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momebieIt's day three of Nano and I've already ceased with the sense making! Em and I are sharing a LitLift account in order to have all of our characters' physical traits and idiosyncrasies synced. (It's a pretty easy place to do that sort of thing, if you're in need of one for yourself.) Last night I went in to fill in all the details for my characters. I only entered the very important pieces of information. You know, like how the Derek character feels like The (International) Noise Conspiracy sounds. Because that will totally make sense to people outside of my head. Especially people like Em who don't listen to all my random favorite bands. (BUT HE DOES, LISTEN!) How about you? Any notes in drafts or outlines that you're sure are incomprehensible to those outside of you?
Your prompt for today is the property of one of my favorite tumblr blogs. It's a bit more vague than the last two prompts--and impossible to turn into porn, I'M LOOKING AT YOU, FRIENDS--but some people work better that way. What do you make of it?
[Credit.]
The rules are still simple: write, comment, rinse, repeat.
Your prompt for today is the property of one of my favorite tumblr blogs. It's a bit more vague than the last two prompts--and impossible to turn into porn, I'M LOOKING AT YOU, FRIENDS--but some people work better that way. What do you make of it?
[Credit.]
The rules are still simple: write, comment, rinse, repeat.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2011-11-03 01:02 pm (UTC)::ponders more::
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Date: 2011-11-03 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 07:20 pm (UTC)If it was just Raven stuck in an unfamiliar city with her purse and her wits, trekking up and down the stairs and switching platforms and figuring out what line on what colored train goes where wouldn't be such a big deal. It would be a petty annoyance that she'd open with when she finally got to Charles' apartment.
"Jesus," she'd say. "How can you stand to live in a city that can't even label it's public transit clearly? Are route directions in some kind of secret code?"
And he'd say, "I've missed you too, Raven," and maybe, "Why thank you for congratulating me on my engagement, Raven," until she rolled her eyes and hugged him and told him how much she missed him.
But no, she's got two giant bags and making her way up and down the same staircases multiple times is a battle and a struggle and her arms hurt and she's lost and why did she bring so much stuff? God, she doesn't want to walk even another step, but she still has no idea where she's going. Her eyes are hot and damp, but she is not going to cry in the bowels of Boston because she can't figure out where she and her purse and her two heavy suitcases are going. She is absolutely not going to do that. She's not going to sit on the floor and despair, either, no matter how appealing that suddenly feels.
"I feel like you need help," a girl says behind her, and Raven blinks through the wetness in her eyes, quickly wipes them on the back of her hand, and turns around with her best Xavier Smile in place.
The girl is Latina and dressed in a black puffy ski coat. She has long dark hair that's falling in her face in a casual, attractive way. A really attractive way. Raven is suddenly keenly aware that her eyes are probably red and her cheeks are hot and blotchy.
"I could," Raven allows. "Um, I'm lost. I'm trying--my stupid brother--I'm not from here. I'm from New York, where our trains are easy to understand and 'uptown' and 'downtown' always mean the same thing and my asshole brother didn't even give me clear directions, just asked me to come and when I said sure just--springs on me that he's engaged to this guy who I haven't even met and is probably, like, a serial killer or something or just after Charles for his money and I can't figure out which of these trains to take and they all say they're ending different places even though this way seems like it has a clear end of the line and doesn't branch off and--"
The girl laughs and Raven thinks that maybe she has more frustration stored up than she previously thought.
"I'm sorry," she says, and the girl just shakes her head.
"It's fine," the girl says. "The T sucks, everyone knows it. Where are you trying to go?"
"Um," Raven glances at the printed out directions again, even though she has them memorized. "Lechemere," she says.
"You're in luck," the girl says. "I'm headed that way, too. My name's Angel, by the way."
"Raven," Raven says, and offers her hand to shake.
Angel has nice hands.
"I'm sorry about that rant," Raven says. "I just...."
"I get it," Angel says. "That's how I get in New York. And I have two older brothers, so I know how that goes, too."
Raven is about to ask if any of her brothers ever decided to marry strangers without telling her, strangers who can't even smile for pictures, when the familiar rumbling of an approaching train starts up.
"This is us," Angel says, raising her voice over the din. She grabs the handle of one of Raven's suitcases, and before Raven can tell her it's fine, she's got it, she grabs Raven's hand with her free hand. The words die on Raven's lips, and she lets her goofy, grateful smile speak for itself.
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Date: 2011-11-04 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-05 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-06 03:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 02:28 pm (UTC)Speaking of porn, I thought not being pregnant would help with my tragic sex addiction when it comes to my characters getting off with each other, but apparently, I'm just perverse. My first scene has them in bed together, and she's not even supposed to BE with this guy -- I mean, they were going to break up! WHAT.
Anyway, I have to go to bed now, but I'll be taking this scene, thank you very much (and in it, Moe is going to work, so there will be no sex. I hope...)
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Date: 2011-11-03 02:41 pm (UTC)And hee. Sometimes there's just no helping it. It's okay, you're alive, so I'm pretty sure that's a more or less healthy sort of addiction as long as you remember to eat and bathe and leave the house sometimes. You're no worse off than people who get sucked into MMOs, at any rate. :p
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Date: 2011-11-03 02:47 pm (UTC)…thousands of words of phrases, notes, and near-gibberish…
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Date: 2011-11-04 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-04 04:43 am (UTC)Nah, I just can't write the way most people seem to do NaNo, the seat-of-your-pants writing, just starting and going and stopping when you're done. I need to plan everything out ahead of time, all the plotlines and story arcs and how they cross and what they're timing is, so I know each scene and what has to happen in it. Sometimes I even write scenes for the first time with plain dialogue and skeletal text, just to get all the beats set. And only then do I go through and write the scene, filling in all the pieces, getting tone and texture right. It means a lot more work at the beginning, and I don't expect my wordcount to be on target for a while, but it means all the pieces fall into place quicker and easier as I go.
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Date: 2011-11-03 02:48 pm (UTC)(Except probably not, because I'll do two or three characters, one or two books, and then I'll get bored and go do something else.)
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Date: 2011-11-04 01:50 am (UTC)Wanna go ride bikes?Thanks for the mention
Date: 2011-11-03 03:04 pm (UTC)If you have any thoughts on the site, let me know and good luck with NaNoWriMo.
Brad
Re: Thanks for the mention
Date: 2011-11-04 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 04:10 pm (UTC)See, I am conflicted about writing something, because I know where that is. Not that I'm doing Nano, anyway. :P
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Date: 2011-11-04 01:51 am (UTC)Is it weird that I can immediately tell that's in D.C.? #metronerd
Date: 2011-11-03 04:26 pm (UTC)Jeff could never get the hang of public transportation. If you needed to get somewhere at a specific time using MARTA took too much planning to be really useful to him.
Brian on the other hand was such an expert at planning everything that he took to it like a fish to water. So when they moved to Atlanta for school Brian sort of became the official planner of Jeff's public transportation life.
Once, during the time they don't speak of, Jeff was forced to navigate around the city on his own and ended up stranded in downtown Atlanta as ass o'clock in the morning because he forgot about the time the buses stopped running.
And Jesus. He was crying now. Because it had been almost a month since Brian started shutting him out and he missed him. Missed his stupid bus schedules and his beard and his catchers gear all over the place.
He missed his smile and him falling asleep over his textbooks and his everything.
And maybe Jeff had been letting Brian run their lives a little too much lately. Maybe it was Jeff's turn to take their lives by horns and start taking care of Brian a bit more.
Get the hang of bossing Brian so he could convince him to marry Jeff when they were done with college. Because if Brian was left in charge clearly that was not going to happen.
Jeff was already feeling better about where they stood, even though he really didn't know why Brian was being so aloof.
Now he just needed to find a way back to him.
Re: Is it weird that I can immediately tell that's in D.C.? #metronerd
Date: 2011-11-03 04:33 pm (UTC)Which is what I do during my thesis. maybe that's why I want to cry every chapter.
Re: Is it weird that I can immediately tell that's in D.C.? #metronerd
Date: 2011-11-04 01:53 am (UTC)Re: Is it weird that I can immediately tell that's in D.C.? #metronerd
Date: 2011-11-04 05:01 am (UTC)No. Distinctive wall is distinctive.
Date: 2011-11-04 04:50 am (UTC)(Also, I liked this drabble-thing. It's very sweet.)
Re: No. Distinctive wall is distinctive.
Date: 2011-11-04 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 04:37 pm (UTC)I was previously using software called Page Four, which I also find useful, but being able to access the info. anywhere from any computer will be awesome.
So thanks for mentioning it!
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Date: 2011-11-04 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 08:57 pm (UTC)Sex on the el, dude. Booya.
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Date: 2011-11-03 09:54 pm (UTC)I saw the picture and the word "porn" and went, "oooh, that's totally something Nathan (one of my NaNo MCs) would do."
If it wasn't so late I would keep writing that, but I'm sooo tired and it's almost 11pm where I am (France), and yes, I am a little old lady. But I think I'll finish that tomorrow morning and post it late, because I'm not really at the point in my novel where any kind of porn can be had, that'll have to wait until the very end, and I DON'T WANNA WAIT.
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Date: 2011-11-04 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-04 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-04 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-04 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-04 02:16 am (UTC)Besides, if I'm doing it on a train it's not like I'll be taking my clothes off to do it (any more than absolutely necessary, I mean) so there's not going to be much skin-to-train contact.
Oh hey, let's visit Steampunk Vampires in Outer Space.
Date: 2011-11-04 01:44 am (UTC)The park across the way was desolate, so he checked to make sure no one was coming and then jogged across and under the wrought iron arch at the entrance, ranting quietly to himself as he went.
“This whole thing with the rent was ludicrous.” He huffed out a breath, testing to see if it was visible. It wasn’t. “She knows I’m good for it. S’not like it’s my fault the shoe factory went under. I done what I was supposed to.” He just needed to find another job. It couldn’t be that hard, right?
The pavement under his feet was a dark beige and it stretched out in front of him just as narrowly as the rest of his life had up to that point. He watched his feet as went, not realizing how quickly he had been walking until he came to a place in the path where it crossed another piece of sidewalk. He was deep in the park now, no longer able to see the street, even through the breaks in the trees.
Branches waved and cracked loudly above as the wind kicked up and the sky went dark. “Just my luck.” He pulled the collar on his jacket up so that it could block some of the wind to his neck, When he looked up he saw another man coming up the path from the opposite direction. The man made eye contact with him and waved. Lupe nodded.
“Hey!” The man started to half heartedly jog to where Lupe was standing. His briefcase banged against his knees. “You don’t know where the closest entrance to the underground is, do you?”
Lupe waited until the man had pulled even with him before answering. “I don’t know about closest,” he said, “but if you follow this path back the way I came it will take you to an underground entrance.”
The man tipped his bowler. It was black and crisp, and the edges of the brim were sharp where they curved up at his ears. “Much obliged. You wouldn’t happen to be going back that way, would you? I get lost sometimes in new places, and I’m in a bit of a hurry to meet a client..”
He really wasn’t, but it wasn’t like he had somewhere to be in the other direction either. Lupe really just wanted to be away from his neighbor’s screaming kid so he could think clearly. He didn’t figure there was anything that could make a dark future look brighter than working it out beforehand. He looked up. The dark clouds on the other hand, could only be cured by rain, and he didn’t want to be in it.
“Sure,” he said, and turned on his heel.
They walked for a short distance without saying anything. The man snuck furtive glances at his surroundings. Lupe was suddenly aware of how desperate he must look in his faded jacket and worn shoes. The man’s clothing wasn’t flashy, but his shoes were made of exceptional leather that Lupe knew had to be soft like butter. On his wrist there was a gold watch, clean, except for the slight patina of scratches and scuffs that typically collected over time.
“I’m not going to take that from you,” Lupe nodded at the watch, “but someone could.”
The man looked down at it and then back over his shoulder. “This thing? They could have it. Doesn’t keep time the way I need it to, anyway.”
“What sort of time does it keep?”
“The usual,” he said, raising his shoulders against the now whipping wind.
Lupe wasn’t sure what other sort of time there was. “Are you from New York at all?”
“No,” the man said. “I don’t think I could manage to live in such a city. It’s never quiet here.”
“Not usually,” Lupe said. “So what brings you here? You a salesman?” He remembered the men with similar briefcases chock full of real silk stockings or steel cutlery that used to come to his mother’s door.
Re: Oh hey, let's visit Steampunk Vampires in Outer Space.
Date: 2011-11-04 01:46 am (UTC)“Something like that. I’m recruiting.”
Lupe considered that and decided he must work for the Army. There was talk of war everywhere those days, and even though the Army seemed to give you a good ride, there was always that pesky risk of death to keep people away and safe with their families. On the other hand, if you didn’t have a family...
“Do you have a pamphlet?”
The man smiled wide. Lupe noticed that his teeth were more brilliantly white than any teeth he’d ever seen. They made him look feral. “You don’t even know what I’m recruiting for.”
“There’s only so many things to recruit for, aren’t there?” he asked.
The man seemed to think about this as they came to the entrance of the park. “I suppose so,” he said.
The entrance was near an intersection, and Lupe pointed across the street and around the corner to their right. “The station’s just a block that way.”
“Thank you, young man.” He started down the street.
“Hey!” Lupe called. “You never told me what you were recruiting for!”
The man turned around. “What’s your name?”
“Lupe.”
The man looked him up and down. “That’s funny. Yeah, sure kid. Here.” He walked back to where Lupe was standing on the edge of the pavement and knelt down. Placing his briefcase on the ground, he opened it as fat, heavy drops started to splatter on the cement around them. He held out a folded black and white paper.
Lupe took it. “Thanks.”
The man snapped his case close and stood. “Don’t mention it. And tell your friends, will you? We’re looking for bright young men with nothing to lose. You might just fit the bill.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Without another word, the man stood and rushed away to beat the coming rain. Lupe looked down at the paper in his hand. In big, black, bold letters on the front it read: JOIN THE VVC. Underneath, in smaller lettering, it said: Volunteer Vampire Corps. And under that: How do I know I’m ready for space travel?
Lupe realized he’d never gotten the man’s name, but there was a name on the pamphlet, so that was good enough. The drops came down heavier and he hustled across the street and back up the steps to his apartment. Inside the dark, damp hallway he could hear one of the tenant’s dogs barking, no doubt responding to his neighbor’s kid, who was still at it.
And that might be something. At least in space it was quiet. He put the pamphlet in his pocket and made a note to find the Col. Henry James as soon as the sky cleared.
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Date: 2011-11-04 03:15 am (UTC)hey, I can use this for my not-nano!
Date: 2011-11-06 03:22 am (UTC)"Are you sure about this?"
Alice rolls her eyes. "We don't have any choice, remember?"
I grip my torch and lift it a little higher. It's hard to hold it and balance on my leg. Alice says I'll get better the more I walk on it. I'm not sure I believe her any more.
"I'm not sure I'm ready for this," I say. I can't run. Aron sure as hell can't. Frankie and Ray have promised to cover us, but what happens if they run out of ammo?
"We can't wait around all day," Aron says, stretching his arms before starting to wheel his chair down the tunnel. "Let's go."
"Let's go," I echo under my breath, and follow him.
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Date: 2011-11-08 01:42 pm (UTC)He wasn't above taking the subway. Well not entirely, anyway. At least, he didn't outright tell people he was as he crammed next to them, his feet touching the sides of their shoes and his hands almost caressing the fabric of their pants. He wanted to, though. He wanted to badly.
Truth was, he thought he was above a lot of things and looked at everything with the same colour of disdain as the lights overhead in the subway station, a muted tone that formulated into wallowing self-pity after a long ride home. He didn't want to work, he didn't want to have to go across down to an apartment that wasn't a house, wasn't a home.
He didn't deserve it. He had only made one, tiny mistake and he didn't deserve it.