Proof of Life: March Snippets

pinterest: wordcrafter

I can't actually write to music, for the most part, even though most folks I know have a hard time writing without music in the background to drive them on.  I think maybe the music fills up too much of my brain, especially when there are lyrics to distract me.  Still, that doesn't mean I'm not often inspired to write after hearing a particular piece of music.  Then I put on headphones and listen to the song on YouTube every now and then while writing in between.  Not the most efficient means of getting words down, but reminding myself of the piece of music helps keep a mood.

All that to say that I just got my brother two "Of Monsters and Men" albums for his birthday, and after hearing a couple of their newer songs, I've been playing them on YouTube and wanting to write.  (No, I didn't keep the CDs: they did get to their destination.)  I should be studying the American Revolution or Latin vocab, but the song "Human" obliged me to pull up Wordcrafter for a few minutes.  It's getting along in fits and starts: 110,000 words in now.  And heaven help me, I don't know how long the thing's going to be in the end.

I throw up my hands in despair.

march snippets

We sat in silence, the wind sighing around us like the tide on the shore, the flames crackling and snapping hungrily among the branches. Copper’s veil fluttered; the light shot through it and I saw her lips parted in something like yearning. Ethan had his arm on my shoulder still and as the shofar-call slipped away his fingers dug at my collarbone, the blood thudding urgently in their tips, dragging me along with him into the heady expectation: the ale seemed to have mounted, to swirl around and around and around inside my dizzy skull…

//

The water from the faucet shut off; the shower was still running. He returned to the threshold, and as I raised my eyes unwillingly from the figurine it struck me, almost comically, that with his razor in his hand he looked like Death come to claim a few souls for the dance.

//

“So,” he said. “I wondered what the Hound found to like in you. Now I see you’ve got a fire in your belly after all. I suppose I should have known.”

//

The Jackal had not yet come with our horses, and while we waited for him, our backs to the light and our shadows thrown out long in front of us, Ethan spoke again.  “While we are talking of saving lives,” he said, in a voice that was mellow like his father’s, “and while my lady insists on walking alone, I would that she carried this.” He fiddled with a buckle at the inside of his right thigh and the strap of the dagger sheath swung loose, the hilt falling heavy into his palm; it was plain dull metal, a match to the one he had loaned me, and it gleamed blandly in the moonlight as he offered it to our companion. “Granted, it’s not as fashionable as a pair of pistols, but it will do you more good should you find yourself in a tight corner.”

//

A bonfire blazed in the clearing, the flames ducking and leaping like native dancers as the breeze whirled the sparks away, and in its lurid light the standing Horsemen looked like martyrs waiting to be burned.

//

He poured me a cup and handed it over, warm and dripping, and glanced at [her] from under his brows. “Care for one?” 

She watched him like a suspicious cat, her fingers tightening in the folds of the blanket, her mental tail lashing. “I’d love it,” she said sharply, “but I’m rather afraid you might poison it.” 

His mouth jerked.  “Poison isn’t my weapon of choice,” he said. “But the sentiment is there.”

//

His face was a thundercloud, and flushed as with too much wine; he was dark from dancing so near the fire and the smell of singed flesh hung over him. When I gripped his arm in mute acknowledgement I felt the muscles jumping frantically under my hand. 

“My lord dances as though he will kill himself,” [she] remarked, almost reproachfully.

August Snippets

original

Today I passed two mile markers in Wordcrafter, one in the plot, one in size: it is now 50,000 and some odd words.  (Perhaps more than mathematically so; I leave that to you to judge.)  At this point, with a new stage of the story beginning, it is probably time for me to step back and take stock of where I am and where I'm going.  And for snippets.

bits of august

The car door slammed. For a moment the headlights blazed against the alarming bulwark of the Fairbairns’ shrubbery, undecided as to whether or not they wanted to switch off, and we lingered, Ethan and I, in their backwash and squinted up through the chilly middle darkness at the house.

- wordcrafter

“You struck me as a coffee person,” she announced, flinging coffee-freckles against the porcelain rim of her cup with a jerk of the spoon. “I suppose you take it black.”

“Ethan takes anything,” I interjected with a sideways grimace, “as long as it’s strong as murder.”

//

“...Lizzy can cover for Lady Macduff and Banquo. She’s very good at dying.”

“A great many people die in this play,” observed Ethan out of the hum of the harp-strings.

// 

There seems little point in commenting overmuch on the girls; they were your typical college students, eminently forgettable in company with their two older sisters. The one was ginger, the other, shockingly, brunette—only I cannot for the life of me remember now whether it was Mabel who was the brunette or whether it was Brianna.

//

The door beat against the frame and a figure joined me with the silent assurance of a witch’s familiar, come to top off my coffee out of a white carafe...

//

“I hope,” I went on, fitting the kettle spout around the rim of the faucet and turning on the tap, “I hope we didn’t do too much damage.”

“To Philip’s face, you mean? Oh, I don’t think so. Lizzy took care of all of that; I’m not much for the sight of blood. Anyhow, he deserved it.”

We were agreed on that, at least, but I did not comment.

//

I stared after her rudely, and it occurred to me with mingled admiration and bitterness that she had got the whip-hand of me once more.

“Devil,” Ethan commented, pouring himself his coffee.

 //

The smell of fresh wood burst free like the scent of an orange when the skin is peeled back: sharp and sudden in your nostrils. 

//

“Up the hill,” Ethan said, “and around behind the house. Steady…”

“Don’t criticize my driving,” I snapped, getting us out of the rut with a jolt and a surging of the engine.

Bits of June

wordcrafter

The rewrite of Wordcrafter crossed 25,000 words some while ago.  It goes in fits and starts: some days I'm fortunate if I can write a decent paragraph (I exaggerate not.  I can spend an hour wrestling with one or two sentences.), but at others I jump ahead wonderfully.  Some days I hate it.  Other days I brush off my shoulders and sniff approvingly.  It's an up-and-down fight.

I think that all artists, regardless of degree of talent, are a painful, paradoxical combination of certainty and uncertainty, of arrogance and humility, constantly in need of reassurance, and yet with a stubborn streak of faith in their own validity no matter what.

- madeleine l'engle

With something like 15,000 words between myself and the last snippets post, I thought now would be a good time to throw out a few pieces from the last several months.  Cheers!

snippets for june

I made myself tea and hunkered down to my own work at my desk, and for a little time—an hour, perhaps longer—a library stillness settled over the flat. Ethan’s fingers chinked against the handle of his mug. I pushed a page aside and hiked backwards on the stool, blue jeans scraping at the torn vinyl covering; my hand went unconsciously to my tea, porcelain shuffling on wood, and I sniffed softly against the chill in my nose. 

- wordcrafter

  Ethan, I noted resentfully, could be devilishly cutting when he had a mind to be. 

- wordcrafter
 

Then, because I had not the least idea where we were going, she took the lead, tugging me past tourist shops and vaguely Parisian tenements and across roads in the teeth of traffic (“The crossing signs are just suggestions,” she said). 

- wordcrafter

With the grace of a horse surging off its haunches Ethan bore up again, eyes opening in a flare of white and grey, right hand falling back and leaving, in the secret hollows at the inner slopes of his nose, two pale oval patches that bloomed for a moment and disappeared. They were telling, those patches. 

- wordcrafter

“You’re looking quite the Jacobite,” I added. 

Her eyelids slanted coyly, bold black against white cheekbones. “I take that as a compliment.” 

- wordcrafter

I saw [Jamie's] hand reach for the dial, the bangles chink and slide on her wrist as she turned up the volume. When we left the suburbs behind and merged with the other glittering headlights on M8 she cracked her window, propping her elbow on the door and straining to put her face up into the wind. It boomed against the glass and whipped at the pheasant feathers, filling the car with the damp, electric smell of the storm, and over the music and the engine, I heard thunder. 

- wordcrafter

His face sparked in piqued pride and that grip on my arm suddenly hurt like a devil’s. “You’re my friend,” he said coldly, “and I don’t play games with friends." 

- wordcrafter

I dumped my armload into the sink, barely remembered to fish out the book before opening the tap and plunging elbow-deep into the wash-up. The edge of the plate banged recklessly against the sides; a wedge of porcelain sang on the stainless steel and my finger caught for a moment in the new notch. Tera! Prince! This was not Roman Holiday, for God’s sake! I hurled the rinsed plate into the drainer and reached for the next, crumbs of toast shimmering across the counter. 

- wordcrafter

February Snippets

pinterest: wordcrafter

If my labels are accurate, it's been a full year since I did one of Katie's snippets posts.  Several reasons for that, I suppose: most of last year was full of Tempus Regina, and after a certain point it became difficult to share from that without spilling lots of beans.  I and my characters were in Scotland at that point (I mean story-wise, not myself physically).  Interestingly, we are now in Scotland again, only about fifteen hundred years removed from Regina's time.  Do I have some special love for Scotland...?

Second reason for the lack of snippets posts is simply that I haven't had anything to share, unless you want to read papers on Anabaptist martyrs and 17th Century anti-papist polemics.  This is, naturally, sometimes discouraging and frustrating, although of course absolutely necessary.  So to keep the creative juices flowing - and not go beserk and kill anyone - I've pulled out Wordcrafter and begun rewriting it from the ground up.  This is a dabbling kind of thing and I don't know how serious I am yet, but at 10,000 words, I figured I could scrape together a few things to post.

snippets for february

“You never mentioned your name, did you?” 

Still I felt him looking at me; his face flashed by in the tea, there and then broken, there and then broken. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. “…Ethan. Ethan Prince.” 

“Ironic,” I said, without looking up. “My name is Justin King.”

- wordcrafter

The chain of the tea-ball still hung over the edge of my own mug and when I prodded it, the dregs rose up strong and dark and forbidding from the bottom. Nnh. There was not enough hot water in the kettle for a second mug, and barely enough leaves in the tin. I could make my guest his cup, but it was coffee-strong Ceylon or nothing for me. 

Well, then, I would take it coffee-strong.

//

Fortunately I had flour and eggs and the last of a carton of milk, so that with some imagination and fudging—and altogether too much tripping over Ethan, who seemed not to know how to get out of the way—I threw together something like toad-in-the-hole. 

“Heavy on the flour,” I said ungraciously, dumping his steaming plateful at Ethan’s chair— “light on the bangers. I’m running low. Eat up.”

//

“The—tattoos,” I managed, while Ethan got a glass and fiddled with the sink. “Where did you get them? Last time I saw something like that was in a book on the Celts.” 

 He jolted the handle round and the water spat out with a bang against the metal side, spraying him liberally; he hissed and gentled it back to a more reasonable stream, though it still overflowed his tumbler. Then, shutting off the tap and shaking the water off his hands, he answered, “Maybe I got them from the Celts, then.”

//

There were very few things in this world for which a brandy and soda could not atone.

//

The sprawling gravel drive was full and guests had begun to park in odd out-of-the-way corners; holding my breath as though it would make the car smaller, I squeezed between a sleek black Jaguar and a sporty thing I only afterward realized was a Lotus. 

 “Scratch one of those,” I remarked, “and we’re both dead.”

//

...But in the Fairbairn’s foyer, with the black velvet of his tunic melting into the shadows and the chandelier caught in the dash of gold brocade, he looked like a matador sprung out of the ring. And there was, too, something remarkably Castilian in the cold arrogance with which he surveyed Fairbairn: lips drawn, upper canine balanced light and sharp on lower, eyelids low and flickering. He did not like what he saw, and—my heart took a tumble into my cramped and empty stomach—he was making no bones about it. 

//

"Someone must have told you it was a masquerade, Mr Prince."

//

Putting on Labels

pinterest: tempus regina

Well, I think you guys have been guessing for a sufficiently long time.  I hadn't meant to leave you dangling more than a week, but the days went and got busy again.  Phooey on them.

All in all, I think everyone did pretty well with the guesswork.  A few of you need to study some more,* but others were very nearly spot on.  A few, I admit, were harder than others; one snippet in particular you all got consistently wrong.  So consistently wrong that I almost feel compelled to move it to the story everyone insisted it was from.  Almost.  But, you know, it isn't going to happen.  No one was altogether right, though several of you did have some very good streaks in there: it was just those tricky ones that threw you off.

snippet #1

This one almost everyone got right: it's from The Running Tide.  If it's from a fellow's point-of-view and he's got blood on his hands, you're pretty safe if you bet on Tip Brighton.  As a point of interest, though, in this case it wasn't from punching anybody.

snippet #2

Another fairly straightforward one here, as the nurse rather gives the setting away.  Wordcrafter.  But I figured that since Tempus Regina is partially set in Victorian times, there was a slight chance you might go for that: I wasn't expecting any of the guesses for the Sea Fever books!

snippet #3

This bit was tricky, I'll admit, but it is in fact from The White Sail's Shaking.  It was Tip talking to Marta, even though looking at it now, I can see how you might think it was the Assassin talking to Regina.  The slight hesitation, however, is telling.  For me.  You know, being the writer and all.

snippet #4

Tempus Regina!  Very squarely Tempus Regina, and your first glimpse of the Fisherman.  

snippet #5

Only Writer got this one: it is also from Tempus Regina.  Nearly everybody guessed the Sea Fever books, which made me rather sorry to disappoint...

snippet #6

I'm sorry: I didn't give you much to go on, did I?  This is from Wordcrafter, though admittedly it could have gone many different ways.

snippet #7

Yes, I tossed you an easy one: Tempus Regina again.  You did ask for snippets from it...

snippet #8

I can't decide if it was the fact that this began with "wordlessly" or the bit about the desk, but nearly everyone went for Wordcrafter when it is actually The Running Tide.  Reading over it, I can see how you would think Justin King, but I'd still like to know if perspective was skewed due to the desk...

snippet #9

And possibly the hardest one, that only Joy got.  It's Tempus Regina once again - the only bit of the novel written from a male point-of-view.  Yes, I did do it to be mean.  I'm mildly apologetic.  I think personally I would have guessed Wordcrafter.

Well, that wasn't too bad!  I'd say you all got seventies or eighties at least.  Were there any you were particularly confident on, and have I now thrown you into confusion? 

*I'm sorry, but exams are coming up this week and I just can't help it.

What's It From?

pinterest: sea fever

I was thinking the other day that I haven't had any snippets to share with Scribbles' readers in a long time, which is a bummer - especially when people like Jenny and Mirriam are offering theirs up with pretty fair regularity.  (Never let it be said that writers aren't a petty lot!)  I think a few of you asked several months back if I would be able to show you anything from Tempus Regina. Unfortunately, as a story progresses I find myself with less and less I can share without spilling a whole lot of beans, and by the time I've reached the end of a novel I can't seem to dig up any bits at all.  This has been particularly true of Tempus Regina, as even characters' names are in many instances being kept under wraps.

So - no real snippets post.  However, after beating my brain around a little bit, I thought it might be fun to give you a sort of challenge.  Most of you have, from previous snippets and general information, at least a hazy idea of the plot and voice of each of my novels.  What I want to see is whether or not you have a good enough idea to be able to match any snippet I share with its novel.  It's something of an academic exercise for me: I want to know how much light I've shed on these books and how different the style is from one to another, or, conversely, how constant my voice is. But, too, you wanted snippets.  So I shall give you snippets.

They will be from my major novels: Wordcrafter, The White Sail's Shaking and The Running Tide (these are essentially one book, so if you want you can say Sea Fever; kudos if you can guess which!), and Tempus Regina.  I won't list any from The Soldier's Cross, partially because I believe most of you have read it, partially because I wrote it four years ago and I'm pretty sure the stylistic difference would be too obvious.  I'm not sharing one each, so there will be some overlap, but I also won't throw in anything random just to confuse you.  It's a straight matching game.

snippet #1

Instinctively [he] looked down, uncurling both fists to show the bloody palms underneath; he had been too numb since the beginning of the engagement to notice that he had ground the blunt stubs of his fingernails through the surface. He covered them again. “I’m alright,” he said, and the words came out in a dry rasp.

snippet #2

Squinting up into the face of the nurse, who had fallen from chatter into nondescript humming, [he] parted his lips and said, “I’m mad, aren’t I?”

The nurse started, and then considered him a long moment with a furrow between her freckled brows. She took him in, and weighed him, and then seemed to have a good long think before pronouncing judgment. “No,” she said simply, “I don’t think so. They would have told me if you were."

snippet #3

“Well,” he said, not very graciously, “I suppose we’ll have to keep you. But I wish—I wish you hadn’t gotten yourself into this mess.”

snippet #4

“You came in haste,” he went on, eyeing her sidelong, working back and forth, and back and forth, the great silver ring on his left hand. The fire made its inset stone shine out ragingly blue—made the flaw in it stark, and cast up a reflection on the man’s jaw. “You came in haste and now you hesitate, and so I suppose it is bad news. Eh?”

snippet #5

He lifted his narrow shoulders helplessly. “I did not mean to provoke you. Only, it struck me that you looked lonely. You looked as though you wanted company. You looked,” he added, having to raise his voice against the roar of an explosion down below, “the way I felt myself.”

“Did I?” she hummed, sidestepping. “I had no notion of that.”

snippet #6

“[He] was asking for you, you know. I think he was afraid you might come back, and what a pity! here you are.”

snippet #7

She released him, drawing herself rigid to avoid a fall. Her legs were going…going… She made it as far as the chair, sat down, had time enough to thank God it had a back, and then felt the whole of the room slide into darkness.

snippet #8

Wordlessly he crossed the room and hauled himself up on the corner of the desk, not quite able to hold back the shivering sigh that hissed out at the relief of letting his bad leg dangle, of feeling his bones ease with the creaking of an old man’s limbs.

snippet #9

But the men, the guard with the nose-ring and another [he] knew only vaguely, did not summon him. They stood a while, shoulder to shoulder, watching [him] while he put his back up against a wall and watched them in return; then they came down from the threshold together, the first man spun his javelin, and the second drove the door back into its socket. The light was cut short; the half-dark returned, warm now with the presence of two new bodies, glittering as the spear-heads turned.

“What’s this?” [he] breathed. “What are the two of you about?”

Snippets of February

pinterest: tempus regina

 An update on the development of a new look for Scribbles.  For those of you who didn't hear, Bree (of Bree Holloway Blog Designs and also Tea and Bree) is designing the template; she and I have been going back and forth about the look, and let's just say I'm pretty excited about what she has pulled together.  It is much cleaner and more open than the current look, and will hopefully be easier to navigate.  Keep an eye out for its debut!

In other news, the time has rolled around once more for Katie's Snippets post.  This month last year I was about halfway through The Running Tide, writing about ships and the sea, duels and blackmail; now I am firmly wedged into Tempus Regina (I won't actually know how far I am until I finish), writing about assassins and pocketwatches and the seven layers of heaven.  Last year my main character was in the ruins of a theater in Sicily; this year my character is kicking around the wilds of Scotland.  And interestingly enough, I look back on last February's snippets and think, "Has it been that long?  Huh!"

snippets for february

A breeze had begun to stir, turning the leaves belly-up and ruffling the hair that fell, shaggy as a wolf’s winter coat, on [his] neck; it carried the scent of the morning fire to brush Regina’s lips, and it tasted like iron. Distantly she heard the squirrel, still at war with the birds high up in the rowan... 

- tempus regina

Then the tremor ran out. He of the blue-eyes was an awkward boy again, beating a hasty retreat, and the Assassin was loosening from his broad, braced stance and crashing wearily onto a bench beside her. “Shoo,” he said. “I do not know what it is that makes a man believe he has rights to my table. He ate none of your pomegranate, I hope?” 

 Regina stared at him. Pomegranate… “No,” she said, and started when the word broke apart. “No, he didn’t eat the pomegranate.”

- tempus regina

 They made a fire some feet off the road, under a birch in half-bloom; the Assassin remarked, as he gathered great armloads of its dead wood and Regina pulled blindly at Piso’s straps, that the tree’s spirit kept the evil eye at bay. She gave herself a hiccupping laugh and threw a sideways glance at the carver. His was the only pair of eyes she wanted to be free from, and the birch twigs he had found seemed to have no effect on him.

- tempus regina

And she remembered, too, shards of glass on a dirty floor, casting back her reflection as the White Demon cast it back now.

- tempus regina

She dug her fingers into her throat and her elbows into her knees, watching, sick and fascinated, while the Dragon spun from its chain. Clockwise—and back again. Clockwise—and back again. Going one way the garnets laughed; going the other, they mocked.

- tempus regina

 The room had gone silent, the world and its noise buzzing on beyond the flap; they were in their own firelit bubble, she and the Fisherman, or perhaps their own cocoon. She wondered, achingly, if there would be any glorious emergence for them.

- tempus regina

It took him some time, for the whortleberry fought to keep him, but when he was free he sat upright, looked at Regina and remarked, “Ah ha, so you’re awake properly now. Shades, but don’t you look worse by daylight!”

- tempus regina

where are your characters this month?

Snippets of January

pinterest: tempus regina

I don't know that it is time, but it feels like a good time to continue Katie's "Snippets of Stories" meme; it appears I haven't participated since October.  November was so full of hasty scribblings that it seemed silly to post any of them, in the first part of December I took a break, and in the latter part I was getting the feel of Tempus Regina all over again.  (What am I saying?  I'm still getting the feel of it.)  There wasn't a good moment for snippets.

I've done a little more solid writing in January, tucked in around query letters and the like, and feel rather more capable of pulling together some semblance of a post.  Also, at some point Tempus Regina will join the list on the "My Books" page, and in a couple of weeks I plan on introducing this work-in-progress properly with a few questions-and-answers.  The story should be kicking around Scribbles quite a bit.

snippets for january

At the stable she turned, sweeping the hills again with a strange twist of desperation, as if it were the last time she would ever see them. They were beautiful, darkness and light sprawling together in a snapshot of their classic struggle, wild upthrusts and sudden drops of land as riotous as a woman’s emotions against an unchanging sky.

- tempus regina

Drawing herself up and looking around her more narrowly, she found he had set up a precarious structure of birch twigs and a rod that passed over the fire, dangling a small bronze pot above the blaze. Presently the whole construction would give way and the Assassin would have to save it from the flames, but for the moment it was picturesque. “As good as a tea kettle,” she murmured, a witch’s face passing through her memory.

- tempus regina

She looked up at him through her lashes and, parting her lips with an effort, said, “My ring. I want it back.” 

He looked back at her and she thought momentarily he was startled; then his face broke into another smile, quite charming (but a lion’s smile is charming, too, in its own way), and he twisted the blue ring off his own finger to put it on Regina’s left hand. “I see you can keep pace with me.” 

“I intend to." 

- tempus regina

A blast of wind came roaring up the hillside then and smacked them both, taking the air from Regina’s lungs and flipping the Assassin’s cloak up and over his head before racing past. She fought for breath while he fought down the blue folds, and in the midst of it all Regina could not help but think that his predicament was bitterly comic.

- tempus regina

“It seems half the elements came out to mock you tonight.”

- tempus regina

His face was white as the underside of a fish, eyes beginning to glaze; it would not have surprised her if he suddenly went belly-up and left her to kill the Saxons on her own.

- tempus regina

He set his heels into his mare’s flanks and brought her to an uneven trot, striking out first for the glow of the desert-home. Regina ground her teeth and hissed between them, and the Assassin, goading Epona to follow, called the man a name she would have blushed to repeat herself. 

- tempus regina

Snippets of October

pinterest: wordcrafter

In case you haven't checked your calendar, today is 10-11-12.  I don't know what people think is so special about dates that line up (next year everyone will be excited about 11-12-13, and the year after that it will be 12-13-14, so really, what is the big deal?), or why everyone wants to get married on one.  I guess it makes it easier to remember one's anniversary.  But anyhow, I thought you might like to know.

Today is also a good time to join in the monthly snippets meme from Katie's Whisperings of the Pen.  This month and last, I've been focusing on blog-related things for the November blog party, outlines for Tempus Regina, and major rewrites for Wordcrafter - a sort of constant work-in-progress.  The latter has only been featured in smatterings here and there, so I hope you will enjoy this more complete array of snippets.

october snippets

Colour—not merely red, but blue and yellow and faded, sickly green—crashed through Justin’s mind like a broken kaleidoscope; he reeled away, stumbled on something and, catching himself on the shelves, dropped his face in the hollow between two books. Dust got in his eyes and his breathing was laboured, but at least it was breathing, and the smell of the room was there to soothe him again. 

“You swear?” 

Justin struggled to lift his eyelids, staring sightlessly at the title of the tome before him. Murders among the Dark Folk. What irony. He put his head on his arm. “I swear,” he whispered, and then there was silence for a long, comforting time.

- wordcrafter

Ash laughed his fox-laugh, and there was no puckishness about it today. “How brave you’ve gotten, Justin Wordcrafter! To think of you actually making a threat! But we taught you how to fight; don’t think you can beat us at our own game.”

- wordcrafter

Justin’s echoes ran tittering across the floor and up the walls, and into silence in the dark crannies of the room; his own hard breathing remained, mingling with the king’s and with the husky voice of the leaves on the window outside. Light and shadow splattered the chamber, and the puddle forming about Justin’s feet shone unbearably white while he kept on dripping. Splip, splip, splip... The sound broke into his consciousness after a long while and it occurred to him how horribly pathetic he must look, like some half-drowned rat dumped on the king’s threshold.

- wordcrafter

 “You bitter fool,” he said. “What has he ever done that you see him so, except have Gypsy blood? And was that his fault? By Tera! Was it mine, that you throw me in the breach between him and you? You are nothing but a bitter fool and a coward—and a hypocrite, to cast up Tera’s laws to me!”

- wordcrafter

The water-voice had grown distant, but the flow of it sounded like a song: far off and wordless, but comforting; and something in him woke to the memory of it. It was the lullaby Ethan had played on the Fairbairns’ harp. He could see the colour of it, blue like Tera’s sky, and it was leaning down to touch him; a face took shape in it, pale as the sun, and all rimmed with fire that burned him to his heart.

- wordcrafter

"...Will you lend me your shoulder, or are you going to hold a grudge?” 

How swiftly he could burst the bubble of another man’s anger! Justin felt lost without it; his shoulders slackened, and the haze flooded through his mind again until he could barely sort out Ethan’s face from the fluttering golden background of the grass. “No,” he sighed, and stooped to give the Hound support. “You hold enough for the two of us.”

- wordcrafter

Everything underneath him—he had not known there was anything underneath him—went suddenly askew, and Tera tilted wild on her axis. Did Tera have an axis? Did it matter?

- wordcrafter

She broke the stare first, deliberately turning the handle and stepping inside, and then, when she had shut the door at her back, standing very still to look at him once more.  The bouquet she held flashed in the light, reds and yellows and greens; but Justin was most conscious, oddly, of a pair of brilliant purple wedges peeking from beneath the hems of her slacks.

- wordcrafter

 

Snippets of September

pinterest: tempus regina

I come a little late to the party, as usual, but it's time for Katie's monthly Snippets post!  I have done little actual writing this month; I've left off Tempus Regina until November and NaNoWriMo, so my work has been confined to edits.  But here are a smattering of earlier Tempus Regina bits, and a clip or two from recently revised sections of The Running Tide.  (Somebody commented that it sounds strange to hear The White Sail's Shaking become The White Sail's Shaking and The Running Tide; I heartily agree, but I'm forcing myself to get used to it.)  I'm hoping to pull out Wordcrafter and make some major revisions this month and next, so October's snippets should see some of Justin and Ethan and the rest of that lovely gang, whom I've not dealt with in quite some time.  Most exciting!

september snippets

[He] was saying something, but Tip could not hear what it was for the rattling of the man’s chest and the flow of Heerman’s shapeless talk, and the flare of lamplight that seemed loud in the quarters. 

- the running tide 

There was blood on Decatur’s face, Tip noted, spattered like ghastly freckles across his cheekbones. 

- the running tide 

Her voice drifted into inarticulate fussing as, gesturing with both crabbed hands, she drew Regina in—like the witch with Gretel. If she saw any ovens, Regina thought she might panic. 

- tempus regina 

Something crashed like elephant feet above and to the right of her head. Regina shied; the candlesticks down the hall clattered against each other and the ceiling bounced and trembled. Dirt spattered on the floor. Mrs. Godands was imperturbable. 

- tempus regina 

Mrs. Godands found the proper key at last and jammed it into the hole, murmuring happily to herself as, with a sepulchral moan and a burst of dust, the door swung outward from its socket. She played tug-of-war with it for a moment in an attempt to get the key back out; something else smashed in the master’s room; the ceiling bobbled; the door hinges screamed. Regina wished she could join them. 

- tempus regina 

The cat neared the fire, lapping once more at her tail while she steamed in the heat. When she had beaten down the unruly crests of fur, she looked up, a bit of fluff still caught in her mouth, and mewed. 

- tempus regina 

"You mock me, woman, and I will not be mocked. Stand out of my way.” 

- tempus regina 

As he spoke the stranger lowered himself to a squat, balancing on a root beneath the arches of his feet, and turned his head to give Regina a long, upward, lopsided look. She thought him grotesquely like a goblin. 

- tempus regina

August Snippets

pinterest: the white sail's shaking

The time has rolled round once more for the fabulous Monthly Snippets meme, from Katie's Whisperings of the Pen.  For the past month I have been doing much more editing than proper writing, but as there have been some scenes that I've had to completely overhaul and rewrite, I believe I'll be able to draw together enough snippets to participate.

Also, in the process of edits for The White Sail's Shaking, I am coming to the conclusion that the story will in fact be split into two novels.  Of course this was a new and shocking idea for me, but after much agony and thought, I'm not only reconciled, but quite pleased with it.  Until I have thoughts, titles, and edits ironed out, however, the story will continue under the single title The White Sail's Shaking.  But keep an eye out for changes on that front!

august snippets

Charlie looked round when Tip swung up beside him, his disinterest warping into irritation. “What do you want?” he demanded. 

Tip’s anger was still very much present, and, what was worse, yet unvoiced; and though he knew it was unreasonable, he retorted, “What, have you taken possession of the ratlines? I think I’m free to skylark 

if I want.” 

“Skylarking is forbidden,” Charlie said, “actually.”

- the white sail's shaking 

Lewis twisted; Marta choked and turned her head as well, blinking painfully at the approaching figure. The seagulls were still reeling in a flurry of white and grey at the man’s back, and for a moment they were far clearer than he. Then she brought him into focus and saw, with a sick wrench of the knot in her throat, 

that it was Brighton.

- the white sail's shaking

The thief was on his feet; he turned sideways into an alley, pushing himself one-handed along the walls, but in a second bound Tip was on him. The coarse cloth of the man’s shirt gave in Tip’s fist with a retching sound, so he simply went deeper, digging his fingers into the back of the thief’s neck and swinging the knife around to his throat. 

“You son of a dog!” he snarled, staggering a little as the man wrenched himself about. “Stand still! Stand still, or I’ll slit your throat—your blood and not his: is that you want?”

- the white sail's shaking

"The love of the sea’s a powerful thing, but some things in life call stronger still.”

- the white sail's shaking

Some chickens, you know, are frightfully silly and will do anything to hide their eggs.  You wouldn't think it of Patsy; she seems so innocent and sweet.  But Gossamer and I held council, and decided it was best to be safe.

So today we conducted a Search.  And by Search, Father, I do not mean a bit of poking; I mean a SEARCH.  We ransacked the hen house!  Feathers flew!  Straw was overturned!  We looked in and under roosts, in cracks and crevices - nothing.  Mid-morning we abandoned the search, for Aiden said if we kept it up, none of the other hens would lay for a week.

- sunshine & gossamer

"Do you mean to say - " She could not seem to finish any of her sentences; she made a greater effort.  "You don't mean, ma'am, that you think the master of the house is - "

"A vampire?  Oh!"  Mrs. Godands sat back, letting up a string of squeals from the chair.  "Goodness, no, dear, not he.  He's as alive as I - aliver, for I'm getting up there.  No, no, not a vampire, but mightily eccentric.  I suppose all bachelors get to be just a little eccentric but he goes quite, 

quite to the edge of respectability."

- tempus regina

July Snippets

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It's time again for the next installment of Katie's monthly snippets meme!  (For those of you participating in her "Actually Finishing Something July," this is great incentive to share clips of your recent scribbles.  Just saying.)  I haven't done much writing proper in July, other than the odd scene scribbled out in the odder notebook, but I did crank out several chapters in June, so I have things to feature.

july snippets

There was no backing out now, nor would Tip have done it if he could have; he was far too bull-headed, and far too keenly aware of it. Wordlessly he began to roll back his sleeves, ever keeping an eye on Lewis’ movements, the familiar, comforting thrill of the fight running spider-wise across his skin. The sun sparking between the oak leaves made the shadows and the light run wild while the two of them adjusted their positions, and as it lit Lewis’ face for just a moment, Tip saw that he had been wrong: this man was slow at nothing. 

James protested again, but the words fell, as always, on deaf ears.

- the white sail's shaking

“My sanity is of no consequence to you.”

- the white sail's shaking

Overhead a seaman was attempting to tune his fiddle in a fit of yowls and twangs. Another called out that the strings would be wet, and a third, louder than his fellows, retorted that it made no difference for the fiddle made little enough music as it was. Then the argument dropped out of hearing beneath the shrill singsong of the wind. The lamp-flame wavered again and a sorcerous light leapt up around Charlie as, rising sharply, he began to pace the quarters — up and down, white and blue alike turned faded orange in the glow, the shadows backing and surging.

- the white sail's shaking

One of the loose arms of Marta’s shirt fluttered against Tip; the breeze had begun to shift at last, the tide having turned outward a long time ago. No moon tonight, he thought once, casting another glance at the sky, and the world seemed all the more desolate for its loss.

- the white sail's shaking

“Why,” he said, “what a funny pair of jack-in-the-boxes you two are!”

- the white sail's shaking

The windows cast downward glances at him, disapproving of him in their cool way. “Dear, dear,” the building murmured to the house on the other side of the iron fence, “who on earth is that dirty fellow? He’s getting my hem all muddy.” 

- the white sail's shaking

His voice sank into murmurs, faint and soothing and themselves rather broken; Tabby curled up on his boots and started to purr, and the pot gurgled plaintively in the hearth. 

 - the white sail's shaking

Dear Father,

Yo ho ho!  (But no rum: Aunt K. wouldn't approve.)  I write to you from the Admiral Benbow Inn, where Gossamer and I have stopped to listen to a yarn or three from the old sea dogs who sailed the Spanish Main in days very much gone by.

That is to say, a parcel of books arrived for me today.

- sunshine & gossamer

Snippets of June

pinterest board: the white sail's shaking

First off, I'm pleased to announce that there is a sale going on throughout the month of June for The Soldier's Cross and The Shadow Things Kindle e-books.  They will each be available for 99 cents until June 29th, so if you haven't had a chance to get them yet, here it is!  For more information and updates, including a link to the free iPad "Kindle" app, you can check out my Facebook page.

On to the subject of this post, proper.  Last month I didn't participate in Katie's "Story Snippets" meme, partly because of the almost-summer rush, mostly because I forgot until about two days until the end of May.  To make up for my brainlessness, I'm getting in to the June collection a little early.  For those of you who have not investigated this blog-series yet, you can take a peek at Katie's blog at Whisperings of the Pen to join the fun.

june snippets

“Sir?”

Tip dashed the salt out of his eyes and glanced sidelong at Marta. She had turned up her collar and shrunk down into it, and she blinked cat-like at him from the little shelter her cap gave her. When he turned she held out to him a dark, damp bundle and said, “Your coat, sir.”

 - the white sail's shaking

Tip’s eyes wandered off, scanning the witching expanse of sea and the white bodies of the gulls, real ones now, whirling over it like foam. He moved, trying to keep the weight off his left leg.

- the white sail's shaking

[Marta] was off-duty and Tip found her with a half-dozen other seamen, sitting and talking round a table while Scipio waddled between them and vied for every man’s attention at once. One of the ordinaries and the carpenter’s mate were playing a game, but the sharp staccato of their dice halted when they caught sight of Tip; the gossip dithered into awkward silence. Only Scipio went right on being coy, coming over and attempting to shimmy up his master’s leg.

- the white sail's shaking

His vision blurred; the shadows had gone strange and elongated, peppered by brilliant flashes of red that burned behind his eyes. You’re a fool, Tip Brighton, he thought; but that was nothing new, and he ignored himself.

- the white sail's shaking

Decatur eyed him sideways, more as though he were solving for the variable of an equation than as though Tip was of any concern to him.

- the white sail's shaking

“I told you I was a c…oward,” he said, holding the c with his tongue so that it would not catch. “You didn’t believe me.”

- the white sail's shaking

The world split.  Pain drove through Regina's heart like cold fire; her thoughts shattered to the far corners of her mind.  Screaming and roaring, snatches of discordant songs, battered her in wind and waves and darkness.  There was nothing beneath her, nothing above her, nothing around her - there was no her.  The dragon had opened its jaws, and the void of its mouth consumed identity, consumed existence.  Of Regina there was nothing left.

- tempus regina

April Snippets

The month is growing old, but here is my Snippets post at last!  March and April have been fairly productive months for me, but the trouble is that these chapters are part of or approaching the climax of The White Sail's Shaking, so it's difficult to share many snippets.  But I'll see what I can do.

april snippets

He was holding a pocket watch, tilted to catch the light on its open face, the chain dancing back and forth like a pendulum between his fingers; it seemed to have mesmerized him, for he had no attention for anything else. He watched it as a cat watches a mouse hole, unblinking, unwavering, with a faint occasional smile on his mouth.

- the white sail's shaking

“I came to see how your knee is, naturally. Heerman says it’s healing, but one can always hold out a hope for infection. There isn’t any, I suppose?”

Tip gave back a grimace of a smile. “None. Sorry to disappoint.”

- the white sail's shaking

The Constitution stood out, though, with her shrouds a tangle of mist and the sun a brilliant gold on her stern windows, her guns just now gone quiet. The bomb ketches beyond her were silent as well and so, too, were the Tripolitan batteries. An eerie, twilight hush had fallen over everything, as though the harbor held its breath; Tip could hear the gulls starting to cry once more.

Then the breath was released.

- the white sail's shaking

Some of the desperation must have leaked into his words, for Charlie’s backward glance was only half mocking. “I’ve my gun crew to command. I’ll come down when the fighting’s over.” 

Yes, Tip thought, but when the fighting’s over, it will be too late.

- the white sail's shaking

Tip stopped and looked up without turning around, gazing forward at the pale expanse of the schooner’s deck and the darker sea beyond, a haze of either sleeplessness or moonlight on his vision. So beautiful, he thought superfluously, hardly knowing whether he meant the night or the sea or the schooner, only knowing that whichever it was, its beauty made him ache.

- the white sail's shaking

Father, I miss you.  On nights like this I know I'll never see you again, and I feel like my heart will break.  

I miss you.  I want you to come home.

- sunshine and gossamer

Details of the room caught her eye in brief flashes. There were books everywhere; the opening door had raised a breath of dust from them. The air smelled sour, almost green. She saw a man in shirtsleeves and the back of his tawny head before he turned, and then she saw nothing but a pair of grey eyes.

She screamed.

- tempus regina

Snippets from March

A brand new month (not so brand new now, sadly) has arrived, and with it a brand new "Snippets" post from Katie and her darling blog Whisperings of the Pen. So here I am to participate, mostly with The White Sail's Shaking, but also with a bit of Wordcrafter to start. Enjoy!

march snippets

He was crazy and it was a crazy thing to say, but if Ethan had asked for the moon and a constellation besides, Justin would have been leery of denying him.

- wordcrafter

"...You wouldn’t mind getting your head chopped off at the end, would you, Ethan?”

Ethan had drawn back into the corner and now he sat half in the shadows with his arm around the old harp, fingering the strings but making no noise with them. He looked up when Jamie addressed him, the darkness lying in strange patterns across his stranger face. “I am sure it would be a pleasure,” he replied coldly.

- wordcrafter

[Charlie] still held a musket with its stock in the hollow of his shoulder; the powder had stained but half his face in the course of the fight, and the effect put Tip in mind of a lunar eclipse.

- the white sail's shaking

A breath of thick hot air wafted into his face as he stepped out, stifling him and making his head throb worse. Even the seagull on the sign overhead looked lethargic in the summer twilight. He sniffed with a grimace, instinctively pulling at his collar.

“Come to enjoy the fine evening?” asked a nearby voice, tinged with softly laughing irony.

- the white sail's shaking

Of course every schoolboy knows never to try to separate a pair of fighting dogs, no matter what the outcome looks to be. Tip knew it; he was no fool. But in the heat of the moment it slipped his mind.

- the white sail's shaking

"...What made you go to sea?”

“Oh…” Tip tugged a thin-lipped smile. “That was my family’s choice. I’m a bully, you see.”

Even with her cap he saw her eyebrows go flyaway. “You, sir, a bully?” she repeated.

- the white sail's shaking

Charlie was beside him, left elbow to Tip’s right, one pistol in hand and another across his thighs; Decatur, farther down on the same side, held a cutlass naked before him to reflect a red-stained sky. Everyone was panting, through the mouth or through the nose, so that the ship itself seemed to be gasping for breath. The sound fingered Tip’s brain, agonizing as the waiting itself.

- the white sail's shaking

“God help me, Lewis,” he breathed aloud, “we have not seen the last of each other.”

- the white sail's shaking

February Snippets

I had intended to do some sort of thought-provoking post, but nights of little sleep and grey days aren't conducive to thoughtfulness. Fortunately, though, Katie S. has begun a monthly "story snippets" roundup over at Whisperings of the Pen, and I decided to join in. These are my

february snippets

Tip did not answer. The bullet was in place, so he took a better handle on the weapon, which was nearly too small for his hand, and turned so that he was looking down the stretch of battered grey stone to the empty rows forming a half-circle about the stage. There would have been people there, centuries ago, Tip mused, and we could have been the actors.

- the white sail's shaking

It was so dilapidated that the cover dangled by a mere thread and its pages were blistered into the humped form of a whale’s back, but Charlie had it cradled in one hand as though it were a lovely thing, his fingers rubbing absently at the binding.

- the white sail's shaking

Suddenly the fire on the Philadelphia reached her powder, and with a shock that tore the air in a brilliant flash of red the frigate exploded. Sparks and fragments flew upward and then showered the harbor and city like falling stars, lovely and dizzying, and though there was no need, Tip recoiled all the same and instinctively put up a hand as if to protect himself. The debris settled, hissing into the harbor; on the surface of the water the remnants of the Philadelphia still burned angrily, long flaming tongues licking the sky.

- the white sail's shaking

Then the tesser came. It screamed down the tunnel, a formless explosion of light and rain, consuming the grey; and when Alex plunged forward, it consumed her, too.

- tesser 004

And yet [Tip] must have found something, for he laughed—and that, too, was a strange sound—and began to shepherd her on to find Mr. Worth. What strange people are thrown together in this little island world, [Marta] thought as she half-skipped to keep up with him. And I have wrecked on it.

- the white sail's shaking

A Dash of the Literary

Katie, over on her blog at Whisperings of the Pen, did a fun little post with recently-scribbled snippets from her stories. Then my sister Jenny picked it up and posted clips from her novels Adamantine (completed/being edited) and Plenilune (in progress). So, being unoriginal as I am, I decided to make off with the idea and give you readers a glimpse into what I have written and what I have been writing recently. (By the way, the first draft of The White Sail's Shaking bids fair to pass Wordcrafter in length by the end of the year!)

a sprinkling of words

The sky was cloudless and two large moons were already high in it, so that the garden was turned a faded grey and speckled by darker hollows. It was quiet except for the hum of the breeze running through the slats in the fence, and Justin sighed in relief as the door creaked shut at his back and he was separated from the warmth and turmoil within. But as he skirted the overgrown vines and bushes and drooping, frosty flowers to the rough hewn bench, his eye was caught by a motion on his right and he stiffened.

“Hallo,” said a female voice. She sat on the white fence post with her hands clasped between her knees, balancing precariously as she kicked her heels against the wood. She had no head-covering, so her hair, amber in the moonlight, was tousled and chaotic—part of her charm, Justin thought wryly. He moved nearer and she regarded him serenely.

“You’re getting bolder,” he remarked.

Wordcrafter

Ethan’s fist met the table with a crash that shuddered down its entire length and knocked over several goblets, sending wine and mead flooding across the wood and over the edge in waterfalls. There could not have been a man in the room who did not start, and the Gypsy-lord’s arms unfolded in a moment and he drew himself up; but the Hound had calmed himself with an effort and drew his hand off the table, exhaling slowly. “The Lord of the Cliffs will forgive me,” he said coldly, “if I find it difficult to be amused at what I am sure was not meant to be in earnest.”

Wordcrafter

I was very tired last night - tireder than I think I've ever been - but I was determined to get up early just to show Aiden that I'm not a shallow city girl. I had Miss Gwen get me up in the dark, and though my courage almost failed me as I peeked over the coverlet, I did not back down! I got up in the cold dark and I wrapped myself up in a sweater and wellies, and then I tramped down, had a bit of porridge for breakfast (yuck!), and went out to report for duty.

Sunshine and Gossamer


The glittering of the man’s eyes in his strange face, like the blinking of gems half buried in earth, unnerved Tip, and he took the words and that warning look to heart as he went inside. Unwanted, they said. Unwanted! A sensation of overwhelming friendlessness closed in on him when he shut the door of his own room and stood in the solitude, and he drew in a shuddering breath and brushed the heel of his hand across a cut on his forehead. “Never mind,” he murmured. “It doesn’t matter what they think. You’ll get by, Tip Brighton—you always do.”

The White Sail's Shaking

“Give them a shot across the bow, if you please,” Decatur said to the first lieutenant, with a touch of morbid humor. The order was relayed and a gun run out in Lewis’ division; spark touched vent and a white cloud burst upward as a cannon ball went singing smartly across the ketch’s bowsprit. A breathless silence ensued, and as the air cleared Tip could see the foreigners
heaving to.

The White Sail's Shaking

and a dash of words not my own

You do not make the truth. You reside in the truth. A suitable image for truth would be that of a lighthouse lashed by the elemental fury of undisciplined error. Those who have come to reside in the truth must stay there. It is not their business to go back into error for the purpose of joining their drowning fellows with the pretence that, inside or outside, the conditions are pretty much the same.

The Christian Mind, Harry Blamires

art by wagsomedog on flickr