WiPpet Wednesday: gloom and (impending) doom

Sorry for my total uselessness at getting around the blogs last week.  I've been in a frankly ridiculous "blah" mood for a while.  I think it has something to do with the weathers or the seasons or something.  Either way it's irritating.  I'm getting nothing done.

Well, not strictly true.  I'm trying to keep my hands busy so I've been making some jewellery for my mother's birthday.  Well, was, until I ran out of 4mm green bicones, so I have to wait for more to arrive...

The flowers are a necklace (hence being so irritating when I ran out); the diagonal stripes are a bracelet.  She also wants some glasses cords for when her glasses make a break for it, so I'm trying to figure out how best to approach those (have all the materials I need, anyway, including some "how much??" non-tarnish silver wire).

Oh, and a tiny anvil.

It's very heavy.  I think you could brain someone quite effectively with it.

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is hosted by the always-lovely K. L. Schwengel, and is a blog hop where participants share sections of their works in progress (hence the name).  All entries should relate to the date in some way, either via simple means or complicated WiPpet Maths.  You can find out more and read the other entries over here.

It's the 16th September 2015, so 1 + 6 = 7; 2 + 0 + 1 = 3 and 3 - 5 = 2.  7 + 2 = 9 for the convoluted maths, or simply 9 paragraphs because it's the 9th month.

The elevator has come to a stop and the doors have opened on Fayth and RQ.  It's... going about as well as you'd expect.

Five weapons of varying sizes were levelled at his face as the elevator door pinged closed behind them.  In his grip, he felt RQ tense, then lean back slightly.  The door sighed open again.

“Any sign of them yet?”  He said, forcing a smile.  “I was just telling the guards how everyone knows the secure block is at the bottom of these things.  We decided RQ was better off upstairs where they wouldn’t think of looking.”

Two guns wavered, then lowered.  The other three sets of fingers edged closer to their triggers.

And still RQ remained silent.  He could break away, make a dash for the safety of the guards and crewmen and there’d be nothing Fayth could do to stop him.  He could scream, yell how he’d been abducted yet again, but he stared at the floor and didn’t say a word.  Fayth should feel grateful, he knew he should, but it was downright irritating; his life was at least partially in the hands of a man who acted more like a spoiled brat.

A third gun slowly lowered, its large owner giving him a long, searching stare.  “Where’s his escort?”

“Two came up here,” Fayth said without missing a beat.  “I guess by the stairs, if they’re not here yet.  The other two said they’d stay down there just in case.”

The speaker looked unconvinced.  Fayth didn’t blame him; he was being incredibly unconvincing.  “There’s nothing on the radar.”

“I bet there was nothing on your radar last time either.  If you could just get out of my way...”

The gun snapped up again.

Perhaps Fayth should stop talking now.

WiPpet Wednesday: pretty distractions

Despite not actually liking dolls because I find them disturbing, I've wanted an asian ball-jointed doll for a while.  And for a while, I mean "at least seven years".  I think I like them because the kind I'm interested in aren't intended to look cutesy.  They're intended to look like grown men and women, which somehow makes them significantly less disturbing.

So somehow, to commemorate me actually completing Ready, Set, WRITE without dropping out and with actually increasing bit-by-bit the amount I wrote, I finally ordered myself one.

It's a tiny bit terrifying.

But the funny thing is...  after over seven years of waiting and wishing, and then finally ordering myself one...

About ten days after that, I ordered another.  So after all this time, I'm now waiting for two!  And I have to admit, I'm particularly looking forward to the second...  He's a limited edition re-run of an old model, and the reason why I ordered him is because the moment I saw him, I realised he looks uncannily like one of my characters.  The character in question is Milos, and he's not a character I ever expected to be able to find, being as he is this guy to the right, a dokkalfa with a quite specific face shape (his nose and jaw in particular don't seem that common...).

So of course, I couldn't resist...

And now I have to wait at least three months for him to even be made!  *whimper*  Even when he gets here, there's so much work that'll need to be done: he'll need eyes (yep, scary...) and hair, and I'll have to paint his face so he's not just plain dark grey resin...

I'm actually really looking forward to it!  Enough that I've finally started working on 2012's NaNo again, which I always felt a little bad about never finishing, particularly since it left a gaping hole in the continuity of the shorter stories.  And best of all, I'll finally to write one scene that's been in my head all this time and throw Milos's partner Alex off a tower block.  *grins*

As to whether doll!Milos will get an Alex as well...  well, I'm categorically not looking for one...  *cough*

WiPpet Wednesday

It's WiPpet Wednesday, a weekly blog hop organised by the always-lovely K. L. Schwengel that shares snippets from participants' works in progress where every entry relates in some way to the date, either by simple means or complicated WiPpet Maths.  You find out more, can read other posts and join in yourself by signing up over here.

Today is the 9th September, 09/09, and the maths is simple: 9 + 9 for 18 sentences that follow not-quite-directly on from last week, but near enough.  Fayth considered shooting RQ in the legs and carrying him instead, but didn't feel too inclined towards being bled on...  (I'm sure RQ appreciated it too.)

Two corridors along he found what he was looking for.  RQ stopped struggling, standing sullenly as far from Fayth as his reach would allow, while Fayth pounded at the elevator call button and prayed it wasn’t occupied when it arrived.

“You don’t understand.”

Fayth thumped the button again, hoping it disguised the way he jumped at the words.  “I don’t understand what?”

RQ wouldn’t look at him.  “Anything.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but the ping of the opening door beat him to it.  There was no point reasoning with RQ now anyway, the determined set of his jaw screamed that he wouldn’t listen to a word Fayth said.  He dragged him inside the elevator instead. 

The problem was, even sulky and obstructive, RQ was still easily the most stunning man Fayth had ever seen.  His mood reflected in the lower lip pooched out without his even realising it.  His blue-green eyes were half-closed and determinedly distant.  He still wore the clothes Fayth had left for the expected woman in his room.  If Fayth shoved him against the wall and kissed him like his life depended on it, it’d only be his own fault, looking as incredible in cheap, flimsy clothes and dangerous surroundings as he did.

Only it’d be all Fayth’s fault, not RQ’s, and he couldn’t inflict that kind of pain on him again.  Not on anyone without their implicit permission, in fact—and hadn’t that fallen flat before, with the kind of situational misreading Fayth hadn’t made since he was a teenager.

Resting his free hand on the pistol in the back of his trousers, he glared daggers at the button panel instead and swore to God that if anyone called the lift on their way to the bay floor, he’d kneecap them.

WiPpet Wednesday: gamey rambling (again) and things not at all going according to plan...

I finally did it!  I worked my little arse off and I finally got G is for Gabrys finished... although I didn't get to do much else between that, work and family time...

As a reward, I'm having a couple of days off (sorry Ais, Lirio, RQ and Fayth...) to play Metal Gear Solid V: the Phantom Pain.

I am... not very good at Metal Gear games.  I liked Metal Gear Solid 2 enough to buy it on the Vita after I had it on the original Xbox, although that may have had something to do with a certain put-upon, very dim, blond male character who spends a chunk of the game naked.  I have MGS3 on Vita mostly because it came with MGS2; I don't have MGS4 (despite it also featuring the put-upon, dim blond) because that was PS3 only and the PS4--which, like the PS3, I said I would only get if there were enough games I wanted to play to justify the cost--is not backwards compatible nor is it likely to be.  And I have MGS5: Ground Zeroes, which although I completed I unfortunately did not play enough to unlock said dim blond's level, due to being damn terrible at sneaking.

Also, I have Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which is actually my favourite game out of all of them, not least for featuring the same certain put-upon dim blond and for being far more my kind of game, which means lots of stabbing and no sneaking at all.  Also vast amounts of homoerotic content.  (No, I'm not kidding.)

I've also got a lot of other computer games.  And in those games, there's usually theft of some kind.  You can pickpocket and rob bodies in Assassin's Creed.  You can hack computers and steal cars in Watch_Dogs, or accidentally pilfer cheese in Skyrim.  Most RPGs encourage unsolicited entering of homes, rifling through their drawers and helping yourself to their valuables.  Even in Portal you can pick up and run away with a usually very startled sentry turret.

The Phantom Pain is probably the first game I've played where you can steal the enemy soldiers.

I am having a field day.

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a blog hop organised by the always-brilliant K. L. Schwengel, which focuses on our Works in Progress and ties them into the date, either through simple means or more complicated WiPpet Maths.  It's a whole lot of fun filled with brilliant excerpts, and you can find out more and join in yourself here.

It's the 2nd September (02/09, woo, new month!), so my maths is just 9 - 2 = 7, for 7 paragraphs, following on from Fayth deciding that playing nice just wasn't working any longer (though it looks like it might start backfiring...)

This will make sense eventually, honest.  (Also, profanity warning.)

The guard went down with a howl, one hand scrabbling uselessly for his pistol while the other clasped his knee.  The second guard fumbled with the catches on his holster, all the while gaping at Fayth; Fayth shot him in the foot.  Without waiting for either man to get a handle on their pain long enough to process what was happening, he dashed between them and grabbed RQ’s hand.  “Come on.”

RQ jerked back in his grip, struggling to free himself.  “What the hell are you doing?!  Let me go, you fucking madman!”

Fayth tightened his grip and put a second laser hole in one of the guard’s legs for good measure.  “I’m saving your worthless life, that’s what I’m doing, and if you don’t get moving I’ll shoot you in the legs too.”

RQ paled but made no effort to follow.  It took all of Fayth’s strength to drag him forward, muttering profanities under his breath the whole way.  He even had to put a third hole into one of the guards, to add insult to injury: a neat one in his hand because the bastard was going for his gun again.  Clearly incapable of taking a hint.  The other one was a little quicker on the uptake, his own falling away from the butt of his pistol, but Fayth had to reverse up the hallway nonetheless, in part to keep an eye on them, and in part because he suddenly didn’t trust RQ not to brain him if he turned his back.  Just remembering his punch made Fayth’s cheekbone ache.

In front of him, RQ tried to pull free again and yelped as Fayth crushed his hand.  “Don’t you understand I’m trying to help?”  Fayth shouted over the deafening wah-wah of the alarm speaker they passed under.  So far there was no sign of the other two guards.  Fayth had to hope that by now they were at least two floors above them.  “Don’t you know what they want to do?”

His third attempt to wrench himself free unsuccessful, RQ just stared at Fayth with his mouth compressed into a thin line and didn’t say a word.

Fayth shoved the pistol into the back of his trousers, swapping the hand grasping RQ’s for a grip on his slender wrist instead.  Turning his back on him might be a risk, but at least it’d be harder for him to escape.  “I didn’t think you were an idiot but I guess I was wrong.”

WiPpet Wednesday: too bloody long, and not the way it was planned...

Things are taking a turn for the decidedly weird with G is for Gabrys.  I keep being fascinated that a story that was only supposed to be 300-700 words has become (at last count) over 15,000 and sprung up a cast of characters, including one I absolutely did not expect to see.

I'm not complaining—well, maybe I am a little, because I want to get it out of the way and it's keeping me from other projects—but after all that time where writing even one word felt like pulling teeth, it's just... unexpected.  I really hope I finish it before it gets to 20,000 words though.

After that... well, I'll probably put it where it was supposed to be in the list, then leave it for a while, give it a spot of editing and then use it to see if I can teach myself how to typeset pages for bookbinding.

I'm usually terrible about finishing projects (and computer games, and... most things, actually: I don't like endings), but I'm rather looking forward to this one.  Not least because of how long it's bloody taken...

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a bloghop run by the always-brilliant K. L. Schwengel who I very almost got the wrong blog address for just then.  It encourages writers to share sections from their Works in Progress that relate in some way to the date (the section, not the content), either through simple means or WiPpet Maths.  If you want to find out more, read some brilliant snippets from stories and join in yourself, it's over here.

I won't threaten another section from G is for Gabrys, because I think one person being threatened with a fork was enough for this month!  Instead, since it's the 26th August 2015 (26/08/2015), I'm going to add 2 + 6 = 8, then 8 + 8 = 16.  2 + 0 + 1 = 3, and 5 - 3 = 2... so 16 - 2 = 14 for 14 admittedly quite long paragraphs from The Rose Queen (as ever, sorry about that).

This one contains a profanity warning, because Fayth can be sweary as it is and now he's really panicking...

Fayth screeched to a halt, barely able to breathe. He’d assumed that they’d take him back home before they executed him. Dead bodies were a pain to transport, but they were infinitely more well behaved than the living. RQ might even now be slowly cooling against a plastic-wrapped mattress.  Worse, it might be a bullet to the back of the head, a spray of red across the wall. 

There was no fucking way he was letting that happen. Hope was all he had, weak and desperate and clawing and he was not going to let go of it. He took off at a sprint, hurtling down emergency access stairs three at a time rather than risk the slow, cramped confines of an elevator, and swarmed through corridors like a one-man plague. 

He was, by his own admittedly somewhat shaky estimation, three floors from the danger zone, where prisoners were likely to go in and never come out again, when his pace slackened. Nothing to do with lack of will, or that he’d given up, but damn he was tired. Adrenaline could carry him so far but there was a limit, and Fayth was pretty sure he’d passed that several floors ago. His hand trembled around the gun’s grip. Not for the first time, he envied the bounty hunters and brawlers their body mods and enhanced systems. Taking his nanites for a tune-up was increasingly looking like a fantastic idea, because he couldn’t do this again.  There was a reason he preferred to sneak in to steal things; he’d not had to do this in years, at least, not in such a sustained manner.  Doing it again on the way back might well see him off entirely. 

And still no alarms sounded.  Kirik must really be keen on saving RQ. 

Fayth leaned against the wall, desperate for the chance to gulp down air—and nearly pissed himself in terror as sirens screamed through the hall.  Time was up; now or never.  At least this time it didn’t involve red lighting, that stuff always made him feel ill.  Pushing off from the wall, he broke into what he hoped wasn’t the last sprint of his life. 

The four guards were lightly armed, built like brick walls and rendered RQ barely visible beyond their broad shoulders, and Fayth almost skidded round the corner into them.  If the alarm hadn’t been blaring fit to burst his eardrums there would’ve been the element of surprise.  As it was, they all spun gracefully in his direction, hands falling to their holsters.  And paused, confused. 

He couldn’t blame them really.  They were probably expecting a second incursion from the Orenda, come to steal back their prize.  It was a fair bet they weren’t expecting the man who’d just delivered that prize back to them.  Not one drew their guns. 

“You’ve gotta move,” Fayth bellowed to be heard over the shrieking alert, his mouth moving before his brain could direct it.  “They’re coming for him.” 

“We’re taking him to the containment block,” one wall rumbled uncertainly, his words almost drowned out by the siren.  “He’ll be safe there.” 

Safe?  Lie of the year right there.  “Nah, man, they’re expecting that.  They need you upstairs, fight them off.  I’ll hide him ’til it’s done.” 

From beyond the shield of shoulders, he thought he saw RQ’s sceptical expression, a sentiment echoed by the guards.  One—must be the leader—turned to the others, quickly ordering two to peel off and head back, before returning his attention to Fayth.  His voice rumbled below the level of the alarm; Fayth could feel it roll through his stomach.  “They’ll help deal with them, don’t worry.  We’ll carry on here, so you can get back to your ship now.” 

Shit damn crap, this wasn’t going how he wanted.  “You don’t think you’re being a bit predictable?  I knew where to find you, so they’re bound to.” 

“This time, we’re prepared for them,” the leader said, turning away.  “Run along.” 

“Fine,” Fayth grumbled, and shot the man in the knee.

WiPpet Wednesday: a mishmash and a familiar face

It was a weird week last week.  There's always something a little depressing about getting older, offset somewhat by the fact I'm always overestimating how old I actually am, so yet again this year I realised I'm at least year younger than I thought.  (Two years out this year, which was a relief.)

Never did work out if it's because I'm terrible at maths, or if I'm just too lazy to pay attention.

There's something odd about the end of August in England when the weather becomes changeable.  The days seem to become a blur, which hasn't really helped things.  It came as a bit of a surprise that it's even Wednesday today.

In other news, I've finally started reading the Game of Thrones books one of my NaNoers gave me at least a year ago and I'm enjoying the first book so far, but there's something daunting when you look down and go "oh, I'm on page 30 already", only to realise that, yeah, great, but you've got another 800 to go...

WiPpet Wednesday

It's that awesome time of the week again: the blog hop hosted by the ever-brilliant K. L. Schwengel where participants post sections of their Works in Progress that in some way, either through simple links or complicated WiPpet math, relate to the date.  You can find out more, read other blogs and take part yourself over heeeeere.

You know, I've been working quite hard lately on my one outstanding Blogging From A-Z post, G is for Gabrys, and I'm actually starting to make progress now.  Perhaps it'd make more sense if I shared a snippet from—

...I think there's a couple of people who'd hunt me down and strangle me if I did that right now.  :p  (Though that'd be one way to get to meet people in the flesh!)

So, since it's the 19th August 2015 (19/08/2015), my maths is 1 + 9 = 10;  2 + 0 + 1 + 5 = 8; 8 ÷ 8 = 1.  10 + 1 is 11, for 11 paragraphs.

Last week we left Corliss sulking off onto his new task, so this week we're returning to Fayth.  When we left him, he'd been aimlessly pushing some awful not-cream cake around a plate, only to be startled by a crewman letting slip that RQ was being returned solely for his execution.

You could say Fayth did not take it well.

The crewman—Kirik, like knowing his name would stop Fayth threatening him; a sorely deluded man—didn’t waste time putting up a fight, and for that Fayth was grateful. If it wasn’t for the way his hands shook as he opened the door to the armoury Fayth would have sworn he’d wanted him to mount a rescue. He certainly didn’t question the bigger man’s actions. Maybe he realised that Fayth wouldn’t tell him even if he asked. Telling would require knowing why in the first place, and Fayth didn’t want to sit around long enough to analyse that particular question.

Then, gun in hand, he was off and running, leaving Kirik behind with with three tiny red marks on his neck and a bemused expression on his face.

Fayth just hoped Kirik didn’t feel the need to tell anyone how he’d been threatened with death by fork.

No alarms sounded as he pounded through the corridors. The few crewmen he saw passed in a blur, startled expressions frozen with wide eyes and O-shaped mouths. Either they didn’t see the gun or strange men charging through hallways while armed was an alarming but regular occurrence. He hoped it was the former, not the latter.

Damnit, why was it so hard to find Pynes’ office a second time round? He was sure he’d been up there and round there, but it just led to more interminable corridors and if there was one thing the month had supplied more than enough of already, it was interminable corridors.

It was useless, he’d never find them like this. He’d be lucky if Pynes and RQ were even in the same room now.

Room. They wouldn’t be in the same room, because Pynes would want to move RQ somewhere safer, where even if RQ heard what would happen and decided to make a run for it, he’d never manage to escape.
Fayth swore loudly and spun on his heel, pelting back down the corridor again.

Waystations all looked the same. He’d considered it a design flaw in the past—and strictly speaking it was, from a criminal standpoint; if you knew one you knew them all even if you did have a tendency to become geographically embarrassed now and again—but right now he could kiss Pynes. What he’d chosen as a simple stopover on his way back to God knew where was about to make Fayth’s life significantly easier.

Secure cells and other important rooms were usually placed at the bottom of the station, in the middle and far away from the insecure outside edge. It hadn’t been that long, even if he was pretty sure Pynes’ office had been only halfway up the station, two levels from the docking bays. They couldn’t have taken RQ all the way down and in by now, locked him away where Fayth couldn’t get at him even if he could get Kirik to help him again. Please God, don’t let them have managed it...

What if they’d already done it?

WiPpet Wednesday: unexpecting the unexpected

Bearing in mind my utter uselessness at continuing on with NaNo stories after NaNo has finished (and I have 12 years' worth of unfinished NaNo stories to back this up!), that I'm still working on this Camp NaNo project is somewhat bemusing...  I'm now at 29,000 words and I have the weirdest suspicion that I've now actually started dreaming about Ais and Lirio.

Things are, as ever, going from bad to worse for our heroes (using the term loosely...) which apparently means that for the last two days I've sat down and accidentally written around 1,000 words a day on them.

Shame it's not 1,000 words on any of the projects I'm actually supposed to be working on!  The weirdest thing is though, that I'm actually having fun.  (Lirio's not, but if he was I wouldn't have so much to write about.)

Also, after ages of reading people say "well it's an acquired taste..." and "I had to force myself to drink it the first week or so..." I finally decided to try green tea.

After my first cup, it's been pretty much the only hot drink I have drunk.  Turns out I actually really like it.  So, finally, something healthy I've been successful with!

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a blog hop hosted by K. L. Schwengel to encourage people to work on and share their Works in Progress, but it's a blog hop with a twist: each snippet should in some way relate to the date, either through basic substitution or WiPpet maths.  You can find out more, read other blogs and sign up yourself over here.

Today's maths is pretty basic: it's the 12th August so it's 12 + 8 for 20 lines from The Rose Queen and we're still on Corliss, just for this one last bit.  (Although if you do fancy reading any more about him, I wrote an 850-word 18+ thing with him before his life in this story for the A-Z Challenge here.  Fastest sex scene of the month!)

Medworth’s eyes narrowed.  Everyone thought his crow’s feet were marks of a life spent laughing; Corliss suspected they had as much to do with the icy glare he seemed perfectly capable of pinning his Head of Security to the carpet with.  Perhaps Medworth smiled with other crewmen, but Corliss was there under sufferance.  “Unless you’re capable of making it up to the Project—to me—somehow?”

At last, a straw he could clutch at.  It might do nothing to stop him being swept back to Caleca, but if he was lucky and absolutely refused to let go, it might just allow him to claw his way back into the Captain’s good graces.  “I’ll do anything to serve the Orenda.  You know that, sir.” 

He didn’t need to hear the words to know what they’d be, but Medworth didn’t leave things to chance and intuition.  “Retrieve the Rose Queen.  Prove you’re the man you assured us you were when we took you on.” 

Corliss nodded, snapping out a smart salute.  “Yes, sir.”  There was nothing else he could say.  No words could make it better.  It was action, because even death was better than the alternative.  He hesitated, saluted again, then turned on his heel and stalked from the room, Medworth’s eyes burning a hole in his back. 

In the hallway, his face collapsed into a scowl that could have been career-ending had Medworth seen it.  His life had gone straight to Hell all right, and if he didn’t do something about it now, Hell would seem like an all-expenses-paid five-star resort on a garden planet in comparison to Medworth’s pointed threat. 

Somehow—and he’d better come up with a way, fast, because he didn’t think Medworth was in a patient mood—he’d get the gardener back and make the thieving bastard who stole him pay for his loss of face.

WiPpet Wednesday: rewards and punishments

My reward for not doing as badly at Camp NaNo as I expected arrived today!

One of the nicest things about fountain pens is converters, which you can fill with any ink you choose... which usually results in owning quite a few bottles of ink (they're much cheaper than buying cartridges).  And I'll admit I'm pretty cheap with my inks: I prefer Diamine, which are usually £2-3 a 30ml bottle.

This... is not a cheap ink.  This is my third J. Herbin 1670 ink, and it's only just come out.  The 1670 inks have tiny flecks of gold in, and from all the promotional pictures I've seen that use it, it's got a beautiful sheen when used.

It's also... *ulp*  About £14 a bottle, and I've never used any of them, because I'm just a tiiiiny bit scared of them.  (I don't think I can be blamed at that price.)  They do look gorgeous though...

I will get around to trying it out though.  Probably with my dip pens, because I'm a little unsure how well a Lamy will deal with the gold flecks in the feed and I'm pretty sure my little Pilot with its EF nib will just choke on them.

But it IS pretty...

And on the subject of (subjectively) pretty, I found the Rose Queen bookmark I made while bored a few months ago.  Never did get around to making one representing Fayth...

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a brilliant blog hop where participants show snippets of their Works in Progress, and all snippets relate in some way to the date, whether through simple substitution or WiPpet Maths.  It's organised by the lovely K. L. Schwengel and you can find out more, read other posts and jump in yourself over here.

It's the 5th August 2015 (05/08/2015) so my math is 2 + 0 + 1 + 5 = 8.  5 - 8 = 3.  3 + 8 = 11, for 11 paragraphs (sorry for the length).

To commemorate finding the bookmark again, I figured we should nip back to The Rose Queen to see what's going on.  I left Fayth with the discovery that his delivery of RQ is not everything he thought is was...

..and you're going to have to wait a little longer to see how that pans out, because chapter 4 deals with someone else.  Someone troublesome, who turned up without my permission...  (Profanity warning.)

The other thing he couldn’t help noticing, as he shifted from foot to foot and clenched his hands tightly together behind his back, was the sheer amount of greenery around the place.  Anywhere else, he’d take the stalks and stems to be a particularly expensive brand of synthetic and dismiss it as a pointless frippery; in here, he knew the truth.  Each plant was painstakingly—he might go so far as lovingly—raised to be the finest example it could be and then handed over to serve as nothing more than decoration.  It was easy to make a parallel between the plants and their gardener.

“Baenan.”

Outwardly he was sure nothing more happened than his knuckles whitening as he gripped that little bit harder; inwardly, he flinched.  If he was being addressed by his surname, he really was in for it.  “Yes, sir.”

The deep carpet muffled each heavy footfall and the man’s breath was barely audible, but Corliss knew where the man was standing simply from the pressure of his eyes over his skin.  The room might be designed to intimidate, but it had nothing on its occupant.  “Would you like to tell me anything about today, Baenan?”

Well, no, he wouldn’t.  What he would like to do was hide in his cabin until he could be sure people had stopped laughing every time he passed, but he was fairly sure that the Captain wasn’t going to accept that as an answer.  In fact, there was a lot the Captain wouldn’t accept as an answer, like how the Head of Security had found himself brained and naked in a storage closet.  Hay Medworth had a reputation as a fair Captain, but no matter how fair he was, Corliss didn’t think anyone would take the theft of their most valuable asset they’d ever had well while the man supposedly responsible for ship-wide security dozed through it all.

Fucking thief; it had taken a full ten minutes for Corliss’s nose to stop bleeding and hadn’t that amused everyone else.  He hadn’t intended to effectively broadcast that he was one of the few crewmembers without nanites.

“I’m waiting, Baenan.”

He swallowed, like that would force down the knot of fear in his chest, and kept his gaze fixed on the empty table in front of him.  Real wood, if he had to hazard a guess; he wondered if it had been grown in the habitat or shipped from a garden planet.  “I was doing a sweep of the docking bays.  I didn’t want anyone thinking that position meant pulling rank and offloading the shitty—” he winced; “—unpleasant, sorry sir, jobs onto junior staff.  The craft had all the correct credentials,” he added defensively, grip behind his back tightening again.  “The AI wouldn’t have let it dock otherwise.”

Captain Medway loomed into his peripheral vision.  From the way his lips pursed, that was the wrong answer.  “The system was fooled.  I would have thought you of all people would know how incorrect that was.”

It was like being slapped, only more effective.  He could get used to being slapped, but Medway’s sharp tongue opened the lacerations of his past every time.  “He hit me round the back of the head with a cleaning utensil, sir,” he found himself protesting weakly.

“That reminds me.”  The Captain settled behind his desk and watched the inwardly-squirming man over his steepled fingers.  “The cost of a new mop is coming out of your pay.  Perhaps you’d like to be demoted to caretaker duties and become better acquainted with it.”

(Oh, and just so they're not totally abandoned...  this is my most recent favourite bit from the half-arsed project:

Ais led him to a large flat stone that overlooked the sea and sat him on it.  Without the heat from his hands, the wind chilled Lirio's skin and rose goosebumps.  “You want to say we’re screwed, don’t you?”

Lirio snorted.  “I wanted to be, then your brother interrupted.”

So still no luck on that front for them!)

WiPpet Wednesday: the half-arsed project from the black lagoon

Work.  Has been insane.  So much for my quiet week!  If I finally break and you guys see vague, ranty and twitchy Twitter comments, that'd be why...

Well.  More ranty.  Ranty-er?

Because I clearly need more.

Ughhhh.  I need to sit with my still-unfinished crochet on my head for a while and hide from the world.

In other news, the half-arsed project is very, very unlikely to reach 30,000 words by the end of the month, but 20,000 might just be possible (you'd think so, but see above...).  Either way, it's still more than I ever envisioned writing by hand in a month.

Don't think I can stop now though.  I ordered another two new fountain pen inks yesterday.

WiPpet Wednesday

It's Wednesday, so it's time for a WiPpet!  WiPpet Wednesday is a works-in-progress blog hop hosted by the always-awesome K. L. Schwengel, where every entry relates in some way to the date, either through simple logic or WiPpet maths.  You can find out more and visit the other posts by ambling over here.

It's the 29th June 2015, so 29/07/2015.  Today we're discarding the year entirely.  2 + 9 = 11; 1 × 1 = 1.  7 + 1 = 8, for 8 sentences, where Ais has finally got Lirio home again.  They were about to continue the Moment they'd been having last week when they received an unpleasant shock instead, one that's put Lirio on edge...

(So first-draft-y it hurts.)

Asking just how he got caught when he was usually so careful would have made being smacked in the face with a brick seem tactful, so Ais didn’t, and just hoped Lirio appreciated just how much more careful cleaning his face Ais was than when the roles were reversed.

He suspected he didn’t.

Lirio was worryingly silent throughout.  He was quiet enough normally, sure, but when something upset him he was usually very vocal about it.  Sullen silence just didn’t suit him.  He didn’t even make a peep when Ais accidentally caught a sore spot with his cleaning cloth and Ais was sure he’d at least have complained or tried to swat his hand away.

Very worrying indeed.  And he’d only done it slightly on purpose too.

WiPpet Wednesday: return of the half-arsed project

In most respects it's been an uneventful week, with the exception of yesterday and today...  Yesterday I decided to do a factory reset on my Nexus 7, Lydia, since she's a 2012 model whose battery life became steadily more and more appalling over time and who I suspect never quite recovered from having something like 8 failed attempts at installing Android 4.4.4 (gods only know why!).  One factory reset later and we have battery life again, far fewer apps and... absolutely no saved progress in things like Temple Run.  Sigh.  There goes 60+ gems and a few million coins...

Then today my work laptop, Four, decided he didn't much like last night's Windows update.  System froze literally five minutes after booting, and again three minutes after resetting.  I've narrowed down the problems so I guess I just have to wait and see if my fixes have worked.

And then our internet went down this morning, so it's been just great today.

Other than that, still working on the Half-Arsed Project, but it's unlikely I'll get to 30,000 before the end of Camp NaNo.  I'm at 15,000 now.

Speaking of that...

WiPpet Wednesday

It's that time of the week again!  The blog hop where everyone's WIP entries relate in some way to the date, hosted by the ever-gracious and brilliant K. L. Schwengel.  Curious?  You can find out more, visit other WiPpeteers and sign up yourself over here.

It's the 22nd July 2015 today, so my maths is going to be arse-about-face.  1 + 5 = 6.  7 - 6 = 1.  2 + 1 = 3 for butchering of the year and month.  22 + 3 = 5, for 25 sentences of the half-arsed projects that one character would quite like to turn into a detective story.  Unfortunately for him he's not the main character, so we'll just ignore him.

This is the closest we've been getting to tender scenes between Ais and Lirio just lately, and follows on from an ill-judged attempt by Lirio to hunt down information in places he really shouldn't, and a somewhat less ill-judged rescue by Ais...

This, on top of everything else, was almost unbearable.  He’d spent all that time—that he hadn’t had and he knew it even then—desperately searching Siwen’s office for something that would incriminate her and exonerate Ais, and he’d found nothing but a splitting headache and a fresh opportunity for her to make him suffer.

“Lirio?”  Ais asked softly.

“What is it?”  Because he’d better have found something, or—

“What did you mean, ‘because of me’?”

He hesitated, swallowing a couple of times.  “I needed her to think you were off-guard.  You needed her to think that.  Or that mobile mountain in the room with us...”

Ais snorted.  “He wasn’t that big.”

“Maybe not when you’re facing him or standing up,” he said bitterly.

One of Ais’ most irritating qualities was how few strides it took him to quickly cover ground; one of his most endearing qualities—not that Lirio would tell him and run the risk of him becoming big-headed—was how inexplicably comforting his arms were when they wrapped around Lirio’s shoulders.  “I should have got there sooner,” he mumbled into Lirio’s hair.  “I shouldn’t have let you go in alone.”

Guilt wasn’t a feeling Lirio was particularly accustomed to, and it certainly wasn’t one he enjoyed.  He should pull away from Ais, say something blunt to remind him he could barely protect himself, let alone Lirio.

He covered Ais’ arms with his own and allowed his eyes to close, savouring the feeling of his breath against his hair.  “You weren’t to know,” he said softly.  “Don’t worry.”

For once, Ais said nothing.  The fingers gently cupping Lirio’s shoulders squeezed gently.

“Well isn’t this the most disgustingly touching scene,” a sneering voice sheared through their reverie.  “I’d be sick but I wouldn’t want to ruin any evidence any more than you already have.”

WiPpet Wednesday: revenge of the half-arsed project

Still plugging away at Camp NaNo.  I'm 8,737 words into a story I have no idea about while my characters search for both the plot and the Thing (that I have a vague notion is large, round and flat and does something bad), and are doing pretty damn badly at finding both...

To be fair to absolutely nobody, my entire cabin (which is to say, two other writers) is making much the same kind of progress as me.  Turns out handwriting these things is bloody awkward.  This is what I get for spending over half my life in front of computers...

I don't even know how I'm almost 9,000 words in.  It certainly doesn't feel like it.

WiPpet Wednesday

It's the most stealthy day of the week, the one I always fail to see coming...  WiPpet Wednesday is a blog hop run by the ever-awesome K. L. Schwengel, and a blog hop with a twist: every post relates in some way to the date!  If you want to find out more (and you should~), you can find more information and others' posts over at the inlinkz page.

Today's maths was... pretty simple, I thought, when I worked it out?  It's the 15th June 2015, so I added 1+5 to make 6, added it to the month (7) for 13, then for I added 2+0+1 to make 3, and removed that 3 from the 5 for 2, and added that to the 13 to make 15 for 15 (quite short) paragraphs...

And then I realised it's the 15th today and that would have done perfectly well by itself.

Still on the half-arsed project, and I'm concluding the one with the real sense of humour here is Ais.  Lirio has (sort of) freed Ais, taken him to see the boss (a l'il bit of that was posted on Monday) and now, quite a lot later, they're home again.

And still bickering.

For all his stubbornness and the way he took great care to make sure cleaning Ais’ face hurt, Lirio wasn’t hard to persuade to bed.  “Ten minutes,” he’d grumbled, allowing Ais to pull off his shirt and pull him into his arms on the bed, but when fifteen had passed and he was sound asleep with his head on Ais’ shoulder, Ais didn’t have the heart to wake him.  And with Lirio’s rhythmic breathing against him, he could hardly be blamed for dozing off himself, could he?

So it wasn’t particularly fair to be woken up by a punch to the arm so hard his fingers immediately went numb.  “Hey!”

“Have you got any idea what time it is?”  Lirio yelled at almost deafening volume into Ais’ ear.  “What the hells did you think you were doing?”

“Exactly the same thing you were.  Sleeping.”

Lirio stared at him like he was crazy, and for so long he started to wonder if he was.  “So everything you said about wanting a week, how you could find information—when did you plan to start?  When you only had one day left?”

“No...”  Ais found himself squirming under Lirio’s incredulity.  By all the sea gods he could think of, the man was a head shorter than him, he shouldn’t be able to make him so nervous.  But then, Lirio was the scarier one here.  “But a few hours’ delay can’t hurt, can it?  You said yourself you’ve had no sleep and I was busy getting beaten up.”

Lirio sniffed in the most derisive way Ais had ever heard a sniff be sniffed.  “You didn’t even know what day it was.  You slept through most of it.”

“Doesn’t mean it was comfortable,” Ais huffed, twisting to show off to Lirio the bruises mottling his torso, and froze at the sight of Lirio’s flat belly.  “What’s that?”

Lirio glanced down, mouth open to no doubt complain again, then clacked it shut and yanked the sheet up, like he thought covering the fist-sized bruise smack in the middle of his belly would make Ais immediately forget it existed.

It didn’t.  “Lirio, what happened in that meeting?”

“I told you.  Nothing.”

“You also told me you didn’t want to talk about it, and that doesn’t sound—or look—like nothing to me.”

Lirio sighed a long-suffering sigh, but Ais felt him lean fractionally away.  “It’s a reminder.”

When it seemed like a polite silence might be too subtle, Ais prompted, “of?”

This time the sigh was softer and more heartfelt.  “Of what will happen if I bring you back empty-handed at the end of the week.”

WiPpet Wednesday: a totally half-arsed project

I'm not being facetious either: it's Camp NaNo and I was woefully unprepared.  I didn't write anything at all the first day, because I didn't know which project to work on and as our small cabin is handwriting our stories I didn't want to start writing anything I was already mid-type.

So I sat down on the second day and just started writing, and it turned out I was writing about Lirio and Ais, who first turned up under L is for Lirio in the A-Z Challenge.  There even seems to be a plot, though it's being a little stubborn at making itself fully known, which involves a thing that Ais should have fetched that is now missing.

Would love to know what the thing is though...

So, yep.  This month is now given over to a project I am not just winging, but am pantsing in ways I haven't pantsed for years.

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a blog hop hosted by the lovely K. L. Schwengel, where participants share snippets from their WIPs with just one twist: the excerpt must in some way relate to the date, either through simple means or fancy maths.  You can read more (well worth it) and find out more over here.

Last week we left Fayth with the bombshell that RQ is going to be executed as he has outlived his usefulness.

This week, we're going to still leave him there, because you're getting something from this barely-even-first-draft WIP instead.  Mostly because half-arsed though it may be, I'm having a lot of fun with it, and it turns out I rather like Lirio and Ais (though I'm not sure the feeling is mutual).

Today is the 8th July 2015 (8/7/2015), so today's maths goes as follows: 2+0+1+5 = 8 - 7 = 1.  1 + 8 = 9 for nine paragraphs from the first section.  And don't worry when I say "9 paragraphs": handwriting everything means most paragraphs are very short...

He did his best to glower at him through his remaining good eye, but from the widening of the smirk the whole effect was spoiled by his bruised face and black eye.  “I won’t.”

“You’ve found your voice?”  The leader asked, amusement positively dripping from every word.  “We’re making progress already.  It won’t be long before you’re singing pretty songs and eating out the palm of my hand.  Maybe even literally.  I’d enjoy that.”

His eyes widened in horror—at the exact same moment the leader’s did.  When he toppled backwards, rapidly followed by his accomplice, it was with the same stupid, shocked expression.

One he wore himself as a voice, a familiar voice, growled out, “only thing you’ll enjoy is a splitting headache, dick.”

That voice.  He knew that voice like the back of his foot—like the back of his hand but marginally less familiar.  But it couldn’t be, because that would just be wrong.  It would turn the world on its head.  And worst of all, it would totally blow his cover.

Maybe, if he was lucky, he wouldn’t recognise him.

“Ais?”  So much for that.  “Ais, is that you?  What’re you doing here?”

He turned a bloody smile up at his lover.  Well.  Probably ex-lover now.  “Lirio.  Never expected to see you here.”  After all, how much worse could it get?

From the pursing of Lirio’s lips and the way his fingers twitched for the knives at his belt, probably much, much worse.

*melts* ... WiPpet Wednesday

Lately, the days have been blending together until I can't work out what actual day of the week it is.  I've had to rely on HabitRPG telling me, since I have Dailies set up for RSW and WW.

And to add insult to injury, it's too hot.  I mean, this is England.  It's not supposed to be hot.

Lastly, it's also the start of Camp NaNo, which I and a couple of others are trying to entirely hand-write.  ...I have no idea what I'm writing.  I've barely even made progress with my RSW projects this week.

I think I'm just going to melt into a puddle and slime away.

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a weekly blog-hop hosted by our gracious ...host... K. L. Schwengel where participants share excerpts from their Works in Progress that in some way relate to the date, either via simple maths (like 20 sentences for the 20th) or somewhat less simple maths such as dividing the date by the month for 4 paragraphs.  You can find out more, read other participants' entries and join in yourself here.

Ahh, WiPpet Maths in order to get my way...  Today is the 1st July 2015 - 01-07-2015 - so today we're going for 7 × 2 = 14. 1 - 1 = 0.  14 + 0 + 5 = 19, for 19 paragraphs.  (Don't worry, they're mostly pretty short.)

So, last week Fayth handed RQ over and had some very badly phrased thoughts about RQ that neglected a lot of things, including that he was born on a planet and RQ very likely wasn't, and finished off with a vague sense of anti-climax.  Now he's got no idea what to do with himself...  (Also, profanity warning.)

There was a small open-fronted café near the docking bays and while Fayth hadn’t exactly been allowed to stop for a meal there, no one had exactly said he couldn’t either. The thought of going back to his empty ship, where one room smelled very faintly of a stranger, was distinctly unappealing. Putting it off was futile. Childish. Fayth pushed a forkful of cream cake around his plate and decided he didn’t really care.

It wasn’t even a nice cream cake, to add insult to injury. The cream tasted awful; not a surprise, considering it was almost exactly the same as liquefied nutrient mash, and that stuff tasted like shit even when it was flavoured. This tasted like someone had forgotten the flavour.

A shadow fell across him. Fayth didn’t even bother looking up.

“This seat taken?”

The voice was soft, familiar. Fayth glanced up from under his lashes, and the spark of hope in his chest was extinguished by the face of the crewman he’d asked directions from. He looked pointedly around at the scattered tables and chairs, all empty, and returned his attention to the half-eaten cake. “Knock yourself out.” 

The chair scraped back loud enough to make Fayth wince as the crewman sat opposite, regarding Fayth’s cake with a distinctly despondent expression. “They’re still selling that?”

“Apparently so.”

“Damn.” He stared at the cake a little longer, then gave Fayth a carefully appraising look. “We’re all impressed that you could bring RQ back, you know. The Powers That Be tried looking for him after the break-in, but no joy.”

Fayth grunted. “It’s what I’m paid for.”

“He looked so well too. After how they took him, we all kinda thought... well, we didn’t think he’d be coming back.” He continued to stare morosely at Fayth’s cake.

Fayth shoved it towards the crewman. “Have it.”

The plate came back towards him with indecent haste. “Hell no!”

Well, he couldn’t blame him for it. Fayth himself was increasingly regretting his decision to buy it but a quick look around the café revealed it to still be deserted and therefore devoid of anyone else he could fob it off onto.

The crewman sighed, looking from the cake to the empty counter where staff should have been, but had clearly decided a deserted café wasn’t worth sticking around for, then pulled the cake back over again. “Might as well. Shame you went to all that effort for nothing though.”

Swallowing, Fayth took a deep breath and tried to ignore the way his heart started hammering fit to break free. “Nothing?”

“Yeah. They said there’s no further use for him, so he’s scheduled for execution.” The crewman dipped his finger into the cream. His grimace made it obvious he felt the same way about the taste.

Fayth didn’t notice. “...What?”

The crewman’s eyes flicked up to Fayth again. He paled. “Oh fuck, you weren’t supposed to know, were you? I just—forget I said anything. I—”

His words broke off at the pressure of the fork’s points against his jugular. Nose inches from his horrified face, Fayth snarled down at him, “find me a gun, before I really lose my temper.”

Gamey Rambling and WiPpet Wednesday

It's been a sort-of productive week, surprisingly.  Thanks to Ready, Set, Write! I'm actually writing again, even if it sometimes feels like pulling particularly stubborn teeth, and I managed to complete another two computer games to go towards my New Year's Resolution, which technically means I've now completed it as I've finished 5 games this year.  To be fair, all five have been quite short, but that I finished them at all is pretty good—not least because the two I finished this week I've had since around this time last year.  (For the record: shooting things, hacking things and incinerating monsters is remarkably therapeutic after work...)

The games were The Fall and Digital: A Love Story.  Both were excellent, particularly if you have a massive small weak spot for sci-fi, AIs (the mainframe in The Fall is weirdly adorable, as is Arid) and twisty plots.

I'm also on Final Fantasy XIII, which I picked up during the Steam Summer Sale along with XIII-2.  This may have been a bit foolhardy as I have an atrocious track record with playing FF games: I have fifteen of them, including the XIV demo, and of all of those I've only ever completed one—and it's not the demo.  It's Final Fantasy Adventure on the original Gameboy, and I bought it when I was 16.  Still... I think I'm further through this one than I am with pretty much any of the others, since the voice acting hasn't made me laugh at inappropriate moments (thank you FFX).  It's weird playing games I'd usually associate with my Xbox on my PC though.  I still can't quite believe I can.

Oh, and for all that I'm playing pretty, shiny games on this PC, I also managed to get an Amiga emulator working on it.  From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Enough rambling about that, however...

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a blog hop hosted by K. L. Schwengel where participants share snippets from their works in progress with one twist: the snippet must in some way be related to the date, either through simple means or WiPpet maths.  You can find out more, read other posts and sign up yourself over here.

A spot of basic mathematics for today's WiPpet maths: it's the 24th June 2015, so 24/06/2015.  2 + 4 = 6; 6 = 6; 2 + 0 = 2; 1 + 5 = 6.  6 + 6 = 12. 6 ÷ 2 = 3.  6 + 6 + 3 = 15, for 15 paragraphs.  (Phew.)

Last week, Fayth was at the waystation where he'd agreed to meet the (so far) mysterious Kaeder Pynes, and RQ is still not speaking to him despite his perfectly-good-totally-not-awful attempt at making him smile.

Also, very, very first-draft-y.  Even worse than usual.

He shook his head, then drew to a halt outside Pynes’ door and rapped his knuckles against the frosted pleximetal door.

“Enter.”

Without his touching it again, the door slid aside to reveal a wide room with a curved panorama window that Fayth was sure had to be augmented because the detail he could see on the moon beyond was phenomenal. It was almost enough to distract him from the task in hand. Almost.

The room was subtly lit, just enough to see by without spoiling the impression that it all came from the moon beyond, and there was more than enough light to make out the man standing just inside the room. Kaeder Pynes was a tall, older but still handsome man with a ready smile, whose jet black hair was slowly peppering to grey and who had a handshake firm enough to leave Fayth’s fingers tingling.  “Admiral Fayth, when you said you’d found him I almost didn’t dare believe it was true.”

Wearing his smile like a protective mask, Fayth found himself scrutinising the other man. If it wasn’t for Pynes’ slightly darker skin, warm brown eyes and stronger jaw line, he’d almost think that he and RQ could be related—but RQ would have told him that, wouldn’t he? He’d certainly seem more joyful. “I apologise for the delay, sir. It took me longer than I’d like to track him down.”

With an airy gesture of dismissal that could mean something or nothing, Pynes turned to RQ and wrapped his arms around the younger man’s narrow shoulders. “You were faster than I’d expected.”

RQ returned the hug, but stiffly, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do, and when Pynes released him to give him a more thorough once-over, Fayth thought he saw a tightening of the skin around the older man’s eyes and jaw. Odd... but none of his business. “I try to pride myself on my service.”

“And with good reason. You were the perfect choice.” Pynes turned that million-credit smile on him and Fayth tried to take pleasure from a job well done, he really did, but the smile was just a little too forced for comfort. There was no reason a man with the kind of money Pynes had thrown at the whole thing should look so unbelievable.

But it was none of his business. None of it was any of his business. RQ made that abundantly clear.

“The rest of the money will be in your account tomorrow. I hope that’s acceptable?”

“Oh? Yeah.” Pynes could have been asking him if he’d wanted to sell his soul and he’d have agreed; the sight of RQ’s forlorn face distracted him from whatever it was they were supposed to be discussing. Money? Something to do with money. Money was good. “Thanks. If you need me again...”

Pynes nodded decisively. “We’ll be sure to contact you in the future if your services are required.”

He’d never hear from them again, and suddenly he didn’t mind that one bit. “Take care of yourself,” he said to RQ as he turned to leave, and was strangely gratified to be rewarded with the barest hint of a nod. The door hissed shut behind him and the enigmatic raven-haired gardener was gone.

Fayth should be pleased with his success.

So why did it all feel so hollow?

Zzzzzombie... and WiPpet Wednesday

Due to the University of Nottingham* apparently deciding that their graduation ball needed to go on until 3AM this morning, with music so loud that it was vibrating my house over two miles away with 990+ other houses between me and them...

I got maybe four hours sleep and have spent the rest of the day playing catch-up with myself.

I could happily murder people today.

BUT!  On a more cheerful note, my Figma Tachibana Makoto arrived today, and he looks very happy to be reunited with Haru.  Between stationery and models I'm starting to run out of space on my desk... not that it'll stopped me buying more of both.

I also totally forgot, last week, to say I'd taken another bookbinding course, this one teaching how to sew headbands (the striped line of material along the top and bottom of a hardback book).  Turns out it's a very laborious process if you've never done it before; I unpicked my top one several times before I was even remotely happy with it.

And then did the bottom one first time.  Sigh.

It's not the neatest spot of covering, because shortly before cutting it I saw my friend slice the tip of her finger off with a scalpel and it kind of put me off using mine (scissors do not a straight edge make), but it came out better than I'd thought it would...  I'd quite like to try working out how to lay out and print one of my stories to try binding into a hardback, but I think I'm a way off finishing anything for now.

My friend is fine and bandaged, by the way, after a visit to her local A&E—which is probably better than visiting the one in the city we were in.  Not had good experiences with that place.  Not sure how she feels about bookbinding now though...

* I mistakenly blamed the racetrack for this at around 1:30AM, but in my defense, they were the reason I was awake 'til 3AM last time.

WiPpet Wednesday

Every time I tried to sit down to write this, something ended up dragging me away from the computer.  So while I technically started this on Wednesday, it's now... well, half an hour into Thursday.  But hey, it's still Wednesday in around half the world!

Sometimes it's really difficult for me to decide which bits to share, because I read a bit, and then I read a bit more, and I think, well, this bit needs this bit and this bit follows on better straight from here... and before I know it I've wall-of-texted everyone with a whole section.  So I'll try to be a little more brief...  Sort of.

Today's snippet is 17 sentences (sorry), for the 17th June, even though it's now the 18th for me and I did just really confuse myself with that fact.  A little time has passed since Fayth's misjudged action and they're now approaching the waystation Fayth agreed to deliver RQ to...

Also, small profanity warning, because Fayth's internal voice is sometimes a little casually sweary.

RQ had spent the past week and two days avoiding being in the same room as Fayth. He didn’t speak even when Fayth led him into the cavernous docking bay and along the twisted catwalks with their flimsy handrails up to the station proper. Fayth’d expected some kind of relief at being returned, but any pleasure the black-haired man felt at being safe again wasn’t visible on his face. A faint frown furrowed his brow and turned down the corners of his mouth every time Fayth glanced back at him. If Fayth didn’t know better, he might think RQ didn’t want to be here at all.

Nonsense, of course; he’d asked. He’d volunteered. Of course he wanted to be here.

The waystation’s corridors were just as interesting as the ones inside the Orenda, which was to say boring as fuck, but at least this time he could stop to ask directions. The uniformed crewman he chose for that very function gave RQ a curious glance but said nothing other than to direct Fayth to the appropriate floor and room, then nodded respectfully as Fayth led his silent charge onward.

After two weeks of conversation, RQ’s long silence both frustrated and irritated Fayth, but there was nothing to be done for it now. He just had to hope that he wouldn’t tell Pynes about the unwanted advances his escort had made; the last thing Fayth needed now was for the second half of his fee to be cut, and for all he knew, RQ might always be this quiet in the presence of his... employers? Whatever they were. Fayth hadn’t stopped to think about it before.

“It beats being tied up and led around, right?” He tried, desperate to crack one last weak smile before they parted ways, but RQ just stared at him, then looked away.

That was that, then.

Small Victories and WiPpet Wednesday (featuring the complete opposite of a victory)

I started Ready, Set, WRITE! on Monday on little more than a whim, and so far - fingers crossed - it's started out successfully.  I've no idea how long it'll last, mind, but I did finally manage to finish J is for Jonathan yesterday, so that was a massive relief.

It's not even a long story (~2,000 total - long for Blogging From A-Z but hardly insurmountable when not suffering from Gross Eye Syndrome, heh), but the longer it took to write the harder it got to write.  No longer having it loitering around on my HabitRPG To-Dos is great.

Not that today is going so well so far, but I have at least mowed the lawn!  It's no longer reaching my knees!  (Yeah, it really was as bad as it sounds; blame work.)

WiPpet Wednesday

It's that time of the week again (not that it feels like five minutes since last week!) - time for the ever-brilliant K. L. Schwengel's weekly bloghop where participants share snippets of their Works in Progress, with a twist: each excerpt is somehow related to the date.  If you've curious, want to find out more or read everyone else's excerpts (I recommend you do, they're all incredibly talented), you can find it over here.

This week's snippet is 18 paragraphs for the 10th June 2015: 10 + 6 = 16; 2 + 0 + 1 = 3; 5 - 3 = 2, therefore 16 + 2 = 18.  (Wheee, convoluted.)

So far, Fayth's trip to return RQ to Kaeder Pynes and his home has been uneventful, but it was never bound to remain that way, was it?  And it's even worse when your peace is ruined by something you've brought about yourself...

(*cough* Sorry for the wall of text...)

When Fayth asked if the Rose Queen had any name other than his title, the answer made him wonder if he was going deaf, or if someone had been distinctly prescient when they’d named their child. “Argue?”

The Rose Queen sighed and looked away, leaning back against the cabin door frame. Fayth was sure he’d seen him roll his eyes. “RQ. An abbreviation. For Rose Queen.”

“You don’t have an actual name?” He’d asked, but the Rose Queen—RQ, he supposed he’d have to get used to now—didn’t meet his gaze, and didn’t answer.

Still, it worked well enough. Fayth quickly became accustomed to muttering the letters as he leant on the door frame, arms folded, to check up on his passenger, and the Rose Queen answered to it readily. He alternated his time between sitting in the cockpit and staying in his room, slowly making his way through the collection of books and out-of-date magazines Fayth had accumulated for his guest, and the fact that they were heavily skewed towards what Fayth expected a stereotypically sheltered, slightly traumatised woman would want to read didn’t seem to faze him. If anything he seemed more taken with the magazines depicting rich fabrics and clothes Fayth would neither be caught dead in, nor could ever afford, than he did with the others in the motley and dog-eared collection.

Sometimes they even talked, when RQ allowed Fayth to enter his room and sit beside him on the always-immaculate bed. Fayth rapidly learned that RQ was both educated and intelligent—God knew he’d met enough men who were either one or the other, but rarely both, in his line of work—and that his genuine laugh, although rare, was as beautiful as he was. He showed Fayth things he’d found in the magazines and they discussed his past and the events following his theft, but never in detail. Sometimes they just sat in silence in the cockpit and watched the way the slipspace colours crested the window in a multi-hued wash. Fayth liked those times. He could watch RQ from the corner of his eye, and tried not to smile at the wonder on his face.

What Fayth most enjoyed was the way RQ gradually opened up to him. The way his tentative smiles became stronger. How he began to volunteer opinions rather than wait until he was asked. Fayth wasn’t quite sure where the man in the habitat who’d been so prepared to stand up for himself had gone—and if he was brutally honest he’d been more interested in meeting him—but this one was sweet enough and surprisingly close to the mental image of the female Rose Queen he’d had at the start of the job. And it wasn’t like there wasn’t the occasional tantalising flash of fire that had turned his fears about the journey into a hope...

RQ asked questions in return: about Fayth’s life, his job, the sheer extent of his freedom across the galaxy. Each answer made his eyes widen until Fayth wondered if his chaotic life really was as fascinating as RQ seemed to find it; but then, of course it’d sound fascinating to a man who hadn’t left the safety of the ship he was born on until he’d been stolen. It was a common story, and not one Fayth had ever felt inclined to succumb to.

That was probably how the mistake arose in the first place, when he thought about it. Who wouldn’t feel flattered at being the object of such rapt attention? It was so easy to take it the wrong way, so easy to think of the wide-eyed interest as being something more—

Well, RQ disabused him of that notion pretty quickly.

They’d been talking easily, sat side by side on RQ’s bunk so close their arms occasionally brushed, close enough Fayth could breathe in the man’s faintly sweet smell. RQ nodded at something Fayth had said, his lips seductively pink and parted, and Fayth couldn’t help himself. RQ’s cheek was so soft beneath his fingers, so warm against his skin; his lips tasted just as sweet as he’d so often dreamed.

And his fist hit harder than Fayth had ever imagined. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

That. Hurt. How could such a delicate man have such a right hook on him? It took a moment for his jaw to work, and that was only after he was sure it wasn’t broken. “I—You—I thought—”

“Leave, please.” RQ turned away, his voice as tight and controlled as the set of his shoulders.

It was Fayth’s ship; he could argue the matter. He didn’t have to leave on the orders of some man he’d only known two weeks.

He padded silently into the corridor, sliding the door shut behind him.

In his own bunk, arms behind his head and eyes fixed on the ceiling without seeing it, he found himself struggling with guilt. Guilt! What use did he have for guilt? He misappropriated other people’s belongings for third parties for a living... belongings that didn’t often have wide, shocked eyes and expressions of soul-clawing betrayal.

He’d been so sure. It was hard not to believe that every fleeting touch, every warm word, had been indicative of a deeper interest. Was that how RQ had ended up being assaulted? Some guy couldn’t tell the difference between his innocent speech and a come-on?

Fayth flung himself over and snarled at the stars beyond his window like the whole mess wasn’t all his own fault.

No Self-Control and WiPpet Wednesday

I shouldn't be allowed to keep my computers and my debit card near each other, and particularly not when I'm not exactly feeling cheery.  I end up... buying things.  And I forget to read the dimensions on the things I'm buying, so when they arrive I get a bit of a surprise.

At least it gives me things to play with on my desk.

...Not that I can be trusted on that front either...

Still got very little on the actual writing front done, though at some point I know I'm going to have to stop staring at one of these stories and start writing.  At least the characters are still fidgeting around in my head and providing new revelations—for instance, one did actually deign to tell me his name was Demiah and he has heterochromia, so now I at least know what he looks like.  Always useful.

In non-writing news, although I've not resumed work on the other four (*sigh*) crochet projects, I did sit down yesterday and crochet a cuddly bunny.  It was kind of an experiment, to see if it'd be feasible to make some for my NaNoWriMo group, but he was too fiddly and time consuming: around five hours total, start to finish and finding eyes etc.  Plus, making him used almost all of a 50g ball of yarn, soooo...

And halfway through it I remembered stray fibres really don't play so well with my sinuses, so that wasn't much fun either.

Ahh, it's been such an exciting week.

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is K. L. Schwengel's brilliant blog hop, where everyone shares snippets of their works in progress with just one twist: the snippet must in some way relate to the date!  It's a lot of fun (I say this every week, don't I?  Well, it's true) and you can sign up and read other participants' WiPpets here.

Apropos of last week, I meant to reply to everyone's comments but somehow it got away from me...  I should say that RQ isn't a crossdresser in the everyday, 21st century meaning of the term.  It's a little hard to explain, but (as I'll no doubt go into further detail on later), he was born on and has lived his entire life on an orbital space station—and a quite particular one at that, but that's a little spoileriffic—with its attendant lack of access to anything other than plain, functional clothes that are assigned to pretty much everyone on board.

...In short, as far as RQ's concerned, if the clothes fit and look good on him, he couldn't care less who they were intended for.  This in no way reflects personal reasons for my general horror over clothing stores and their layouts, of course.  And Fayth certainly isn't complaining.  :p

It's the 3rd June today (and a surprisingly humid day too), and as a result my maths is 3 × 6 = 18, plus 2 from the year for a total of 20 paragraphs.  They don't follow exactly on from where I last posted, I skipped a little bit about Fayth asking why RQ was kidnapped for his gardening skills so I could have a section instead that shows how sheltered RQ actually is...

When he looked up again, it was with a proud smile that took Fayth’s breath away. “I’m the only person who can grow Halfeti roses in space.”

Fayth stared blankly at him.

He’d feared his incomprehension would dim the man’s pride; instead, the Rose Queen grinned. “They’re black roses, hence the name.”

Well, that made sense, as much as anything plant-related did, although it didn’t necessarily answer one important thing: “but... Queen?”

The Rose Queen shrugged. “I know as much as you do about that. It’s probably the hair. It usually is.”

It was so, so difficult to resist the urge to lean across and run his fingers through the glossy black strands, but Fayth had already seen how unexpected contact seemed to make him nervous, and with good reason judging from the events of a few hours before. Still, he couldn’t help imagining touching it, envisioning it spread behind him like a dark halo as he lay, sweet and compliant and beautifully naked, on the floor beneath him—

He hurriedly turned his attention to the navigation panel. “Maybe it was to throw people off the scent.” His voice sounded thicker than it should; he swallowed a few times, trying desperately to clear his mind. “You know, to make sure people were looking for a woman, not for a man.”

“Maybe.” The Rose Queen didn’t sound convinced.

Fayth waited until it was clear no further answer was forthcoming, then busied himself with re-checking their co-ordinates for the fourth time in as many minutes. No change; big surprise. He leaned forward to flick to another exterior camera.

The Rose Queen murmured something in surprise and reached out toward Fayth’s hand, pausing when Fayth froze. “Can I look?”

“At what?”

“Your knuckles,” he said, frowning at the hand in question. “When you hit—there was blood. You hurt yourself.”

“Oh, yeah. That.” Swallowing again, he let the Rose Queen very gently take his right hand and turn it this way and that. “My nanites are pretty good. I was fixed up within a minute.”

His frown deepened. “Nanites?”

Some people might be suspicious of them, but pretty much everyone Fayth had ever met at least knew what they were. How could the Rose Queen not? It was Fayth’s turn to frown at nothing in particular, the feeling of the Rose Queen’s skin on his own momentarily forgotten. “Yeah. You know.” But his mystified expression made it obvious he didn’t. “Tiny robots designed to repair any scratches or scrapes I get... or pretty much anything else so long as it’s not too badly damaged. They even fix diseases.”

The Rose Queen dropped his hand like it burned. “Really?” His voice filled with either distaste or panic, and Fayth wasn’t sure which. “They’re inside you? Can they get out?”

“Well, I assume I lose some when I sweat or sneeze or whatever, but they replicate to keep up a steady supply, so—what?”

Horror was written plainly across the other man’s face. “I could catch them from you?”

“No!” He laughed, unsure whether to be amused or just slightly insulted. “No, they’re hardcoded to my DNA. They won’t work for anyone else so don’t worry, you’re safe.”

“Oh...” The Rose Queen breathed, taking possession of Fayth’s hand again to stare more closely at his knuckles. There was no trace of the graze beyond some flecks of dried blood staining the back of his hand, which the Rose Queen flaked away with one nail.