#nano2021

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

omfg WINGNUT IS IN THIS ONE!!!!!

[m-j-murdock]

If you guys don't hear from me a whole lot over the course of the next 720 hours, don't worry. It's just November.

[goose-books]

NANO UPDATE 11/14/21

i know i’ve been a little quiet about my nano progress over here, but i’m working on godsong’s three intertwining plotlines one at a time, and i have officially finished the first -- that being the plotline belonging to a gladiator named spades and the revolution rising in her just-but-merciless city. AKA “spadesplot,” AKA “regicide plotline,” AKA “okay come on it’s just julius caesar if everyone was a woman and caesar was specifically a milf”

spadesplot clocks in at 8 chapters and roughly 36k. tomorrow i embark on annaplot, which... is going to be, like, twice as long. oh well. anyway, celebratory spades & vulpa moodboard. a dream team can be a gladiator with an incredible amount of identity conflict and her misanthropic PR manager / gay lover / ruthless enabler

Vulpa hummed noncommittally. After a beat: “You’re a good person, Spades.”

Spades, eyebrow arched, held up her hand to show the smear of blood still arcing along her thumb.

Vulpa waved smoke out of their eyes. “Oh, don’t make me go on about it, that’s not modest of you. I mean you have a sense of justice. The real sort. Justice and honor.”

“Oh, gods, where’s this headed?”

“Where this is headed,” Vulpa said through their teeth, finally looking her in the eyes, “is that this isn’t right, and I know you agree with me.”

Now that they were looking at her, she found she could have done without their gaze: narrow flinty eyes, sharp as a dagger’s edge. It had been many, many years since the two of them had had to worry about money. Spades had bled for that. But Vulpa had never quite lost the look they’d had those first few years, when they’d both lived with their stomachs scraping their spines, praying away the emptiness, their headaches from squinting for hours at debt calculations, her battered-bone soreness. They still had the hunger about them, the coldness, the cunning. Their stare set people like Carron’s followers on edge; the hard lines of their face reminded people that foxes bit when they were cornered. Spades had met them as a newcomer to Farria, but even then they’d worn gloves — rattier, thinner, uglier gloves — to hide the knobbly bulges of pickpocketing fingers broken many times over. Maybe, Spades thought sometimes, the hunger had been in them long before this city.

Perhaps she didn’t want their opinion on the festival after all.

[author-a-holmes]

Give me a sentence from your novel...

Changeling, Book One of the Fey Touched trilogy

In the nocturnal peace of Lizzy’s bedroom, that was lit only by the dim shards of light from a newly risen crescent moon, the thud of her jewellery box hitting the hard wooden floor and snapping open seemed amplified.

A bonus line from a book that's currently cooking in a draw while I finish Fey Touched...

Stolen, Book One of the Stolen Stories

"Stella, I'm sorry... I didn't... fuck..." his hands landed against her upper arms, and despite the thick fabric of her tunic Reilly could feel that she was chilled through, morphing his apologetic grimace into a deep frown of concern, "Darling, you're like ice... how long have you been out here?"

[greenbriar-j]

In which june writes angst before bed; this is about half the scene i planned but I’m sleeby and also yes I’m starting nano early bc why not

Bella has a date in three days. With someone who wants more from her than just sex.

A soft knock comes from the door, and she glances up, pausing in the motions of unwinding her buns. In the doorway, Kohl looks a little lost. His eyes are squinted, eyebrows pulling together. His arms are crossed like he’s holding himself together, each fist clenched tight around the fabric covering his ribcages. It’s like he’s making a dam so his heart doesn’t spill out.

Bella graciously pretends not to notice. “Your glasses are in the bathroom,” she tells him. “You left them last night.”

“I know.” Hesitantly, he steps forward, stretching out a hand. “Let me-“

“It’s okay. I’ve got it.” Bella has never shrunk from his touch, but she does now. Her own fingers continue to unwind her hair, gingerly pulling through tangles. Kohl’s hand hovers near her still, and she swats it away. “Go home, Kohl. I have to pick my date outfit to celebrate the end of my painfully long term as a single woman.”

After a long, painful silence, Kohl pulls himself back to his full height. Rolling his shoulders back, he takes his Work Stance and Work Voice. “If you don’t want me anymore, just say so.”

As if. Kohl is the only thing she’s ever wanted. She should be the one saying that line, but Kohl has never played fair. What else did she expect from someone who looks like that?

“Of course I do.” Bella tousles her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders. “You’re a lovely partner, Kohl. There’s no one else I’d want to watch my back in the field.”

This is a familiar game now, the recitation of the mantra, he doesn’t want you, you don’t mean anything, you’re just convenient, he doesn’t want you. The new addition for tonight: You have to leave before he gets hurt. You have to leave before he gets hurt, he doesn’t want you anyway.

She smiles as the words pass through her head. What else is she supposed to do?

“I-“ he throws his hands up in exasperation. “Are you seriously talking about work right now?”

Aghast, she gestures at him. “Weren’t you? Also can you sit down? You’re making me nervous.”

“I- You -Bella.”

“That’s me, yes.”

“If you’re going to break up with me, just do it? Please? I can’t keep guessing with you. I don’t know what I did, but I know you’re asking everyone at the office to get you a blind date. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but that’s a shitty way to tell me you’re done with me. Just tell me what I did wrong, and I’ll never do it again – or else, for the love of god, break up with me before going on dates with other men.”

Tag list: @halleiswriting

[ink-fireplace-coffee]

NoNaNo Day 2💌

I skipped the entire Day 1 because of.... reasons. But I'm here for Day 2!

I don't really have a "goal" this year, but more of a "let's see how much I can write in a month and don't feel bad if I don't write a few days or weeks cause life is Too Much and ot's totally okay :)" mentality.

For this I am using a "filler WIP", The Classy Charade, just because it won't give me a massive headache and it's fun to write.

Today and unless later told otherwise I wrote 544 words, which, takint into account I have an exam tomorrow, is a lot and I'm really proud of me! I've started Dee's first chapter, and she is in for an adventure already with her flatmate (but events will take another turn for her...hahaha).

I am writing in Spanish so I don't think I would be able to post a lot of snippets on here but take the last part of Beau's and his father's call translated and in it's original language by yours truly (as always, Spanish under the cut!):

"Of course you are gonna take care of it, Beau," stated his father, serious again. "I was hoping that next time I saw your name on the magazine covers was because you had made a whole different mess. I dreamt that it was because you did something good for once in your life, but I have discarded that option years ago, son." His voice sounded tired, like he had no energy to blame the boy. "You are an Alaire. Act like one."

With that, Darrel ended the call, leaving his son with just one idea running through his mind:

He needed to find that girl as soon as possible.

He was an Alaire. And Alaire's never lost.

Never.

- Por supuesto que te vas a ocupar, Beau- afirmó su padre, serio de nuevo- Esperaba que la próxima vez que viera tu nombre en las portadas fuera porque te habías metido en otro tipo de lío. Soñaba con que fuera por algo bueno, por supuesto, pero me deshice de esa oportunidad hace años, hijo mío.- Su voz sonaba cansada, como si ya no tuviera fuerzas para recriminar al chico.- Eres un Alaire. Actúa como tal.

Y con ello, Darrel cortó la llamada, dejando a su hijo con una única idea en mente:

Tenía que encontrar a esa chica cuanto antes.

Era un Alaire. Y los Alaire no perdían.

Nunca.

[shadowsong26fic]

Sooooo as you may have noticed, I have. Not. done any NaNo check-in posts this year, when in previous years I’ve done...like...one every five days ^^;;

The reason for that is that I’ve basically not gotten anything done. I think I had...one solid day, but then my computer rebooted and I lost about half of what I’d written (opening for the next Preludes short; see, I really am working on it!) and that just kinda killed my mojo, lol.

((This is why I do most of my drafting in GoogleDocs and then download/back things up on my local drive later. In the event of a program or computer crash, I don’t lose nearly as much work...but I was working in a word processor on my laptop instead.))

But that being said, one of the things I really do need to do (besides buckle down and resurrect/finish that Prelude; get the next Protectors chapter done; more text on the still-untitled Avatar Zuko fic...) is figure out what I’m going to do for SWBB.

I’ve decided over the last couple weeks that OFLAM is going to have. Major Scope Issues. Right now, I have about 12.5k written, of which maybe 1-2k is actual Plot and the rest is worldbuilding and/or introspection, etc. I don’t think that I can get a full story I’m satisfied with between now and when drafts are due--I’ll keep noodling on it, and hopefully have a more solid foundation to do it next year, or at some other point in the future.

Which leaves my other two primary ideas (since nothing else feasible has really popped into my head). Those ideas being:

Battlestar Galactica crossover Of Some Kind (I’m not 100% sure when/where I’d want to cross over or what I’d do with this, is the big problem, lol...)

Taking that ‘there were rumors you’d been killed’ line from Padme in ROTS and running with it; i.e., Anakin is missing/presumed dead and therefore Not Present during the events of ROTS. (The main issue here is how to make it Distinct from, say, woven thread; plus I might run into some Scope issues; plus how much do I actually want to put into the rewrite of the actual Events of ROTS...and so on.)

Of course, there’s a third option which is Coming Up With Something New, and there are...a few things noodling around in my brain? But I think these two are the strongest contenders...

Anyway, I’m putting it out to you guys--do either of those seem Intriguing?

Let me know your thoughts!

[backburnerdio]

Trying to get this word count like