1,000 Daily Challenge: Day Two

Today I was not in a writing mood.  Today I was in a sewing mood.  I drafted a bodice pattern, cut out said bodice pattern, pinned the pattern to the cloth and cut out the pieces, sewed the bodice together and discovered it was too small, made notes to enlarge the seam allowance tomorrow... oh, I was supposed to tell you about my writing today, wasn't I?

Pearl S. Buck put it really, really well.  "Your mind must know it has got to get down to work."  Period.  End of story. No, actually, beginning of story.  Stop woolgathering, stop waiting for the right time (or the right pair of socks, the right cup of tea, the right chair to sit in, the right time of day...) and just write.

That's what I did today.  I wrote 1,529 words--most of them in The Color of the Sky--and it was kind of like squeezing blood out of a turnip (although why anyone would want blood from a turnip is beyond me... gross).  They didn't flow freely.  They didn't come easily.  They don't look very good now that I'm rereading them.  They didn't even sound very good when I read them out loud to my sister.

But I wrote them, and that's what counts.  Write now.  Edit later.  EDIT.  LATER.  Willpower, Amy.  WILLPOWER.

On a happier note, I've found Fina!  Fina, in case I haven't made this clear already (can't remember...) is Margot's younger sister, and originally she was supposed to look kind of like Buttercup in The Princess Bride... but I wasn't altogether pleased with that.  Then today I was looking through some medieval-style paintings on Google Images (I collect pictures for inspiration) and bang, there she was, looking at me.  Well, not actually at me.  She was kind of looking off to the side; the middle distance, as my sister calls it.  

It's her face that counts, not the Roman-maiden clothing and the wild hair.  Fina's hair is about that color, only not quite so floating and mermaid-ish.  I'm vastly pleased with this picture on the whole, though.  Now for snippets.

They sat quietly together as the sun dappled through the thicket and revealed the grass stains and streaks of mud on their clothing, silent testimony to the terrible race through the night.

Father had always said that Jacques should save money on scythes and use Chantal’s tongue for harvesting instead. Mother, in her turn, had always shaken her head and hushed Father, for fear that Chantal might hear. She had been Mother’s maidservant since Mother was a child, and to offend her was easier than tripping on the loose brick in the stairway to the kitchen. Philippe had once said (quietly, of course) that if Chantal hadn’t been bound to Mother’s service for life, she would have left the manor before Fina was born. Margot had somehow managed to receive a congenital talent for angering Chantal, a talent that had manifested itself from the time she was two years old and had told Chantal that her nose looked like a snake’s nose. (Chantal’s nose did bear serpentine attributes, but Chantal had not taken kindly to the comparison.)

The anger she had heard in Philippe’s tones earlier had faded a bit, but it was still crouched and ready to spring at any moment.

Dewdrops melted on the web, so very slowly but steadily just the same. The owner of the web uncoiled himself from his wispy little nugget of a bed in the corner and set out for his morning walk across his tiny kingdom. Margot briefly wondered if she ought to be repulsed by the fuzzy black body, but somehow she seemed like the intruder in this peaceful place, with the spider as the proud and condescending host.

So how'd you do today?  Are you blogging your progress?  Care to share a snippet or four?  Leave me a link in the comments!