an idea for F.  Just the rest of the alphabet to go, I guess...?

Random aside: it turns out writing with an EF nib turns my handwriting tiny, which makes it perfect for my slightly-less-than-A6 notebook.

WiPpet Wednesday

It's that time of the week again: K. L. Schwengel's brilliant blog hop where participants share date-related sections of their works in progress.  It's a brilliant idea with fantastic stories being shared, and you can read more and join in yourself over here.

It's simple maths for today's WiPpet.  It's the 25th March, so 2 + 5 + 3 = 10, which is ten paragraphs from Chapter 3 of The Rose Queen, following on almost directly from where we left off last week.

You might remember last month I mentioned a particularly troublesome character and how I should have introduced him but hadn't, not that it mattered really because it was barely-there?

He's back, and this time it's not only his introduction that's barely-there...

Hammering his thumb harder than necessary against the seventh pad made the door sigh open. Fayth dragged the Rose Queen into the bay and tried not to notice the curve of a smile on the man’s lips. Ridiculously handsome or not, Fayth was becoming tempted to break his cardinal rule of retrieval and wallop him. Not hard, no—the way he moved the elbow Fayth had gripped too tightly proved he was as delicate as the plants he’d tended—but damn that smile... Too pretty and far too sarcastic for its own good. He shoved the hackpad against the interior door lock.

It confirmed the lock the same second several sets of feet clattered to a stop outside. Fayth let out a relieved sigh and turned to face the Rose Queen.

Who wasn’t there.

“You’ve lost something?” A voice growled from his left.

Again with the ‘L’ word; Fayth swung round to tell this newcomer exactly what he thought of him—and froze. Not for the first time, he really, really wished he’d brought a gun.

A face that looked dimly familiar glowered over the Rose Queen’s shoulder, one hand raised with a fistful of restraint cord in it. Cord that was wrapped around the Rose Queen’s neck and pulled taut. The other hand held his shoulder with enough force that the crewman’s knuckles were white.

The naked crewman.

“You should still be asleep,” Fayth said mildly, noting with some relief that the Rose Queen wasn’t struggling. If anything, he seemed to have relaxed, as far as anyone could when they were bare centimeters from being garrotted. “Don’t you think you should put some clothes on before you manhandle someone?”

“It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before,” the crewman sneered, tugging lightly on the cord. “How can I get dressed when you’re wearing my uniform?”

Fayth shrugged, flashing his best innocent grin at the crewman. “I left you my old shirt and pants, it’s not my fault you’re an exhibitionist. But if you’re that keen on putting your own clothes back on, then here.” In one fluid movement Fayth yanked the red shirt over his head and flung it at the crewman’s face, following it up with his right fist.

I did not know until I started writing this that Fayth had an incredible aversion to the L-word.  He's not lost, he's simply geographically embarrassed.

New Skills and WiPpet Wednesday

Last Saturday I went with a friend to an introductory bookbinding class we'd signed up for in February.  It was at the Malt Cross in Nottingham and was taught by the downright brilliant Heather Chou, who was so enthusiastic and such a good teacher that I think it's definitely another hobby that I'm going to take up.  I learned so much during the four hours she was teaching us, from a simple accordian fold to the complicated Turkish Map Fold, from pamphlet stitching to finishing off by making this tiny hardback book.

I swear I will find a use for these things somehow.

She also introduced us to the most random "thing you never knew you needed": the bone folder.  It's literally just a shaped and polished piece of bone that's pointed at one end and it turns out it knocks the spots off folding and flattening paper with your fingers.  (Yes, I've now ordered one.  I was folding some paper for something and found I really, really missed it...)

Also, today my copy of Celldweller's End of an Empire: Dreams arrived today.  FiXT announced not too long ago that ten copies would have an autographed poster inside and I thought, oh hey, that's cool, and that was about the extent of my consideration.

 Well... uh...

I was surprised, to say the least.  I'm pretty sure that's all my luck for the year used up!

Also, it was packaged in a very sturdy cardboard ... package and my first thought there was, brilliant, I'm going to use that to make a book.  Funny what opens your eyes to new possibilities, isn't it?

Not that I know what I'm going to put in this book...

...Probably not any actual new short stories, though I did manage to write two new sentences, woo!  Alex now won't shut up, so fingers crossed something unblocks this week.

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a blog hop corralled by the awesome K. L. Schwengel.  It's very easygoing: the only requirement for sharing your WIP is that it relates to the date in some way.  You can read everyone else's posts and sign up here.

Today's WiPpet maths is somewhat convoluted again.  Always dangerous.

It's the 18th March, so 18/3.  1 − 8 = 7.  7 × 3 = 21, so it should be 21 sentences from the start of the third chapter of The Rose Queen.  (Yes, only the third.)  "Should be" because I had to recount four or five times as I kept getting interrupted.

Fayth had always thought he worked alone because it was more convenient, left him free to make his own choices; turned out that the fact it meant there was no-one to make sarcastic comments when he screwed up might also be part of it. “Shush,” he muttered, pocketing the hackpad as he scanned rapidly along the line of doors. He hadn’t walked far to reach the ship proper so it had to be down this end, but they all looked the same. His heart sank. Next time he was bringing good old-fashioned low-tech chalk, because running down the corridor shoving his thumb against every access panel until he found the right one wasn’t his idea of fun.

Beside him, the Rose Queen let out a strangled noise that may have been a half-suppressed laugh. “I don’t think they’ll put me back in the habitat.”

“You’ll be alright. I stole you, remember?” The shouts were getting closer, but their owners weren’t visible yet. More worryingly, the voices behind the door had fallen silent.

“You stole me with my consent. They’ll realise that the minute they review the camera footage.”

It certainly wasn’t the first three bays, Fayth was sure of that. It was just a shame that the further away his bay was, the nearer it was to the voices. Soon-to-be-approaching voices. “Oh, screw it,” he muttered, and grabbed the Rose Queen’s wrist restraints.

The black-haired man stumbled as Fayth pulled him into a trot, but kept his mouth shut as Fayth ran his thumb over the first three panels for good measure. After the fourth and fifth, he didn’t appear able to resist any longer. “Lost again?”

“Don’t tempt me into leaving you here,” he snapped, thumbing the sixth door. Nope, not that one either.

I think after this, RQ is going to have to sit down with Fayth and start working on some brain training exercises...

Blog Challenges and WiPpet Wednesday

Alex and Milos. This is actually my most
favourite 3D render of them... and ever.

Sooooo.  I signed up to the Blogging From A to Z challenge fairly early on last month which... arguably was incredibly stupid of me, considering my mood at the time.

My mood is a little improved now, but instead I seem to have developed a phobia of or anxiety about writing—which is patently stupid, I know—which is throwing a bit of a spanner into the works because, let's face it, I've got nothing I can write for 26 days about except stories.

My ever-supportive NaNo group's only comment was, "yeah, you won't be getting that done then."

I guess I should do it just to show them exactly where they can put that sentiment, eh?

In somewhat better news, certain characters are starting to become more vocal which should help.  Just lately it's been supernatural government agent Alex and his genetically-modified dokkalfa partner Milos, the two characters I've written the most about over the years (so naturally they're the ones no-one knows anything about).  They've both managed to pick their own "theme songs" over the course of time which should hopefully help.  Hopefully.

If you want a sneak-peek at Alex's theme song, it's...  well, right here.  Small profanity warning.

3OH!3 - Colorado Sunrise

He's an odd one, that man.

If anyone has any hints or ideas on how to write more than snippets of conversation without my hands shaking and my brain freezing up, I would desperately love to know, because I really want to write one of the Fayth/RQ music-inspired ones...

In a less self-pitying note, though, I recommend checking out the challenge link.  It certainly looks interesting.

WiPpet Wednesday

It's that time of the week again: K. L. Schwengel's awesome blog hop where all the participants share snippets of their works-in-progress.  You can check out everyone else's and sign up yourself over here.  It's well worth it, everyone is lovely.

Today's WiPpet maths is convoluted, just so I can get my own way.  It's the 11th March 2015, so my maths goes something like this: 11 × 3 = 33.  2 + 0 + 1 + 5 = 8.  33 - 8 = 25.  So it's 25 lines from the second chapter of The Rose Queen.

Having rescued RQ from Evil Crewman #1 (thanks Gloria, perfect title while he looks for a name!), Fayth has found that it's only recently a few people have been acting quite so threateningly towards him.  Unfortunately, the good news is a bit short-lived...

“Where are you taking him?”  The question came from an older crewman with laughter lines around his eyes, his neat black hair fading to white at the temples, who blocked Fayth’s path.

“The Captain asked to see him.”  Fayth did his best to ignore the Rose Queen’s sudden nervous fidgeting.

“Really?”  He asked, quirking up one eyebrow.

Fayth nodded curtly.  “So if you could please let us pass...”

“You see,” the crewman said slowly, grey eyes flicking from head to foot and back again, “I’m the Captain and I don’t seem to recall asking anyone to fetch him.  Care to enlighten me?”

The doors were right there.  Fayth gave the Captain his best innocent grin, carefully taking a firm hold of the Rose Queen’s wrist.  “Sorry, my mistake.  Must’ve been the Vice-Captain instead.  Anyway, it was nice to meet you, but since we’ve never been formally introduced, well, I’ve heard I should never talk to strangers—”

The Captain’s mouth opened, but Fayth had no idea what he actually said: he’d already broken into a run, dragging a stumbling Rose Queen after him.  He almost threw the poor man through the door, spinning and slamming the hackpad’s white plastic unit against the override controls with his momentum.  Its tiny screen flashed with digits.

The door slid closed inches from the Captain’s face.  A deafening alarm filled the corridor that almost, but not quite, drowned out the Captain pounding against the metal and the sound of shouting at the distant end of the docking bay corridor.  The white strip lighting dimmed to an ominous red that flashed in time with the klaxon.

“You heard you should never talk to strangers?”  The Rose Queen snorted, slumping back against the closed door and giving Fayth a distinctly amused look.  The red glow turned his eyes a disconcerting shade of purple.  “Because that was so effective when I used it ten minutes ago, wasn’t it?”

False Alarms and WiPpet Wednesday

The highlight, if I can call it that, of the week has to be Google deciding that they were going to take action against NSFW blogs on Blogger.  I did my best to ignore it for a couple of days, then with a heavy sigh I sat down and began the laborious process of copying everything to a back-up on Wordpress.

I'm sure it's possible to automate it, but I'm not really all that keen on that.  Links have to be updated, images uploaded, and it turns out that the idea of hand-writing an entire story for National Handwriting Week and uploading the scans was only a great idea for as long as it took to do on one blog.  Doing it on a second was just painful.

I lost all will to live about halfway through, I realised I really don't like Wordpress, and the best part of it was that right when I finished, I discovered that Google had reversed their decision while I was working so it was all for nothing.

Sigh.

Still, it can't hurt to have a backup, right?  It's over at https://wetakeitdownwithfire.wordpress.com and features my favourite image of RQ (in Fayth's old clothes) as the header.  Mostly favourite because it took forever to do, admittedly.  I ought to do more pictures of him...

All of which, of course, meant I did no writing.  I think I'm just going to consider it as having February off, even if it is now the fourth of March and I still haven't actually written anything.  This is partially because I bought Train Simulator 2015 as well as being halfway through Dangan Ronpa 2, though I did accidentally write an entire smut scene in my head the other day and I rearranged a couple of sentences in The Rose Queen while I worked out how to approach some of the changes I want to make before I continue with it.

All of which leads me nicely on to...

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a blog hop where participants share excerpts from their current projects, and it's kindly hosted by the awesome K. L. Schwengel.  All excerpts should relate to the date in some way, and you can find out more, read other posts and add your own over heeere.  Do it.  You know you want to.

Today is the 4th March 2015, so today's maths is 4 (day) + 3 (month) = 7, 7 + 5 (from the year) = 12 paragraphs to finish at a neat(ish) point

Last week saw Fayth and RQ confronted with That Bloody Crewman—I suppose at this rate he might actually need a name—and RQ decided to be flippant.  In the interests of everyone who wanted something to happen to him (so, uh, pretty much everyone...), here's the next unedited section.

For the record, it does indeed look like he'll be coming back, so I'm sure Fayth can get properly creative on him later, when anonymity isn't quite so important.

The man’s expression darkened.  “What?”

“I don’t talk to strangers,” he repeated, still without looking around.  “And they don’t get much stranger than you.”

Before Fayth could intervene, the crewman lunged forward and seized a handful of the Rose Queen’s hair.  He gasped soundlessly, but even then twisted and tried to free himself while the crewman hissed in his face, “you upstart glorified gardener, who do you think you’re talking to?  So high and mighty, when all you really need is a good seeing-to—”

The crewman’s words were cut off by Fayth grabbing a handful of his trimmed and gelled brown hair, yanking him backwards and away from the object of his frustration.  “Stop.”

The crewman stared at him, as shocked as if Fayth had slapped him across the face.

Ah, hell...  After all his efforts to not broadcast his presence too.  “You think the Captain wants to see him damaged after all the effort he went to to get him?”  He shook his head in mock despair and hoped, prayed, dear God please, that it’d work as an excuse.

Reluctantly, the crewman untangled the Rose Queen’s hair from his fingers and smiled at Fayth as if he hadn’t just been dragged away from a defenseless man.  “Yeah.  I suppose you’re right.  Still, if you swing back this way when you’re done, I can make it worth your while.”

“You betcha,” Fayth said, taking hold of the Rose Queen’s arm and ignoring the way he tensed beneath his touch.  “Won’t be too long, hopefully.”

“Hopefully,” the crewman echoed.  His smirk as Fayth led the Rose Queen away made Fayth’s skin creep.

Five minutes and several long corridors passed before the Rose Queen’s quiet voice broke the silence.  “Are you going to take me back to him after you’re done?”

Fayth snorted.  “I don’t intend on letting you go until you’re back with Pynes.”

There was no response to that, but he felt the tension drain from the other man’s body.  He’d really believed that Fayth had been lying all along, that he’d leave him with such a disgusting example of humanity as that crewman just for money.  Bile rose in the back of Fayth’s throat and his stomach twisted; he resisted the urge to say anything.  Anger, however righteous, would get neither of them anywhere except in trouble.