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?”

Bits and Pieces

pinterest: wordcrafter

College began last week.  There was the usual (at least I presume it's usual: it's all new to me) bustle and flurry and headache trying to get classes sorted out, dropping and adding and arranging.  At first I had no early classes, but the way things have since worked out, I now have one at 8:30.  Oh well, it's not so very bad.  There are assignments due already, which does seem just a little cruel, but as I slide now into the second week I feel I have a better handle on my schedule.

(But that may be denial.)

Inspiration for blog posts remains low.  Have I talked myself out?  It's quite possible; but then, it is also possible that I am merely in that annoying in between stage of not properly writing a novel, and so can't seem to dredge up Things to Write About.  I may have mentioned before, but my brain has three gears: editing; brain-storming; and writing.  They don't seem to mix. 

However, even without anything really serious to talk about, there are little things to share.  Today the mad dash of school and anxiety has slowed and the brain is not quite so feverish.  With homework for tomorrow finished, I have enough of a breathing space to sit down and write something to give you a glimpse of what is going on behind the scenes of Scribbles. 

kitten-sitting

I am sitting in the bonus room of my home, watching Jenny's two kittens mill about the place and begin to get their bearings - we're keeping the little stinkers for the next three months, while Jenny is off in Scotland, and are trying to ease them gently into the routine of the place.  I'm afraid they might have heart-attacks when they do finally come face to face with our own three cats, who look like creatures from Where the Wild Things Are compared to Minnow and Aquila.  

At the moment they are being kept in isolation, and they seem to be adjusting.   Minnow is "playing the cello"; Aquila heard the vacuum cleaner running downstairs and has slunk under the bed.  It's quiet for the moment, since every time I turn on Loreena McKennitt the kittens go bug-eyed and run around as if we're being invaded by purple elephants in pink tutus.  I don't see what they can possibly have against "Caravanserai."

reading

I think I've got about a hundred books to read for classes this semester, though fortunately not all at once.  (You do, however, have to buy them all at once.  I can just hear the booksellers going "ka-ching! ka-ching!" as classes start.)  Textbooks and supplemental reading, and one very interesting little thing for history class about the development of the book itself as technology.  

In between those, I have managed to squeeze in some pleasure reading.  I picked up Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca - yes, the one it seems everybody has already read - last week and have been greedily devouring it.  Except that I got to the Big Reveal last night before bed, and had a bit of trouble getting to sleep.  I saw the twist coming, either because I am clever or because I had already read about it in someone's review.  For those of you who have read it, though, don't give any spoilers because I'm not done yet.

For lighter reading, I'm rambling along through The Hounds of the Morrigan - because sometimes a good fat fantasy is just the sort of thing one needs.  It's a bit crazy and absurd, and I haven't gotten to the overarching point yet, but the characters of Pidge and Brigit are good enough for me.  Brigit reminds me of Luna Lovegood, she's so utterly random.

"You know what it's like when you're waiting for something."
"Yes.  It's like being kept in a bag and hung up on a nail."
Pidge thought he knew what Brigit meant but he wasn't sure.

writing

Other than the assignments which are already flooding in, I've not been doing a terrific amount of writing: a little here and there in my writing notebook, a short companion piece to Tempus Regina.  The next project is being cranky, but I can't very well complain, since there would hardly be time for me to give it the attention it needed even if it weren't.  Though I don't like not writing, in this case it is probably a good thing that I have to be patient.  In the meantime, I scribble a little and work on other things.