drabble, flash and novella
So, with the first two days of the NaNo Gauntlet, I find myself at 5K, with six developed characters and the beginnings of internal strife. They've just left Earth. Maybe I spent too much time there, but it'd be easy enough to trim the dialogue down, Locke has too much fun.... Spent almost 500 words describing them going into my little variation on cryogenics, that was terrific fun, a nice panicky monologue by the least technology-friendly of teh crew...
...um, perhaps I should describe this. This is something I wrote late last spring, then tried to edit but quickly found huge gaping holes that would basically require a complete rewrite. Not to mention boring character interactions. So, I thought I would just do a rewrite, since the other sci fi novella I could do for this I probably shouldn't attempt until I've finally bothered with chem. (And until I figure out how to not rip off Blood Music which soooooo stole my idea for storing data in DNA after Greg Bear built that time machine of that he otherwise uses to "predict" future technology.) Anyway. Basically it's the whole "colonists sent forth in slow!ship, arrive at planet only to discover that while they were traveling a faster!colonist ship was sent after they left so the place is already colonized and they're rather out of date." Fairly well used. I have some twists on it that (I think) are original, and hey, I've included an apocalypse and (I think) an original method of "traveling" faster than the speed of light. I've also engaged Bergschrund to be my science adviser, so if there's any big booboos it's all his fault for not being smarter than me. Oh, and his fee for my using his brain is naming all the characters after Norse gods. (Which is why I asked a bunch of people for a male variant on the name "Baldr.) So I've got Odette, etc. It actually worked out pretty well, since I could reflect not only their interests (Frasier=Freyr, the one in charge of agriculture/GMing suchness) but also their characteristics (Locke=Loki, charismatic & manipulative) and even how the mini character dramas on the side spell out (I won't get into that, but anyone versed in Norse mythology can guess. :P) And there's even Ragnorak, and that just fits too perfectly...
So, that's that. Going very well and all, I think a rewrite is going to really make this something decent.
Anyway, two miscellaneous things I wrote recently:
100drabbles, prompt "it doesn't sleep"
word count: 100
:i
It doesn’t stop, it doesn’t sleep-
This desire, this strange and willful creature that takes your mind and makes it into a marionette: strings tug at your hands and induce them to dance, to make movements upon the paper, to bleed the pen across the page as sacrifice to pagan muses that dance in the shadows and scream in the light, to fly through worlds you’re blind to except in photo album retrodiction, these words you write are not your own but they force themselves upon your mind and you are nothing to resist.
You cannot stop, you cannot sleep-
i:
Nothing amazing. I think it's a bit ironic that I was writing about writing in a notebook, and that I was using pencil, not pen. (I'm slowly converting to pen, but generally pencils are closer at hand when I get an idea, and it's *impossible* to write with pen in the rain, at least you can get something down with pencil.)
write_away, prompt "spiders".
word count: 276
:i
Black widow don’t bleed I didn’t try to wound you
He found you at the funeral; not knowing what you were except pretty, not understanding what you were except single, not knowing anything at all but that black became you, and even that-
Black veil and black lace and black silk but there’s white sand in the hourglass you keep around your neck: you remember, that first time, he had watched as you set it carefully on the vanity and he had asked what it was for, and you only answered with a kiss: it’s bad manners to frighten your prey…
Black widow don’t bite I didn’t mean to wound you
How things have changed!-spider snared in another’s web… his words are carefree, careless; it’s habit of his, once you could ignore it but nowadays his habits have a way of hurting you when he forgets you’re there.
Snared on his arm, you listen to him consider you with words mere smiles away from satire, mere parties away from parody. Were you ever precious to him?-were you ever anything but pretty?-
It’s when these thoughts come that you know you are in danger of entrapment within your own web of lies; and within them, the eternal hunger, the lust for more…
…how long could any naive socialite hope to remain in a black widow’s affections?
Black widow don’t bother- black widow don’t wound me too-black widow I beg of you-
He turns to you with a champagne smile. “Shall we?”-towards the door, towards a world of fresh blood and black lace-
You finger the emptied hourglass at your throat, and smile. “Always.”
i:
This is pretty incoherent as-is. But I like the idea... I'm definitely going to edit this sometime and make it into something proper, since I can see good storyness in there even if it sorta sucks right now.
...um, perhaps I should describe this. This is something I wrote late last spring, then tried to edit but quickly found huge gaping holes that would basically require a complete rewrite. Not to mention boring character interactions. So, I thought I would just do a rewrite, since the other sci fi novella I could do for this I probably shouldn't attempt until I've finally bothered with chem. (And until I figure out how to not rip off Blood Music which soooooo stole my idea for storing data in DNA after Greg Bear built that time machine of that he otherwise uses to "predict" future technology.) Anyway. Basically it's the whole "colonists sent forth in slow!ship, arrive at planet only to discover that while they were traveling a faster!colonist ship was sent after they left so the place is already colonized and they're rather out of date." Fairly well used. I have some twists on it that (I think) are original, and hey, I've included an apocalypse and (I think) an original method of "traveling" faster than the speed of light. I've also engaged Bergschrund to be my science adviser, so if there's any big booboos it's all his fault for not being smarter than me. Oh, and his fee for my using his brain is naming all the characters after Norse gods. (Which is why I asked a bunch of people for a male variant on the name "Baldr.) So I've got Odette, etc. It actually worked out pretty well, since I could reflect not only their interests (Frasier=Freyr, the one in charge of agriculture/GMing suchness) but also their characteristics (Locke=Loki, charismatic & manipulative) and even how the mini character dramas on the side spell out (I won't get into that, but anyone versed in Norse mythology can guess. :P) And there's even Ragnorak, and that just fits too perfectly...
So, that's that. Going very well and all, I think a rewrite is going to really make this something decent.
Anyway, two miscellaneous things I wrote recently:
100drabbles, prompt "it doesn't sleep"
word count: 100
:i
It doesn’t stop, it doesn’t sleep-
This desire, this strange and willful creature that takes your mind and makes it into a marionette: strings tug at your hands and induce them to dance, to make movements upon the paper, to bleed the pen across the page as sacrifice to pagan muses that dance in the shadows and scream in the light, to fly through worlds you’re blind to except in photo album retrodiction, these words you write are not your own but they force themselves upon your mind and you are nothing to resist.
You cannot stop, you cannot sleep-
i:
Nothing amazing. I think it's a bit ironic that I was writing about writing in a notebook, and that I was using pencil, not pen. (I'm slowly converting to pen, but generally pencils are closer at hand when I get an idea, and it's *impossible* to write with pen in the rain, at least you can get something down with pencil.)
write_away, prompt "spiders".
word count: 276
:i
Black widow don’t bleed I didn’t try to wound you
He found you at the funeral; not knowing what you were except pretty, not understanding what you were except single, not knowing anything at all but that black became you, and even that-
Black veil and black lace and black silk but there’s white sand in the hourglass you keep around your neck: you remember, that first time, he had watched as you set it carefully on the vanity and he had asked what it was for, and you only answered with a kiss: it’s bad manners to frighten your prey…
Black widow don’t bite I didn’t mean to wound you
How things have changed!-spider snared in another’s web… his words are carefree, careless; it’s habit of his, once you could ignore it but nowadays his habits have a way of hurting you when he forgets you’re there.
Snared on his arm, you listen to him consider you with words mere smiles away from satire, mere parties away from parody. Were you ever precious to him?-were you ever anything but pretty?-
It’s when these thoughts come that you know you are in danger of entrapment within your own web of lies; and within them, the eternal hunger, the lust for more…
…how long could any naive socialite hope to remain in a black widow’s affections?
Black widow don’t bother- black widow don’t wound me too-black widow I beg of you-
He turns to you with a champagne smile. “Shall we?”-towards the door, towards a world of fresh blood and black lace-
You finger the emptied hourglass at your throat, and smile. “Always.”
i:
This is pretty incoherent as-is. But I like the idea... I'm definitely going to edit this sometime and make it into something proper, since I can see good storyness in there even if it sorta sucks right now.