Well, this is awkward...

October always makes me feel quite writerly, for some reason.  Unfortunately, I was not particularly writerly this September, and though Snippets of Story may be quite brilliant in November after the inspiration of October has passed, this past month was... less than inspired.  What you see before you is pretty much all I wrote this month.

*cringes*

I shall do better in the coming weeks.  I promise.

 Jack’s eyebrows crinkled. “But Mr. Herbertson, sir—Jeeves in the Jeeves books isn’t a butler. He’s a valet.”
“No more is James Butler a butler. He’s my personal secretary,” Mr. Herbertson retorted, obviously quite anxious that the company should know that Mr. Butler was a personal secretary and not secretary to the unwashed masses at large. “And while we’re on the subject, young man, just what are you?”

~The Butterwick Boardinghouse Detectives 

 “What,” Jack inquired, “is THAT?”
“It is a cat,” said Deirdre, a little stiffly. “I have rescued it.”
“From a sausage machine?” Jack dropped his briefcase and bent down for a closer look. The cat snarled at him and batted an indignant, bedraggled paw.
“No indeed, what a horrid thought.” Deirdre scooped the cat up and turned away from Jack. The cat snarled at her and tried to wiggle away. “There’s nothing truly wrong with it—all it needs is a good hot bath and some food.”
“Indeed,” said Jack solemnly. “I should very much like to see you give that cat a hot bath, Miss McSmith.”

~The Butterwick Boardinghouse Detectives 

 Everything in Mrs. Buchran’s office was an uglier shade of yellow than the last item. If the sofa had matched the heavy gold drapes, or the butterscotch candies in the dish, perhaps it would not have been so jarring to look at, but as it was the clashing colors made Sylvia wince.

~The Rochesters 

 “It’s a really pretty room,” she said at last, and bit her tongue immediately afterwards to punish herself for the inanity of the comment. It was not, strictly speaking, a very pretty room. Functional would be a better term. Well, really it might best be described as—
“Oh, please, it’s kind of a mess right now.” Celia grinned. “Actually it’s kind of a mess all the time. We like to keep our stuff on display. Like a museum. See, over there, that’s what most people would call a dresser but we call it the portrait gallery.”
 The bureau was littered with pictures—photographs of each family member, including a young woman whose identity Sylvia could easily guess, along with several drawings in various stages of visibility that seemed to represent dogs.
 “Patsy likes to draw,” Celia explained.
 “They’re cute,” said Sylvia, which was quite true. Whether the pictures were artistic as well as cute was not the question at stake.

 ~The Rochesters 

 “Last year—” Celia began, but Alice interrupted.
“Last year the rule was exactly the same. Come on, now, let’s not have any more nonsense. There are lots of other things to do around here than swim in the lake.”

“I was going to say,” said Celia with dignity, “that last year the rule was the same and no one expired from lake deprivation before the Fourth.” 

~The Rochesters

 “Come on, Francie,” Celia pleaded. 

“It’ll be much more fun if you play,” Sylvia added. 

 “If Frances doesn’t want to play,” said Hilda, who seemed quite bored with the discussion, “then you shouldn’t keep nagging her, Celia.” 

Celia looked as though she were about to say something about how she could handle the nagging of her own sister, thank you very much, but Francie whisked her out of the room and into the hallway before she could speak. 

Sylvia, left alone with Hilda, resisted the urge to say, “Well, this is awkward.” 

~The Rochesters 

Philippe was silent for a moment more, then jabbed the top of her head gently with his chin. “Ah, well, she’ll think you were kidnapped by gypsies, in all likelihood, and she’ll give Chantal a holiday to celebrate.”

Margot laughed, the horse stumbled a little over a stone in the path, and her jaws clicked together on her tongue. She sucked a breath in through her teeth and determined not to squeal over it. “What shall I tell her when she asks where I’ve been?” 

Philippe made an exaggerated, loud thinking noise. “Ummmm… tell her you were kidnapped by gypsies, and it was only the hand of your valiant brother that was able to rescue you from certain death. She’ll be so pleased to see you safe home again and so proud of me for saving you that she’ll never think of scolding either of us.” 

~The Color of the Sky

Unsound Politics and Unaccompanied Bridesmaids

(I've taken to casting Important Articles of Clothing in my stories... in
case anyone's interested, these are the bridesmaid dresses from The Rochesters)

... in other words, Snippets again!

She knew them as soon as she saw them, even though she’d never seen pictures nor had any idea of how they looked. But there was only one group under the station roof that contained four girls of various sizes sporting matching hats, two hatless boys industriously pummeling each other, a book-toting father wearing a winter fedora and a fervently wagging golden retriever with no hat whatsoever.

~The Rochesters

Timmy scrambled into the front seat next to Alice. “What’s an ink wisition?”

“It’s when the government kills you if you aren’t Catholic.” Mark jammed Pumblechook around Francie’s feet, squeezed into what was left of the back seat and slammed the car door.

“Is the government going to kill us because we’re Baptists?” Instead of looking frightened, Timmy seemed merely intrigued.

“Of course not,” said Uncle Gregory, finally sitting down and turning the key in the ignition. “Government neither desires nor dares to interfere in such matters.”

“There must be murder, and the government cares not how much,” replied Alice quite gravely as the car lurched out of the parking lot, and she and Francie and Celia and Uncle Gregory all laughed.

Sylvia had heard quite a bit about Communists in her social studies class, and she began to wonder if perhaps Uncle Gregory had rather unsound ideas about politics.

~The Rochesters

“What difference does it make if you don’t have a groomsman?” Celia inquired. “Mark was probably going to end up walking with me anyways because I’m not as tall as you are. You’ll get George’s cousin just like you were supposed to.”
“Then you’ll be all by yourself,” Francie pointed out.
“I don’t care. Then I don’t have to worry about Mark stepping on me.”
“You aren’t dancing; you’re just walking, for Pete’s sake.”
“Mark steps on people no matter what.”
“He wouldn’t step on you if you didn’t have such big feet—”
“Hush up, can’t you?”
“Ladies!” Alice smacked both hands down on the quilt. “You’re acting like a pair of toddlers. Look, the issue at stake is not that a bridesmaid will walk unaccompanied. Celia can take Pumblechook for all I care.”
“Hey,” complained Celia, miffed.

~The Rochesters

Patsy was poring over a rather blurry picture in the middle section of the newspaper. It depicted a person in a monkey suit of doubtful origin, raising his arms over his head at what was presumably a football game but might have been a Ladies’ Auxiliary Meeting, for all Sylvia could see. The background rather resembled a mishmash of black and white shapes.

“That’s the President,” Patsy remarked, startling Sylvia, who thought Patsy had not noticed her presence.

~The Rochesters

“I’ll give you a leg up.” Bernard clasped his hands to form a stirrup. “Fina, you and Mareta stay here while I take Margot out and teach her Ezekiel’s tricks, and then you can have a turn.”

Doubt threatened to smother Fina’s smile, but she took Mareta’s hand obligingly and stepped aside. Margot was inclined to follow. She had no desire to ride a mule, nor to learn anything about the “tricks” he might possess. Cooking over a spattering fire began to sound far more appealing than it had this morning, and she was tempted to refuse Bernard and flee back to Magali.

~The Color of the Sky

Mareta’s gaze shifted to Fina, on the ground not far away, holding little Zacharias on her lap. The two seemed equally enamored of each other: Zacharias charmed by the attention showered upon him and Fina satisfied with this child who saw nothing different in her, no inadequacy or deficiency. Mareta smiled as she watched them together and Margot found herself smiling too.

How long has it been since I’ve smiled thus?

~The Color of the Sky

It was the girl’s near lack of eyebrows, Margot decided, that brought her eyes into such focus.   You could not help but look at them, without the distraction of the dark lines above that most people had.  

~The Color of the Sky

Flecks of gold were swallowed up

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

~Anton Chekhov

The Penslayer has challenged, and I'm up for it.

Description, as I said in my last post, is hard for me.  Hardest of all is that elusive thing called describing your characters.  Sure, it can be done easily enough.  "Margot was sixteen years old.  She was tallish and had long dark brown hair, dark brown eyes and a pointy kind of chin.  You are now getting verrrrrry sleeeeeeepy..." (Or at least you will be quite soon if I continued on in such a fashion.)

If I wanted to read flat, flavorless here's-what-she-looked-like description, I'd go back to first grade and re-read Peter and Jane literature.  It's description, yes.  It serves the purpose, yes.  But it's not done well.  And though I'm not the one to pass judgment on what has been done well, I can read--as can all of you--and I can see for myself--as can all of you--when something has not been done well.

This is where I should stick in the disclaimer about how I don't think my description is very good and blah-de-blah, but the thing is-- I actually think the following descriptions are pretty good and I'll tell you why in a moment.  (Um, I will disclaim that everything's subject to lots and lots of editing and this is only the first draft and more blah-de-blahs that you aren't interested in.)  The serious ones from Sky come first and then at the end I couldn't resist sticking in a tidbit from The Butterwick Boardinghouse Detectives.

Philippe wasn’t any taller. His face was just as it had always been—a little more lined and thin, perhaps—and he still had the tiny, smooth scar on his chin from that mock duel with his friend Pierre when he was fourteen. His voice was the same, his hair had kept its curl—though the color seemed closer to dirt than sand at present—and he still squinted much longer than necessary when he came inside after bright sun. And yet something was different, something Margot couldn’t put into words for Fina and wouldn't have wanted to.

In this paragraph that begins Sky's second chapter, I introduced Philippe through Margot's perspective.  Her brother has been away for nearly a year, and so she naturally looks at him with an almost critical gaze, hoping that he'll be exactly the same.  (Of course he isn't--no one is after eleven months--but that doesn't stop Margot from hoping that he might be unchanged.)  In this paragraph, you learn that Philippe has blond but rather dirty hair with a bit of curl to it, that his face is thin with crinkles around his eyes and he has a scar on his chin.  Yet it's more interesting to read about in the snippet than in that boring sentence.

It had taken Margot far too long to reconcile herself to the emptiness in her sister’s eyes. Amber had turned to mud, radiance to shadows. Flecks of gold had been swallowed up in a mist that never faded under the sun—because it could not see the sun.

I've told you before that Fina is blind, but in that sense you have an advantage over the someday-reader of Sky.  Because I haven't yet told the reader in so many words that Fina can't see.  I've chosen instead to hint at it (later there will be a flashback in which Margot remembers the fever that took Fina's eyesight) and for now I only refer to her blindness sparingly.  But in this case, I used it to tell the reader what color Fina's eyes are--how they used to be, and how they are now.

Mareta’s hand found Margot’s, and her chin trembled like an arrow in the hand of a frightened archer. Sweat slipped from her palm and clung to Margot’s. “I need more water,” she said, quite clearly and without the slightest touch of anxiety. Her voice, after all, was what soothed the baby’s tears and comforted him during the fever-dreams. She could not allow it to slip and let in fear or alarm.

Mareta is, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful character in my story, yet I've been hesitant to tell the reader how she looks.  (If you're curious, take a gander at the picture on the top left.)  Mareta is the kind of woman who radiates beauty from the inside out, however, and it's that shining inner loveliness that I've tried to communicate through the way she moves and speaks.  Even in the snippet above, where she's dealing with a desperately sick child, she keeps her composure and manages to appear calm when she does not feel so.

And then just because writing nonsense is fun (and fun is good)...

Then came the day when Jack was clunked on the head by that all-knowing specter called Realization, who informed him that Deirdre was a very beautiful person and then proceeded to follow up the clunk with several not-so-gentle whunks and thunks to punish him for not being clunked at an earlier date. The whunks and thunks also served to remind poor battered Jack of the exact shade of dark brown manifested in Deirdre’s eyes and the precise filter of light that made itself known through her hair when she wore it down. However, he was so busy apologizing to Realization for being such a knobble-head that he didn’t bother to think about what nice cheekbones she had until three AM when he was trying to go to sleep and it was too late to ring her up and tell her so.

The feeling of being rained upon

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. 

~E. L. Doctorow

Fina is not the protagonist of The Color of the Sky.  She is only the younger sister of the protagonist, and at first glance might not seem of great import.  Blinded from a fever two years before the story begins, Fina can see nothing for herself, but instead relies on her sister Margot to see things for her.  Fina's deep appreciation for beauty leads her to constantly ask Margot to describe their surroundings, to tell her exactly how the sunset looks tonight and what kind of birds are wheeling in the sky above them.

Margot struggles with describing these things to Fina, exactly mirroring the way I constantly struggle to give an accurate picture of the beauty (or ugliness, or somewhere-in-between) in which my characters find themselves.  Because people.  Description is hard.

I've read so many wonderful books that seem to perfectly nail the tricky task of telling it like it is... The Yearling comes to mind, as do A Tale of Two Cities and The Bronze Bow.  These stories were all blessed with authors who knew how to marry the right words, to use just enough adjectives for coloring and just enough adverbs for seasoning.  And yet there's still another Book that has even greater word-pictures within it, one that wouldn't have immediately sprung to mind if you had asked me to name a piece of writing that evoked a beautiful sensation.

See, I was always a little scared of the latter books in the Old Testament.  Hosea, Joel, Amos and ObadiahJonahMicah were lumped together like HIJKelemenoP in the alphabet song.  And Ezekiel and Daniel?  Well, Daniel was good reading in the first half, but after that when the prophecies began... it was over my head.  I'd understand it all when I got older.

That was the excuse I hid behind for many a day.  In truth the excuse was roughly shaped like a very slender and spiky tree, and I resembled a child about twice the width of the trunk who blissfully believed that she was perfectly concealed behind the spindly branches.   Then came January 2012 and my resolution to read the entire Bible in one year.  Which meant the minor prophets.  And Ezekiel and Daniel.  (Also Song of Solomon which I'd always steered clear of because it embarrassed me in places, and Leviticus with all the laws... my goodness, I'm being quite candid tonight, aren't I?)

When I began Ezekiel in July, I was in for a surprise.  Sure, there were plenty of passages I didn't understand.   Yes, the Dry Bones song started running through my head as soon as I began chapter 37.  But it was chapter 27 that really arrested me, that stopped me in my dutiful plowing, that made me sit up and take notice (and a pen to underline) and truly love the words for the beautiful things that they were.  Pictures soared through my head like never before.

It was amazing.

See, I'm a pastor's daughter.  I'm a good girl, I am; I know my Bible.  My parents raised me to study the Word of God from a very young age, and I'm incredibly grateful for their patient teaching.  But there are times when human instruction doesn't cut it, when a book or chapter or verse can't be comprehended unless God speaks in a special way.  This was one of the special times.

I mean, look at these verses.  It's not poetry.  (I'm not too keen on poetry.)  It's prose--lovely, picture-filled, emotive, vibrant prose breathed by the Creator himself.  It's awe-inspiring.

Thus saith the Lord God; O Tyrus, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty.

Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty.

They have made all thy ship boards of fir trees of Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee.

There, a sweeping picture of the wealth of nations.

Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim.

Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.

Colors dazzling in the sun... 

The men of Arvad with thine army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadims were in thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they have made thy beauty perfect.

There, an image of soldiers from far away glorifying this city.

Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making: they occupied in thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate.

Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm.

Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool.

Dan also and Javan going to and fro occupied in thy fairs: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in thy market.

Dedan was thy merchant in precious clothes for chariots...

These were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise.

A marketplace of rich color.  Can't you just see it?  But now, of a sudden, the downfall of this great bustling metropolis...

All thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin.

The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots.

And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land; and shall cause their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes: and they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing.

Suddenly the mood has changed, has turned into fear and lamentation and a chill starts to spread.

 And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea? ... The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more.

And the end.  Tragedy.  A city that would not give glory to the One who created it was reduced to a pile of rubble: a terror that never would be any more.

Are you shivering yet?
I am.

I have portions of that chapter copied in my notebook now.  Doomed Tyrus has nothing to do with fourteenth-century Provence.  I'm not writing about a city that rejected God; I'm not writing about a city at all.  There are few, if any, bustling marketplaces in Color of the Sky, and the people concerned in my story don't trade in fine broidered linen or elephant tusks.

Yet the images, the sense, the mood, the overall whoosh (to use a cop-out onomatopoeia) that I get from reading Ezekiel 27 is just what I--and Margot--struggle to convey to the reader--and Fina--in Sky.  I can see, and so can Margot.  I can write, and Margot can speak.  But to put into articulate speech the glory that can only be seen with the eyes--to give the feeling of being rained upon and not merely state that it is raining--that is the hard part.

They might awaken to dazzling sunrise on snow, for instance, and as soon as Margot would joyfully open her mouth to describe it, the snow would turn to pale water and the sun to pitiful candlelight on her tongue.  Capturing brilliance with words was, she often thought, like cutting through iron with a silk ribbon.

~The Color of the Sky

1,000 Daily Challenge: Day Six

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.

~Victor Hugo

During this week, I've listened to an awful lot of music.  Instrumental pieces, especially movie soundtracks, really help to get my creative juices flowing.  (Why is it called creative juice?  Juice is not particularly creative.  Why not creative Hawaiian punch?  Now that's creative.  Disgusting, but creative.)

You can see my generalized writing playlist here.  I'm working on compiling specific, customized playlists for each of my WIPs, but they're not finished yet.  So this week I just listened to that one and skipped the songs that didn't fit the mood of what I was writing.  Some of my favorites for Sky include Victoria and Albert (#27 on playlist), I've Seen Hell (#32),  Braveheart End Credits (#37), The Riders of Rohan (#39), Memories Can Weigh You Down (#43), Return of the Lion (#48) and Tara's Theme (#59).

What do you like to listen to when you write?

Snippets from today's work (all written while listening to the above songs)...

Margot couldn’t help but complain inwardly that Mother had never made a mistake in directing the servants the whole time the men were gone. Yet as soon as Philippe came back, everyone suddenly snapped to attention and bowed and scraped and scuttled out of his way, giving him far more respect than Mother had ever commanded.

But of course Mother hadn’t commanded anyone’s respect, whereas Philippe snapped his fingers and respect dropped into his lap.

“They’ll get out. They’re probably out already. Philippe’s rounding up the men from the village and they’ll capture all those idiotic bandits before the hour’s out. You’ll see.” Speaking firmly gave Margot a strength she did not feel.

Her hand was trembling as she pounded on the door. How odd—she hadn’t noticed that until now. Her other hand was shaking as well. In fact, her whole body was trembling. Perhaps it was an effect of the smoke.

“Perhaps they’re fighting the fire,” said Fina hopefully.

Margot held her breath, willing that gesture to somehow quell the nauseous dread rising up in her. “I’ve seen no one going to fight the fire, Fina. The road is empty.”

So how did you do this week?  My total is 7, 158 words.  For a girl who's been averaging 300-500 words a week until now, I call that good progress...  

...but that doesn't mean I'm doing it again next week.  

1,000 Daily Challenge: Day Five

{This is the post that was supposed to appear on Friday, but I got too busy.}

Originally, when I began this challenge, I intended to write in all three of my WIP's this week.  However, after just one day of working on Rochesters, I pretty much abandoned my other two darlings and focused all my energies on Sky.  (Yes, I abbreviate compulsively.)  The poor Detectives never even had a chance.  Oh well, their time will come.  I rather consider Detectives to be my "kick back and relax" story.  It's so very nonsensical and doesn't really require much brainpower.  Just silliness.

But yesterday [Friday] I worked on Sky again (surprise!) and found myself struggling this time with bringing out what my characters are trying to say.  The two that are bothering me the most are Margot and Philippe, because neither of them are particularly open about their feelings.  In the 1,186 words I wrote, neither sibling had much dialogue.  This was partly because there was a good deal of narrative, and partly because I honestly couldn't imagine what they were supposed to be saying.  I would rather do anything than marry without affection write words for my characters that are not their own.

Have you encountered this?  Have you faced an emotion-packed scene that requires you to write what people are feeling and thinking (perhaps not in their own words, but in your own as narrator, at least) and you just don't know how to go about it?  I can't possibly be the only one.  What do you do about it?

Philippe propped his chin in the palm of his hand. He said nothing for a moment, and when he finally did speak, it was softly and hesitantly. 

 “I don’t even know why we went. How much better it would have been for him to die here, among his family, and to be buried in his own, rightful grave with a decent funeral.”

“But you went for healing from the saint.” Margot hadn’t spoken throughout the entire meal, but now she gave Philippe a quizzical look. “I’m sure there would have been healing if you had only gotten there in time.”

“So it’s my fault, then, Margot?” Philippe raised his eyes from their blank stare at the bowl of cheese to Margot’s startled face. “If we had only left earlier or traveled faster, he would have lived? If I had taken better care of him, he might have made it to Canterbury, is that what you mean?”

How dare he twist her words in such a way? She hadn’t meant that at all.

~chapter two

1,000 Daily Challenge: Day Four

Sorry this one is a day late! I didn't get on the computer yesterday evening, so although I finished my writing quota for the day, I hadn't the time to blog about it. But here I am now, trying to find a funnier idiom than "better late than never" and failing miserably.

Yesterday was another new experience for me.  Color of the Sky has been all about new experiences so far, I think.  (It's a genre so different from anything I've written before, how could it be otherwise?)  Until yesterday, I'd never written anything serious about danger or terror.  My stories have always been so happy-go-lucky, but yesterday I dabbled for the first time in cold perspiration.  (Ewww.  Bad choice of words there...)

It's pretty different, writing about fear.  I've written embarrassment, I've written anger, I've written nervousness and apprehension-- but never sweating, shaking terror.  The scene I had to write was hard.  There are parts of it that I don't like at all.  But I can rework it later.  And you're probably tired of hearing the "just keep writing and edit later" mantra so I'll stop that.

I made it to 1,182 yesterday, and when I was finished I felt almost as drained as the characters themselves.  It's not easy, trying to figure out how much to include and how much to leave to the reader's imagination.  What to describe and what to state as simple fact.  How much drama to put in and how much numbness.  Whether to lighten the mood with a touch of humor or save it for another, more appropriate time.  (I agonized over that one and eventually went with the second.  There's a time and place for everything, and jokes aren't usually appreciated when you're being attacked by bandits.)

But then, nobody ever said writing was easy.  Or if they did, they lied.  (That sounds profound and deep, but I really stole it off a refrigerator magnet.  Refrigerator magnets tend to sound like that.)

Sometimes when she could not sleep, Margot would make lists in her head—lists of the tasks she wanted to accomplish the next day, lists of ideas for a story she would tell Fina, lists of her favorite things. The last list was practically never-ending. Tonight, however, she was in the mood to list all the things she particularly hated. Scratchy blankets, thistles in one’s foot, soured milk and brothers who did not care were battling it out for the top spot when she became aware of a steady thudding sound from below.

Voices drifted upwards, voices speaking a rough peasant form of the Occitan dialect. Margot could only hear a few words, and those she heard were not the kind Mother would have wanted her to hear. She was tempted to clamp her hands over Fina’s innocent ears, but she was too frightened to move.

Somehow it seemed safer to cower by the window instead of on the bed.

“Are you praying, Margot?” Obediently, Fina slung an arm around Margot’s shoulders and gripped the windowsill with her other.

“As hard as ever I can, at least I was until now—I can’t concentrate and do that at the same time, so you pray while I tell you where to step.”

The most horrible part was flinging her leg over the sill and finding nothing but soft, yielding air all around. After that, once her foot found a tough and solid vine, it got easier.

Before she could even begin to formulate an idea as to what to do next, a new sound struck her ears—one that made her blood run colder than it ever had during any of Chantal’s ghost stories.

1,000 Daily Challenge: Day Three

Today I had the fun of introducing a new character to The Color of the Sky.  Until today, the only people who had put in real appearances in the story (and did not merely show up in fragments under my "Things to be added later" section) were Margot and Fina (the sisters around whom the story revolves), their mother, Philippe (their brother) and Chantal (an elderly maidservant).  But today I was privileged enough to write two scenes that featured Bernard Anthoine.  And the act gave me great pleasure, great pleasure indeed.  Because, you see, Bernard's been formulating in my mind for some time (and I character cast him as soon as I thought of him... see below... cough, cough) but until today I had yet to commit him to Word document.

That's not Ivanhoe.  That's Bernard.
Except that he doesn't wear chain mail. 

Snapping twigs crackled in the bracken, and Margot’s heart had barely enough time to speed up before a dirt-streaked man ducked under a low-hanging branch and was facing them. Running would be futile, she was sure. Besides, he had a bow slung from one shoulder. She wondered how much an arrow would hurt, and how long it would take for them to die.

Beside her, Fina stiffened. The disturbance of the underbrush and Margot’s sudden silence spoke volumes—she knew there was danger. Her hand groped slowly but surely for Margot’s and clasped it. The mild pain of Fina’s fingernails digging into her palm brought Margot to her senses. Whatever might happen, she could not stand here staring into this fellow’s deer-brown eyes all day long. If he killed them, he killed them. So be it. At least they would not have to suffer hunger pangs any longer.

“What is your business here?” She tried to make her voice as authoritative as possible, aping Philippe’s most stentorian tones.

“My business here?” The man stood up straight, pushing swaying leaves away from his face and tugging a stray one from his tousled blond hair, but he touched neither his bow nor the knife at his belt. “My business is to do a bit of hunting for my family—perhaps a better question would be to ask what business two maids have out here, unescorted.” There was no anger or threat in his voice, merely interest.

“And if we are unescorted? What is it to you?” Margot squeezed Fina’s hand so hard she could hear the bones creak, and hastily she loosened her grip.

“Nothing whatsoever,” said the man, smile lines creasing the corners of his mouth and eyes. “Only that I should not like to see you come to any harm. These woods are not the safest place to be out alone, you know.”

Margot narrowed her eyes. His face had a weatherbeaten kindness about it, and he had still not reached for his bow. Perhaps—just perhaps—he did not intend to kill and eat them after all. (Just when her terrified imaginings had expanded to include cannibalism she did not know, but it was at least slight relief to know that he did not intend to do anything of the sort at present.)

~The Color of the Sky, chapter three

Oh, and final count for today is 1,057.  I wasn't aiming for 1500 today.  No, seriously! I wasn't!

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!

Beautiful People {Archive Edition}: Philippe

 Every time I write a story, I tell myself that I'm not going to play favorites on this go-round.  And every time, I find myself inexpressibly drawn to a certain character (or two).  Rodney and Lavinia tied in Only a Novel, Francie is becoming my new best friend in The Rochesters, Deirdre fascinates me no end in The Butterwick Boardinghouse Detectives, and now I'm beginning to favor Philippe over any other character in The Color of the Sky.  So I've fished another Beautiful People questionnaire out of the archives, and you're all probably tired of hearing me gush about how helpful these are, so I'll skip the advertisement and get to the Real Thing.

How old is he?

Philippe's about twenty-two or twenty-three.  I'm not exactly sure.

What does he do with his spare time?

This question bugs me.  I'm not quite sure Philippe has what you'd call spare time.  The fact is that at the beginning he's trying his hardest to fill his deceased father's shoes by running the manor house and bossing the laborers and arranging his sisters' futures.  Then SOMETHING happens and he's notably absent for a good part of the book, and while he's missing in action (cough, cough-- literally--cough) he's basically trying to stay alive.  So yeah... spare time?  What's that?

Does he see the big picture or live in the moment?

Philippe wants desperately to see the big picture, but he's not yet sure what that is.  He's stuck in the moment right now and though he'd never admit it to anyone, he has a gnawing fear that there's nothing beyond the moment. (Pardon my speaking in riddles... all will be revealed in good time.)

Is he a perfectionist?

You better believe it.


What does his handwriting look like? (round, slanted, curly, skinny, sloppy, neat, decorative, etc.)

Philippe doesn't write much.  I'm not sure if he even knows how.  I have to do a little more research about 13th-century literacy levels.

Ignore the suit, okay? It's hard finding medieval-
style photos that don't include armor, people.

Favorite animal?

Sometimes he's convinced all men are merely animals.

Does he/she have any pets?

Um, he has a horse.  Which he pets.  Occasionally.

Does he have any siblings? How many? Where does he fit in?

Philippe has two younger sisters, Margot and Fina.  He had three brothers and another sister, as well, but three of them died as infants and one as a toddler.  As for fitting in-- he doesn't.  Margot and Fina have a special relationship into which he's not invited, and just between you and me, that hurts him a little.  Not that he has time for that kind of nonsense of course, but still... he'd probably kill me if he knew I was telling you this, so I'll stop.  And I realize that I probably interpreted the last question a little differently than I was supposed to, but what are rules for if you can't bend them occasionally?  (Don't let Philippe hear me say that either, or I'd be the one getting booted off to a convent.)

Does he have a 'life verse' and if so what is it?

That.  Would be telling.  So I won't.


Favorite writing utensil?

Can we change this to "favorite eating utensil" so that I can respond with "his fingers"?  Yay for medieval table manners.

Are you still alive, Philippe?

I'm linking up with Rosamund Gregory's character letters for the very first time.  Oddly enough, I've chosen a character who can't read or write for this first letter, but I chose her because I want to get to know her better (and what better way than to get directly inside her head?).  So though this letter will never be written down, never sent, never read by Philippe, here is the letter Margot composes in her head to her older brother.  Even in her thoughts, Margot frequently rearranges what she wants to say, which will account for the multitude of strike-throughs in this letter.  The fact that Margot and Philippe's relationship is rocky at best will account for the rearranging of Margot's thoughts.

Margot's handwriting is nonexistent (as I said, she doesn't even know how to write), as is her stationery, and she doesn't doodle in the margins because she has no paper on which to doodle.  Even if she did have paper, she wouldn't waste it in doodling, though.  I'm not sure what she'd do with it.  Maybe she'd give it to Philippe, just as she wishes she could give this letter, but of course there's no way to do that.  

Dear Phillipe
Hello, Philippe
Philippe,

Are you still alive?

Are you coming to find us?

If I say nothing else here, I must say that at least.  Fina and I are safe-- I hope I'm sure you'll be glad to know that.  We're in a village I've never seen, a place I'd never even heard of... but of course I know so little of the surrounding villages.  I don't know how far we are from home.  We walked for so long that horrible night, but I have no idea how much distance we covered.

The people who found us are good, I think.  They are gentle and kind, and one young woman especially has become attached to Fina.  They have told us we may stay with them, but I do not know what to do, nor indeed what to think of them.  I do not know who they are, exactly-- their manner of living is like the gypsies that came to the manor last year, but these people do not steal as the gypsies did.  They make their living, so far as I can see, as tinkers, traveling from village to village with no fixed destination.

All this is not really so strange, I suppose, but the oddest of it all is their religion.  I'd never met a real live heretic before, and I always imagined them to be great brute beasts with horns, but these travelers look just like you and me.  Yet their beliefs--though neither pagan nor occult--are in direct disobedience to the holy Church, and I fear that Fina and I may be tainted if we stay with them.  Of course we do not listen to their heresies, and we try our best to shut our ears when they recite their prayers around the fire each night.  But might we, too, be condemned (as they will surely be) from association with them?  Why am I even asking you?  You are the one constantly searching for answers.  You are the one who went on a pilgrimage.  But I do not think you came back with any more answers than when you left, now did you?  

I do not know what to think.  All I know is that we must get away.

I miss you terribly I should like to see you again.  Each night as I lie awake I think over the last words I spoke to you, and I wish so much that I could take them back I would like to apologize for what I said.  I know you only want what is best for me  Perhaps you did not mean to be so autocratic.

I know you'll come for us, Philippe-- you wouldn't abandon your sisters, would you, if you could possibly avoid it?  Please still be alive I'm sure you must be all right.  They wouldn't dare to capture you or harm you in any way, would they?

Please come, please come, as soon as you can I look forward to seeing you again.
We need you. 
I need some answers.
I miss you.  Fina misses you.

With love,
Your sister,
Margot

What kind of a person doesn't give hugs?

You know the post I wrote a few days ago about actually finishing something this July?

Scratch that.

Yes, yes, that sounded defeatist.  I know.  But it isn't, honestly and truly.  It's just that finishing something really isn't my goal this July.  Rather, my goal is to begin something.  Some things, I should say.

There are currently three main ideas swirling around in my head, and I'm itching to get them down somehow, to start each story and let it begin to flow.  And right now, I don't want to tie myself down with an accomplishment goal.  I just want to write what I want to write.  Yes, I'm going to work on The Rochesters.  But I'm also going to work on The Butterwick Boardinghouse Detectives.  And possibly The Color of the Sky [vewy, VEWY tentative title there].  And you are going to be hearing a whole lot more about each of those projects.

So, to celebrate these beginnings, I give you July Snippets, paired with pictures that have been inspiring me lately.  (Most of the images are snagged from friends' Pinterest boards.  I don't own anything, nor am I making money of this, yada yada yada.)


“Oh, quite, quite.” Mr. Payter buried his face in his coffee cup. A sip or two of the honeyed coffee covered his embarrassment and he was ready to converse again. Most people do not put honey in their coffee, but if you tried to tell that to Mr. J. Paxton Payter, he would merely fix you with a stern and quizzical eye and demand why that prevented him from doing so.

~The Butterwick Boardinghouse Detectives

This highly interesting conversation (which, if you did not find interesting, you should go back and re-read in order to better develop your sense of humor) took place at a largish sort of dining table in a smallish sort of boardinghouse in a smallish sort of city. The name of the city is none of your business. If I did tell you its name, you would be on the next subway in no time flat, speeding your way towards the boardinghouse so you could get a hold of Miss McSmith for an interview and possibly even some photographs.

~The Butterwick Boardinghouse Detectives

“Sylvia Lemmins, you’re wanted in the headmistress’s office.” The buck-toothed fourth grader who delivered this ominous message stared eagerly around the ninth-grade classroom, hoping that her statement would induce the kind of awed titters and whisperings that it would have in her own classroom. To her intense disappointment, the ninth-graders merely glanced up from their maps and regarded her with something akin to annoyance.

~The Rochesters

Mrs. Buchran’s office had always smelled rather oddly of butterscotch candies, the golden oval Brach’s kind that took forever to suck and made your mouth feel quite bland for a good while afterwards.

~The Rochesters

Celia regarded Mark with her best Miss Manners look. “Please at least pretend you're civilized and close your gaping mouth. It’s open so wide I can see your tonsils.”
Mark snorted. “No you can’t. I had them taken out two years ago.”

~The Rochesters

Celia’s voice dropped to an awed whisper. “And then he said… you know… A Word.”
Alice raised an eyebrow. She did not ask what the word was, but Celia went ahead as if she had.
“You know. The word… the word Rhett Butler doesn’t give.”
If it were physiologically possible for Timmy’s ears to prick up, they would have pricked up. “What doesn’t Rhett Butler give?”
“Hugs,” said Alice quickly. “He doesn’t give hugs.”
Francie snorted.
“Well, he doesn’t,” said Alice.
Timmy wrinkled his nose. “What kind of person doesn’t give hugs?”

~The Rochesters

More than anything, she wanted to relax and lean back against the prickly plush seat, maybe even tuck her feet under her or draw her knees up to her chin. But such a thing was, of course, unthinkable. The train was too crowded with people. Maybe some of these people even knew Uncle Gregory—anything was possible. No, she wouldn’t disgrace her newfound family by behaving unimpeachably on the train.

~The Rochesters

But best of all were the days when Margot would pause before she spoke to drink in the smell of the sun on the earth. “It’s a blue sky today,” she’d say, and wait for Fina’s inevitable question.
“What kind of blue?”
“Rich blue, royal blue, a blue for a princess, and golden sun warming the blue and deepening it.”
Fina would find her way to the window and they would stand together, letting the sun warm their eyelids until Alienor came and the day had to begin.

~The Color of the Sky

“Souci’s eyes are your favorite blue,” Margot whispered.
Fina leaned closer. “Tell me about them.”
She grasped for words, but nothing came. “I—I don’t think I can.”
“Deep blue? Or pale?”
“Deep, very deep, nearly as deep as the shawl she wears.”
“I cannot see the shawl she wears.”
Helpless, Margot shook her head. “It is blue with a green thread running throughout… and a tiny touch of silver.”
“And her eyes are like that?”
“Yes, in a way.”
Fina sighed. “And her hair?”
“So black as to be almost blue when the light touches it.”
“Is everything around us blue, then?”
Margot leaned back against the tree trunk and gazed up through the leaves. “Yes… almost.”

~The Color of the Sky

Fina drew in a sharp breath. “You cannot read for yourself the… the Holy Scriptures of our Lord.” The words came out as little more than breath, but even the flames’ crackle kept no one from hearing.
“And why should I not?” Henri’s face was turned toward Fina, though his eyes searched the fire. “They are the words of God, breathed by Him alone—and am not I a man, whose very life was also breathed by God alone?”

~The Color of the Sky