...and that's a complete draft of Langstroth on Bees!
To recap, I thought I had a complete draft once before, but beta said I had rushed chapters 10 and 11 and needed to go back and do them again. So I did. And then the Ch 11 rewrite required that I add an epilogue. And the epilogue necessarily ran into WWI, and so I had to go do more research, and there it all stalled...
But I once again have a complete draft! Hopefully my beta likes this one better than the last. ;-)
Total word count: 85K.
Years I've been working on this sucker: twelve.
(Very nearly to the day! According to my records, I finished the first chapter on March 10, 2014.)
For the fanfic work in progress game: 'damp' and 'understand'
From "Langstroth on Bees", my canon-era Holmes longfic, which I will finish and publish someday, I will, I will! (A complete draft exists! I'm working on it! It will happen.)
"Send for me if you need me," I told him, a hand on the glass.
Holmes put his hand over mine, his eyes speaking volumes about how much he regretted leaving me on these terms. "I will, John," he said, squeezing my fingers, even as I knew he would never send for me. It was not much comfort, there in the cold, damp morning, and yet I took what comfort from it I could.
~
And from the planned next work in the "Any Service Required / The Hornblowers' to Command" universe, set during the Hornblower and the Crisis era:
"Bush," Hornblower said again, his eyes asking for understanding. For a moment Bush thought he might say something else, but then Hornblower's customary reserve overcame him, the pleading in his eyes replaced by the untouchable aloofness of a command officer.
"The new man will be lucky to have you," Hornblower said at last, and for a moment Bush must shut his eyes for grief.
He had been a fool, an utter fool, to think any of it could last.
~
Is there a theme here of breaking up established relationships? There might very well be. *evil laugh*
her: Is that the World War I book?
me: [tilts the book so she can see the cover: Doctors in the Great War]
her: [it's not the book that she was expecting] Oh.
me: I'm enjoying the assumption that there's only one World War I book.
her: I thought it was the World War I book that's been floating around here for so many years.
me: There are SO MANY World War I books that have been floating around here for SO MANY years.
her: Yeah.
me: I am looking forward to the day I publish Langstroth. Then ALL the World War I books will GO AWAY. FOREVER.
For the WIP game, I live but a simple life: I see Langstroth on Bees, I ask for Langstroth on Bees! <333
Thank you for the ask! An excerpt from the penultimate chapter:
~
"I regret my harsh words when we parted," I said, and he shook his head.
"You were well-justified. I had made you a promise, and I failed to keep it."
"That did not excuse how I sent you off. You did not wish to go, and you deserved a better leave-taking than that."
He only shook his head again, looking out to sea.
I fished out a cigarette of my own. Before I could find a match, he offered to light it from his, and I let him. That small intimacy -- our heads bowed together, coordinating our breaths, his hand cupped around mine to shield the glowing coal from the North Sea wind -- did much to steady me. His lashes lay dark against his cheek as he watched the point where the glowing coals met; then he looked up, those beautiful grey eyes meeting mine. It was nearly a kiss -- as close to a kiss as could be risked on this exposed rise.
He was still mine, and I was still his, as imperfect as our union was. His heart was as human as mine -- as flawed as mine. However I felt about his leaving me behind, of his inviting Martha to partake of his work when he would not invite me, of his passing near to Fulworth and not knocking me up… However I felt about these serial betrayals, he had nevertheless summoned me to Harwich. Bringing me in at the climax was his peace offering, imperfect as it was. I was not such a fool as to reject it.
Rules: share one sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that starts with each letter of the word you’ve been given!
I was given: JOYFUL
All these are from Chapter 1 of Langstroth on Bees. Out of order, of course, so as to spell the word. Can you put them back in their original sequence?
“Just how many medically-trained cousins do you imagine me to have, John?”
“Oh, come now,” I scoffed, “you couldn't possibly have believed that I would break my vows and leave…”
"You owe me a proper haranguing, I am sure, and I shall let you have it."
“Forgive my intrusion,” I said stiffly, stepping back from the threshold, “but I came only to be sure that you were not dying of self-poisoning."
“Unfortunately for science, I thought that you would not soon forgive me if you were to discover that I had been poisoning myself with one hand, while I wrote to you with the other.”
Thank you! Langstroth on Bees (x2!) and a bit I'm considering deleting from a fairly recent Flight of the Heron wip.
~
In deference to my muzziness, Holmes drove the short leg to Mayfair. The moon, which had kept us company on the drive to London, had already set.
~
Anyone who believed him safely installed in Sussex might have thought him blissfully content with his life on the Downs, but I, who knew he had not set foot in Sussex in over two years, read only an aching homesickness in his columns. I am not the Great Detective, but in some domains my powers of deduction are as great as his. He missed the Downs; he missed his bees; he missed me.
~
She returned her own handwork to her basket and stood, Ardroy escorting her to the door. Keith could not hear their murmured conversation over Lady Ardroy's reminiscences of her own first sight of the loch. Behind Keith, the door shut. Ardroy did not re-join them. Looking around, Keith found him idling near the door, absorbed in the baskets of colored wool on the shelves.
🪄what is your post-writing/sharing aftercare? How do you take care of yourself or celebrate yourself when you've finished a fic?
🧿what steps do you take to not take things personally if a fic doesn't do well, or if your writing/posting/sharing experience isn't going how you'd like it to?
💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!
Thank you for the questions!
🪄what is your post-writing/sharing aftercare? How do you take care of yourself or celebrate yourself when you've finished a fic?
1) Post to Write Every Day that I published a thing! Then the host (and sometimes others) do a celebratory dance with me, yay!
2) Ditto the friends who held my hand while I was writing and/or workshopping all the necessary meta-info. They all congratulate me, yay!
3) Tell my wife I published the thing. She congratulates me, yay!
4) Remind myself that the rest of the fandom is asleep or at work (or has never heard of me, or straight-up doesn't exist), and go find something else to do, preferably not online: Go for a walk. Read a book. Hang out with my wife. Art. Piano. Cook. TV. Sleep. Anything that qualifies as "moving on with my life", "having other interests", "being a well-rounded individual", "getting happiness from more than one place," etc.
5) If, at some point, I find myself fretting over whether people like my story (almost inevitable!), or if I'm still waiting for my regular commenters to show up, I pull out a different WIP and work on that. After all, the main reason I write stories is because I really enjoy writing stories. Sure, I also really like getting comments! But I have no control over those: they come when they come, if they come at all. But I do have control over whether I'm writing a story or not! And I really enjoy writing stories.
🧿what steps do you take to not take things personally if a fic doesn't do well, or if your writing/posting/sharing experience isn't going how you'd like it to?
So, the thing about my main fandoms being a half-dozen people each, is that I no longer have a decent frame of reference for how many comments a work "ought" to get. There's two-to-three people who I can count on to comment on every story (blessings on your houses!) and after that, every comment is a bolt out of the blue. Unlooked for. Gravy. I had no idea you were even IN this fandom, welcome, are you just passing through? So generally speaking, it's pretty hard for a story to underperform my expectations anymore.
Where I do get into trouble, though, is when I write for an exchange, and then the recipient does not comment. (It's a customized work! To your letter and tastes, as much as I could divine them! Even if I missed the mark, I would still like my good faith effort acknowledged. Were you never taught to write a thank you note?) When that happens, I go to my fandom confidantes and dramatically catastrophize about how OBVIOUSLY my recipient HATES my story. For the first few days, my confidante usually pats me on the head, tells me I'm being a silly, and helps distract me with something fun. But should we get to the end of the anon period and my recip still hasn't commented, usually my confidante gets protectively judgey on my behalf, especially if it proves the recip has a history of this kind of thing. Which doesn't cut the disappointment, but does help me externalize it.
💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!
The one I'm REALLY excited about right now I can't share, because it's for an anonymous exchange.
But that said, I am really really wanting to get Langstroth on Bees out into the world. (Eleven years and counting!) I want you all to read it so bad! Here's a scene from the chapter I'm rewriting:
I heard a few quick steps inside. The door opened.
He was in disguise. I had not expected that, although the false name should have tipped me off. A black goatee disfigured his chin. His hair, too, was altered, waving loose over his forehead instead of pomaded back. But, oh, his eyes! His eyes, quick and intent, were just the same.
"Come in," he urged, motioning me past. He put his head into the corridor, quickly glancing right and left. Then he shut the door and put his back to it.
We stood there, with the space of two years between us.
He had lost weight; I was grieved to see that. The last two years had worked him hard: there was a gauntness to his cheek that had not been there before. He had aged, as well; it rent my heart to see the evidence of the time we had been apart, there in the lines around his eyes, the creases framing his mouth, the softness of his jaw. But he was still beautiful. Even with that regrettable goatee, he was still beautiful.
His eyes ran over me in turn, no doubt plucking the history of my own last two years from me. Undoubtedly he would know the details of today's drive: the haste with which I had locked the cottage behind me and the names of the towns where I had stopped for petrol. What birds I had seen, what people I had spoken to. I wanted to laugh with the giddy, ridiculous absurdity of it.
"Sherlock," I said, having no other words for the fullness of feeling in me -- the wonder of it, and the strangeness, too. He was too dear and familiar to ever be a stranger to me. And yet stranger he had become. But not for long -- no, no, not for long. But as I stepped forward, he stopped me with a raised hand.
