meridian_rose

The theme of the month for the writing blogs was 3 sentence fics. I posted 3 x 3 sentence fics to wordpress and tumblr each week and in one batch to my DW fiction blog. I'm also posting all of them here.
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Posted to the writing blogs.

week one
Exact Drabble: Sunshine wordpress ; fic blog
For the prompts ‘sunshine’ and ‘sci-fi’

She gazed at the myriad stars. So many, yet so little light.

The ship relied upon internal lighting. There was one window at the front of the ship while viewscreens supplied information about the rest of the vessel’s exterior. Outside it was perpetually night, or so it seemed. In the vacuum of space there could be no day.

She sighed, and checked the star map. She needed to find a planet, take a rest stop before making the delivery. She needed to stand on solid ground for an hour or so.

She needed to feel the sunlight on her skin.

week two
2 haiku based on the saying “red sky at night…” Sky wordpress ; fic blog

Red sky is dawning
Sailors, shepherds take warning
Rain may be ahead

Red sky as sun sets
Take heart at the sign, better
weather tomorrow

week three 3 x 3 sentence fics wordpress ; fic blog Note: these are edited from previous versions posted to my personal journal some were fanfic originally for the 3 sentence ficathon

Redemption

“Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?”

Bound in chains at the tyrant’s feet, the knight said, “I wanted to give you a chance to surrender, because I believe in redemption.”

The tyrant raised an eyebrow, and his sword, and said, “Well, sadly for you, I don’t.”

Gift

He leaned back, contented from the birthday feast, eyes tired and heavy, but she shook her head, saying, “I haven’t given you your present yet.”

She began to unlace her gown, then paused and asked, “Would you care to unwrap it yourself?”

All thoughts of sleep fled with a grin as he moved to accept his gift.

Beware

If you go into the forest, beware my child, for there are predators who may look pretty and speak gentle words but are deadly.

Stay off the paths and in the shadows and trust no human. Beware especially the ones who dress in red for they carry knives and kill wolves without hesitation.

week four WiP snippets: snippets from my WiPs. I searched for those mentioning ‘spring’ as we approach springtime in the northern hemisphere. wordpress ; fic blog

Sorceress Apprentice (fantasy romance)

The only way this could be more perfect was if Kerine and Sabrina were here to enjoy it with them. And, of course, if Emeri were not sick. It was hard to believe he was dying on a night like tonight when he was happy and so very much alive.

The moon rose, and the Elder led the ritual by the fire. Thanks were given for the summer, for the harvest, for all the blessings in their lives. Regrets were expressed, sorrow for losses endured and apologies for wrongs done to each other. Wishes were made for the future, hope that the coming winter be not too harsh and that spring would return soon.

Bryony blinked away tears. There would be no Winter Solstice dance to honour the returning sun, not for her and Emeri. She would be expressing grief for her loss when the winter sun fell upon the village square and the ritual fire was kindled once more.

“And now,” the Elder said, “The Ritual Fire Dance!”

WRE (shapeshifters)

It was a warm spring evening and Romaine had decided to go to work in his wolf form.

The good thing about night shifts was that there were less people around. Romaine trotted happily down the street without seeing a single person and only one car. He turned right, into the park, ducked through some bushes, and found the old abandoned rail line. It would take him longer to get to work, but sometimes it was good to let go.

He gave in to the urge to run, powerful muscles giving him speed most dogs or wolves wouldn’t muster. Crickets chirped from their perches in the overgrowth, and mice scuttled about in the bushes. A bird trilled, maybe a nightingale. His ears heard the sound perfectly but Romaine was no expert on birdsong.

Halfway, he paused at a puddle. Wolves could drink rainwater without ill effects, much as dogs could. By their dual nature they had immunity to a whole range of illnesses and toxins that could endanger or kill either dogs, or humans, or both. Still, sometimes the human mind shied away from the wolf instincts, always a disconcerting experience. He didn’t like to think of himself as two people; he was a Wolf, always, regardless of the form he was currently in.

A ficlet taking place in the Sorceress Apprentice world. Pre-canon, a young Bryony watches Emeri at the annual Summer Dance and indulges in a foolish fantasy of being his dance partner.

The Summer Dance, held at the solstice, was one of the most important festivals for the village and the ritual fire dance was the highlight of the celebration.

Bryony watched as Emeri held out his hand to his sister, Sabrina, to join him for the dance. They were so elegant and refined. Emeri was rarely the tallest man in any gathering but he had an undeniable presence, and Sabrina, almost as tall as her brother, drew many an admiring glance.

Logically his dance partner had to be Sabrina, another clan member. Traditionally the dancers were of equal status, and intimates of some sort. Emeri had no wife to dance with and there was no-one else present who was even close to his social rank.

Despite this, Bryony chewed at her lower lip as the music began, longing to be the one to dance. To be partnered with the sorcerer himself. It was a foolish fantasy, childish when she was almost a woman now, but she couldn't help herself from imagining being in Sabrina's place.

Kerine clapped along with the music and Bryony joined in with her sister, their mother beaming and fanning herself against the heat of the flames. Bryony had once mentioned her attraction to Emeri and her mother had scoffed. Kerine had gently reminded her that whatever all those love stories Bryony read showed, it didn't mean that life worked that way.

Of course Kerine was right. Besides her lowly status, Bryony was almost ten years younger than Emeri, and while her skill with a needle was something she could be proud of, her education was lacking. What could a non-magical girl offer such a man as the village sorcerer?

After the dance had finished to thunderous applause, Sabrina linked her arm with Emeri's and they wandered around, talking to the villagers. Bryony curtsied, heart in her mouth, when Sabrina stopped in front of her.

"What a beautiful dress," Sabrina said, running her gaze over the emerald green silk. Bryony had purchased it cheap because of some damage to the fabric, carefully cutting and stitching a dress from the best of the material and covering the rest of the marks with elegant embroidery, the highlight being details picked out in metallic threads that caught the firelight as she moved.

"Thank you, my lady," Bryony said, adding, "I made it myself."

"It is exquisite," Sabrina said and Emeri gave a smile.

"The stitching is remarkable," he agreed. "It is truly beautiful."

They'd moved off then to talk with the blacksmith, little knowing the effect of their words. The warmth in a giddy Bryony's cheeks was not merely due to her proximity to the fire.

Bryony went to bed that right reliving every moment of the dance, skirting the flames across from her partner, the music's tempo increasing and her steps more frantic until at the climax of the dance she was in Emeri's arms and the villagers cheered them on.

 

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Originally posted and promoted at:
wordpress ; fic blog ; tumblr ; twitter ; pinterest ; facebook

A short excerpt from my fantasy romance WiP, Sorceress Apprentice.
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posted and promoted at
wordpress ; fic blog
tumblr;twitter;pinterest;facebook

For mmom and my third professional writing blog post of the month, here's a condensed fic snippet from my WiP Sorceress Apprentice. One night, Bryony pleasures herself and lets her imagination run wild.
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There are a lot of posts, articles, and prompts asking about themes and characters in you WiPs. For my WiP Sorceress Apprentice there are a number of themes and motifs. One of the important features of the novel is sibling bonds, both between protagonist Bryony and her sister, Kerine, and Emeri and his sister, Sabrina. While the romance between Bryony and Emeri is at the heart of the novel, the sibling bonds are a vital part of the book.
I find that in too many books and TV shows the sibling bonds are often tossed aside in favour of, or overshadowed by, the protagonist's sexual partner. I didn't want that to be the case here. Here are some excerpts illustrating the depth of the sibling bonds in SA – please remember that this a WiP so there'll be further editing in the future.

Read Sorceress Apprentice Excerpts wordpress ; fic blog
tumblr;twitter;pinterest;facebook

Before I talk more about writing including venting/ranting I'm making this post to say I finished the first draft of my NaNo2015 novel, Sorceress Apprentice.

I'd "won" NaNo with it but it was nowhere finished and it was a mess. Scrivener lets me write in a non-linear fashion but I had a jumble of scenes and no coherent timeline to sort them into. At 70k I was ready to toss it all aside.
But it's done. It's a little long at 95.3k but it needs editing and that might come down slightly. I'm still not sure about the b plot and might lose some of that.

The story is in essence what I'd planned but became something different from what I had envisaged. There are things I'll need to edit because they're no longer true or as true or as important now the worldbuilding and relationship development is complete.

Unfortunately I haven't had much time to appreciate to celebrate the achievement since I wrote the last blank scene placeholder just as I got sick. And there's a long way to go with the editing later. And it's not as if I've ever completed editing my other novel, "Juliet" let alone published it.

I learnt a lot about how I can write 5k in a day if I'm motivated and know what I'm doing. I still need room to discover the story as I write but I recognise that with longer works like this a better outline would have helped me not get bogged down and have to lose a couple of scenes I'd already written and significantly rewrite others.

So I'm happy at what I accomplished. But I'm also not hopeful about doing anything further with it. It's a good story, I think, will be more so if I edit. But whether it's a story that will ever be made public in any form and appreciated in some way is another question.

As I mentioned before I "won" NaNoWriMo, but the novel is not finished. I promised I'd work on it this month, but for various reasons, that is not going well.
I wondered if I could recapture my enthusiasm the way I do for fanfic – I can't revisit canon (well I can read what I've written so far, but that's a dangerous thing when you're still working on something, you can become even more overwhelmed or start editing instead of writing new words) but I can play with the world. Make fanworks (pics, mixes, etc), write AUs, complete memes, etc.
So today, here are some brief answers for the novel/characters and the questions
(1) describe your OTP making it sound terrible
(2) Imagine Your OCs being grateful that you created them.

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I posted a short wordpress post update with an overview of the themes I've previously mentioned with the title Day 22. IDEK what I'm doing any more. Edited it, hopefully before too many people noticed.

I'm starting to feel that "don't know if I'm bored or overwhelmed" feeling. It's mostly the latter. That sense of dread when I think about writing certain scenes/not knowing how to join up existing scenes. I deal with this by writing something else instead, a scene I do want to write, for example.
I'm a little behind but I'm pleased overall with my progress, though I'm concerned that even if I win NaNo there is no way this book will be done. I don't just mean it will need editing, I mean there is still going to be story to tell. Which is fine, but makes it a little more daunting. As if it might never be done.
I know I had the same problem with the novel currently referred to as "Juliet" - I never imagined I'd make it to 50k and it was "the novella" for a long time. But when I'd got the first very rough beginning-middle-end put together at last I could see where the story needed to be expanded and the wordcount shot up by the end of what was almost a re-write more than an edit. I know can do this, and I know can do it more easily now I'm not relying on Word to organise my scenes.
In fact writing scenes out of order, which is how I mostly work anyway, has been what has kept me going this far. Occasionally I can see where two scenes meet up, but I still have a lot of 'unsorted' scenes to put together into a coherent narrative later.

One week to go. I need to keep going and not give up now.

For the writerverse "check in #1". A short snippet from my NaNoWriMo project, "Sorceress Apprentice". Please bear in mind that this is a very rough draft; the spirit of NaNo is to keep writing, not waste time editing until the first draft is complete. As such, I've only done basic spell checking and 'tidying up' for coherency.
412 words
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