So I went ahead and wrote this in the hopes it would help me out with “Dowse and Bleed.” It did a bit. :grins:
There's a reason I call this story that, this story being "Dowse and Bleed." It's more than 9600 words right now and I've still got more than 6000 that need total rewriting.
The story arrived in twisted snatches. I started with the third scene wrote through to middle, then started at the end and worked my way back until I figured out I needed to back up the beginning two scenes and then finished the middle. It's safe to say I had no outline. It's also safe to say I had no idea where the case was going or how I was going to get there.
Rachelle is the main character and, typical to what she does to everyone she encounters with the one exception of her "brother," she was holding out on me.
This incident is smack in the middle of a period where Rachelle is ticked off at Justus for falling in love with her (thus not speaking to him), her health is in a perhaps permanent downward spiral due to the genetic tampering by the Department that made her into a special in the first place, and Jarod is annoying because he's passively aggressively hoping to start a relationship with her, so she's being even harsher than usual with him to get him to back off. And I'm trying to pack this into a story in a genre I've never written (detective) around a plot-type I've never done with an original situation I still don't quite understand. The first draft had several problems with it:
I'd love to say the rewrite just wrung itself out of me quickly the way the first draft did, but it's not doing that. It's slow going, stopping and mulling, reworking, and sliding back under Rachelle's skin every time she kicks me out. It's weird because her world is so integrated and I have to convey it all to the reader without going overboard. And frankly, this story shouldn't even be happening. Rachelle's not supposed to be working!
Ah, well. That's why this is the story from inferno. It changes its mind and doesn't like me trying to nail it down.
How's your writing?
Yesterday, we got quite a bit of work done, including overhauling the framework of my website. Still more to get done, but I like how the Bibliography and 365 Challenge pages turned out.
And now, it's that time again. I've got prompts in the percolator and stories mulling, but need a few more ready prompting, por favor. So calling:
ETA:
Who is family?
Natasha Romanova surprised herself by moving in to the Stark Tower and making her suite her own. Tony Stark surprises her by commenting on it.
Battery acid is caustic, but indispensable.
Justus had found the Database’s company to be tolerable, but sometimes she was a little too sharp when he was already feeling raw.
Cate shouldn't have asked, but she did.
Rachelle would rather be anywhere else than the newly formed Special Unit, doing the work she used to be enslaved to. But she will. For Cate.
He wanted to change the way things were.
Bryn wants to guard their own lands and the outsiders who stumble upon them, but he is no hunter and only the hunters wander out into the mists.
So it's been a busy week, and from the beginning of the year, I've been writing about 2000 words a day because of the challenge. To me, that is a straight up success no matter where I end up falling on the completed pieces goal.
But on that, I've discovered that some pieces will grow beyond the length I intend for them. Yes, I'm looking at you, "Dowse and Bleed." Don't bother shrugging innocently. So we're adopting a new counting system.
Here's the new count. Only a week behind. Ah, well.
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| 8/365 pieces. 2.2% done. |
This will not do! For what I am / Is woman, not a female man.
Another double-drabble for the 365 Challenge. 200 words.
This is a continuity born out of a bunch of other stories and prompts and ideas, with a huge push from my beta, but alas! This 365 challenge ficlet is finished first.
"Dowse and Bleed" came in at about 7600 words of first draft. It left me wrung out and ready to kick the whole thing into whatever promised to take it away—which, in this case, turned out to be my email. I sent it to my beta, who promptly told me to dig deeper, do more, let her see it from the inside out, not the outside in.
I've made a fine art of the outside in. Here we go again. Scrapped the whole lot, opened a fresh doc and am pulling from the old as needed, and I see her point.
Rachelle waited until the restless aches dancing through her upper body were outright pain before she finally forced herself to quit making endless cups of coffee and fished a mottled green star out of the embossed pink tin she kept on the granite kitchen countertop. She stripped off her overshirt and held the star to her left arm, braced herself, and pressed the needles on its back into her arm and into her main carrier fluid vein. A light twist—which hurt, but she didn't wince—secured the star. She could feel the space for her carrier fluid expanding, allowing the wash of genetic entries in her system to head for her central nervous system without making her want to scream.
She leaned back against the open dark wood shelves, which she had stuffed with spices, baking supplies, and potted vegetables. Dishes filled the shelves above the counters, and she kept an open cooler by the telephone. She picked up her coffee—the whole apartment smelled of it—and drank the rest slowly, shifting from one bare foot to the other on the heated tile floor.
Three years ago, cycling didn't hurt. She didn't want to think about that, didn't want to think about the fact that the Department never would go away for her or about the look in Sear's eyes six months ago when she gave her another box of stars, arms covered in blood from doing something they should never had had to do.
Rachelle set the coffee mug in the sink and washed it, ignoring the way the water irritated her skin as she scrubbed harder than was necessary. Over the splash of water and ceramic, she heard the phone ring and glanced up towards where it sat on the higher coffee bar counter. Only a handful of people could keep hold of her revolving number to call. She never answered.
The answering machine clicked on. "Rachelle Winslow. Leave a message."
Her birth name in her own voice jarred her. It wasn't her name. She drew the mug out of the sink, turned off the faucet, and set the mug in the sanitizer to dry.
"It's Ilsa."
Killinger.
So, 2013 opened on a Tuesday, which means I'll be updating each Tuesday on where I'm at in this ambitious challenge. This first week, I finished 4 out of 7 pieces and am hip-deep in number 5, a ficlet that became a monstrosity, my longest short story to date. "Dowse and Bleed" promises to weigh in around 8000 words when all's said and done, and I'd previously maxed out on 6500, which was big for me at the time.
Letting go of strictly flash fiction is a relief in a way. I can relax and take my time, let the characters be random, then sharply bring it all into focus for me and have me scrambling for my computer to hack away at it while I still know what they're telling me.
I decided to do something different with this challenge also. I'm pushing through to the end of each piece. No skipping and coming back to it. I want to force myself to finish before moving on, and I'm highly motivated to move on. There's an average to be struck, and I've never liked being behind.
That said, this week, I wrote in 3 original worlds, 1 fandom. Prompts were from Jocelyn Aitkin, Gwynne Jackson, and Percy O'Leary. All but the last (unless she's been holding out on me) are published and write amazing stuff, so check out their work.
Prompts in progress are from Jocelyn Aitkin and Rabia Gale, another published author with amazing stuff.
And here's the roundup.
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| 4/365 entries. 1.1% done. |
Technically, these prompts are freely available from in_the_blue, but since she’s my beta and one of my dearest online writer friends, the community counts for my 365 Challenge. A double-drabble of 200 words.
Renaiven was known as a harsh man, but almost no one knew why.
Another for the 365 Challenge. I chose prompts from the 100 Word Stories community because it always pleases in_the_blue to have activity on the community, but the letter simply could not be 100 words. I let it grow. Eventually it will join a story called The Academy Letters. Until then, I hope you like it.
Sorry for this taking so long, but I hope you like it after all!
Some short stories are not polite. They plant their roots and spread and grow like weeds to take over far more space than they were ever alotted. "Dowse and Bleed" is one of those stories.
Killinger was the oldest of them, well into her late thirties and clearly resigned to her chosen deal, her chosen work. She stepped out into the middle of the room without hesitation and half-shut her eyes, immersing once more into the emotional layout of the room, meticulously checking for intensity and time-induced fade.
Mira and Rachelle uncurled slowly, pulling hands out of pockets, from under arms, reaching to brush with unwilling fingers, passing a bare hand inches away from the detritus in the room. Rachelle had the advantage: she didn't have to touch an object physically to get a read on it. Mira had the advantage: she didn't have to cover her skin to avoid a read.
Rachelle checked the door, pulled in a new entry and compared the time-fade from one to the other. "Might have exited through here." She shrugged.
Mira followed her and wrapped her hand around the handle. She held on for several moments, then shook her head. "I should feel something."
"Unless Weller was unconscious and our man is too cold to leave traces," Rachelle pointed out.
Killinger glanced at Jarod, but he was focused on reading the inputs from their chips.
"Well," Mira resigned herself with a single clipped syllable. She pulled her purse over her head and handed it to Jarod, who took it absently and slung it over one shoulder. Mira buttoned up her coat to keep it out of the way and flexed her fingers. Then she delicately touched one finger to the door handle and started walking, tracing that one finger around wall, furniture, cabinets, counter—circling the entire apartment before she stopped on the bathroom door. She wrapped her hand around the handle and grimaced. "Here."
Writing today's 365 story, "Remembering Lena," and it's deceptively simple because it's not simple at all.
Wesley Bryn returned to the book on Wednesday. The title and author name on the cover meant nothing to him—David Copperfield, Charles Dickens—but inside the front cover, a soft blue floral designed bookplate had a due date for Wednesday, today, blue inked in loopy feminine handwriting. Stamped at the bottom of the bookplate was an address for Pretty Things, presumably the establishment where he had borrowed, rented, or otherwise procured said book.
