(no subject)
OK, so here's the deal. I fell off my writing schedule and part of that is that I don't know my characters well enough. So I'm taking the 31_days drabble challenge. And to encourage me to stay on the wagon I'm posting it all here. Granted, that might encourage me to go off the routine since I'm so anti-people-reading-my-work some days, especially with some of the characters, but we'll see how it goes since only about 3 people read this journal with any regularity, and one of them is me.
Some of this is going to be fandom, others might be bits from the plane story. Some might be chapter stuff, or stuff I would work into a chapter, and some might be vignettes or drabbles and some might be one sentence. I don't know yet what's going to show up, but I solemnly swear I am up to no good I'm treating this with good will and seriousness of purpose all due seriousness, and this is my kind of thing, so here we go.
January 1: Our breaths in winter (Riley)
Sometimes he sent her poems, and other times she opened the long envelopes and a three-page letter fell out. Once he sent her a postcard, and when she found it in the mailbox she smiled because the stamp was on completely crooked and he had hastily written in his spiky blue scrawl, “Bought this on the way to school. I don’t know why. Wish you were here. Love.” He didn’t sign his name but she didn’t need it to bring a smile to her face.
Today he had sent her a photograph of his backyard, covered in snow-or, as she supposed she ought to say, garden. She looked at it curiously; it was so unlike him to send something that wasn’t of himself. And then she began to understand his purpose: he was allowing her to put him into his context. Knowing that, she searched the photo for details: a red birdhouse hanging haphazardly off of a tree branch, a statue of a garden gnome. She had to smile, noticing a cat’s tail disappearing into the iced-over bushes.
Riley turned the photo over and saw he had written her a haiku.
Waiting for you here
Hoping next year to mingle
Our breaths in winter
January 2: La vie en rose (Alec/Riley)
Riley knew she was completely besotted after their first phone conversation. Alec’s voice was low and a bit gravelly, and he sounded nothing like what she had expected. She told him that, frankly, and he laughed. “I have to admit the same,” he said. “I am no expert on accents, you see, and I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
For a moment she didn’t speak, worried that her Southern drawl would sound flat or uneducated to his ear, but then chastised herself. No man worth his salt as a man would reject a girl just because of her born-and-bred accent, she thought firmly, and answered, “Well, now you know!”
She wouldn’t remember, later, what they had talked about. Instead she would recall that the his voice was soothing, even if he spoke so quickly at times that her Virginia-bred ear could barely make out his words. She would recall that he spoke much as he wrote, like a writer, his tone turning every-day words into love songs. She would remember that he hesitated a moment and that his voice dropped to a whisper before he closed the conversation with “I love you.”
She would remember that she flopped on her bed afterwards with a big grin that even Puck’s best face-cleaning couldn’t wash off.
January 4: The language of cities
Some of this is going to be fandom, others might be bits from the plane story. Some might be chapter stuff, or stuff I would work into a chapter, and some might be vignettes or drabbles and some might be one sentence. I don't know yet what's going to show up, but I solemnly swear I am up to no good I'm treating this with good will and seriousness of purpose all due seriousness, and this is my kind of thing, so here we go.
January 1: Our breaths in winter (Riley)
Sometimes he sent her poems, and other times she opened the long envelopes and a three-page letter fell out. Once he sent her a postcard, and when she found it in the mailbox she smiled because the stamp was on completely crooked and he had hastily written in his spiky blue scrawl, “Bought this on the way to school. I don’t know why. Wish you were here. Love.” He didn’t sign his name but she didn’t need it to bring a smile to her face.
Today he had sent her a photograph of his backyard, covered in snow-or, as she supposed she ought to say, garden. She looked at it curiously; it was so unlike him to send something that wasn’t of himself. And then she began to understand his purpose: he was allowing her to put him into his context. Knowing that, she searched the photo for details: a red birdhouse hanging haphazardly off of a tree branch, a statue of a garden gnome. She had to smile, noticing a cat’s tail disappearing into the iced-over bushes.
Riley turned the photo over and saw he had written her a haiku.
Waiting for you here
Hoping next year to mingle
Our breaths in winter
January 2: La vie en rose (Alec/Riley)
Riley knew she was completely besotted after their first phone conversation. Alec’s voice was low and a bit gravelly, and he sounded nothing like what she had expected. She told him that, frankly, and he laughed. “I have to admit the same,” he said. “I am no expert on accents, you see, and I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
For a moment she didn’t speak, worried that her Southern drawl would sound flat or uneducated to his ear, but then chastised herself. No man worth his salt as a man would reject a girl just because of her born-and-bred accent, she thought firmly, and answered, “Well, now you know!”
She wouldn’t remember, later, what they had talked about. Instead she would recall that the his voice was soothing, even if he spoke so quickly at times that her Virginia-bred ear could barely make out his words. She would recall that he spoke much as he wrote, like a writer, his tone turning every-day words into love songs. She would remember that he hesitated a moment and that his voice dropped to a whisper before he closed the conversation with “I love you.”
She would remember that she flopped on her bed afterwards with a big grin that even Puck’s best face-cleaning couldn’t wash off.
January 4: The language of cities