A Life of Crime and Chocolate

GailD

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This thread has gotten way too quiet...

Psst. Like my American? Gotten.

...so here's something to cheer you all up.


images



:D
 

WordCount

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This thread has gotten way too quiet...

Psst. Like my American? Gotten.

...so here's something to cheer you all up.


images



:D


I second that! Way too quiet in here!

Let's discuss something; how are all of your WIPs coming along?
 

GailD

Still chasing plot bunnies.
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I second that! Way too quiet in here!

Let's discuss something; how are all of your WIPs coming along?

:D

WordCount. You lighted up the thread with that post!

See! More Americanese! Oxford English would say, 'You lit up the thread'.

Oh, the joys of writing for an American audience. :D Their humo
ur is so colourful it can brighten up a greay day. :D
 

Shakesbear

knows a hawk from a handsaw
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GailD that cake is pure evil! I wants it I do!

WordCount my WIP is coming along very nicely thank'ee.
 

heyjude

Making my own sunshine
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Oo! Lovely cake!

Great question, WordCount. I'm struggling with mine. More struggling to write than with the WIP, if that makes sense. I haven't been motivated for a while now. I think the rejections are getting to me a bit...

How's your WIP, Word?
 

WordCount

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Oo! Lovely cake!

Great question, WordCount. I'm struggling with mine. More struggling to write than with the WIP, if that makes sense. I haven't been motivated for a while now. I think the rejections are getting to me a bit...

How's your WIP, Word?


Heh. Which one?

I'm trying to start a short-story series with a hardboiled detective that I love writing about. Having some difficulty with the second addition.

Trying an SF mystery, and having difficulty with all the Techno-babble nonsense. If I were a Star Trek writer, I'd have to set my phaser to kill, on myself!

Recently re-delved into screenwriting. Prose is more entertaining, but screenwriting comes more naturally to me, and my product is usually better. Only problem is, my spec scripts are for shows that've been cancelled for years...(not worth much to an agent if I wanted one, eh?)

Currently saturating the mystery market until they pick up one story. Anyone know a good, paying market for a hardboiled short-story other than AHMM and EQMM. EQMM has rejected the story already, and AHMM only accepts postal submissions (same with Strand Magazine). Postal=too much b.s.
 

GailD

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Outline done on new WIP as I get ready to send out queries on the old one. I'm supposed to distract myself during the waiting, right?

Gail, can I have your left over 'u's?

:roll:U want upper case or lower case?

Halfway through the first draft of my wip I was struggling to remember the American spelling of certain words. Then it dawned on me to switch over to US spelling in Word. You wouldn't believe the number of 'u's that leapt out at me from above those wavy red lines. :D

humo r
.......u

tumo r
......u

rumo r
......u

hono r
......u

favo rite
.....u

savio r
.......u

... to mention just a few.

:D
 

Zelenka

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My WIP's a SF mystery as well, but going pretty much nowhere. I'm trying the soldier on approach and seeing if maybe, somewhere down the road, I'll figure what's wrong with it, rather than stopping all the time and rewriting, trying to sort it. Starting to worry I just have no talent for character at all, because that's what's bugging me. I have a good sense of the guy but don't seem to have the skill to get that across in words.

Other than that, have a few side projects that I dabble with when I get overly frustrated with the main project, one high fantasy and the other a semi-cozy mystery. And I'm working on the synopsis for my proposal for the screenwriting course, now that I know what I'm going to send them.
 

Namatu

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Gail, I would like the recipe for that cake. Oh, who am I kidding? Please mail the cake to me. I'll share. I swear.

My WIP: I'm more than halfway through. Since I started out writing any scene that came to me before going back and sticking to chronological, I'm writing the early middle now and am about to reach a series of scenes that will pole vault me into the late middle. I have some concerns, and I can't gauge yet whether they're legitimate. In my write-in-any-order approach, I skipped the action scenes so I kind of feel like there's not enough action happening in the middle. I'm sure I'll find a way to attempt to kill my MC again some time soon. :D But it's a niggle in the back of my brain.
 

mccardey

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As of this moment, New Book is 1647 words long.

This makes me very happy, because I remember when Old Book was about this long, and that had a happy ending. (The process, I mean. The actual book - not-so-much... But thrillers are like that.)


ETA: In fact - I'm so happy, I'm going to go for a little walk through the vineyards to a tiny ancient village up on a nearby hill. By the time I get there, the evening bells will be ringing. *sigh* I love you, France.


:Hug2: <- me and France
 
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Marya

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Sounds lovely maccardey -- I also walk through vineyards out here in the Cape and the olive trees in my garden have fat blackening olives.

Read a good LRB article on how Angela Carter could drive narrative through all kinds of mythological prisms and push it to extremes. I need to tackle my wild tokolosh story with more courage.
 

heyjude

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Gail, I would like the recipe for that cake. Oh, who am I kidding? Please mail the cake to me. I'll share. I swear.

::puts on stern face:: Your imaginary friend does not count.

I had a breakthrough on my WIP on the way to the vet today! Woo-hoo! Seems like it will all work the way I want it to... ::evil laugh:: Which means heartache and despair for my MC.
 

Zelenka

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You know it's weird, but soon as I post on here that I have trouble, I get an idea for my WIP. So I think I will try again because I think I've sussed it this time. But I still need a decent partner for my MC. Very glad I bought my special notebooks because they're all scribbled over now!
 

WordCount

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You know it's weird, but soon as I post on here that I have trouble, I get an idea for my WIP. So I think I will try again because I think I've sussed it this time. But I still need a decent partner for my MC. Very glad I bought my special notebooks because they're all scribbled over now!

I imagined my detective's partner as Danny Devito and described him as: "four foot, seven inches, with a gut folding boldly over his waistline."

Ah, sidekicks. That's where I get my kicks.
 

Zelenka

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I imagined my detective's partner as Danny Devito and described him as: "four foot, seven inches, with a gut folding boldly over his waistline."

Ah, sidekicks. That's where I get my kicks.

I figured the one I had thought was the scientist / advisor is actually the sidekick / forensics guy instead, so my sidekick is now a long-haired 1980s fanatic that dresses like Adam Ant and fronts a 'New New Romantic' band in his spare time (the story's set in 2069).

I've actually gone back to my original idea for this story, that I had wayyyy back, and so it's now set on the moon again, and the MC has changed nationality, and there's a whole new murder and different suspects, but I get to put all my cool scenes out on the lunar surface back in again, and all the research I did on pathology of victims of space accidents!
 

WordCount

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I figured the one I had thought was the scientist / advisor is actually the sidekick / forensics guy instead, so my sidekick is now a long-haired 1980s fanatic that dresses like Adam Ant and fronts a 'New New Romantic' band in his spare time (the story's set in 2069).

I've actually gone back to my original idea for this story, that I had wayyyy back, and so it's now set on the moon again, and the MC has changed nationality, and there's a whole new murder and different suspects, but I get to put all my cool scenes out on the lunar surface back in again, and all the research I did on pathology of victims of space accidents!


That's so. freaking. cool.

Nice idea, Zelenka. Best wishes on making it all work. It definitely sounds like a hard story to write.
 

GailD

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Sounds lovely maccardey -- I also walk through vineyards out here in the Cape and the olive trees in my garden have fat blackening olives.

Read a good LRB article on how Angela Carter could drive narrative through all kinds of mythological prisms and push it to extremes. I need to tackle my wild tokolosh story with more courage.

Hi Marya!! I started reading this post and thought, gee that sounds like it could be the Western Cape (S. Africa) then I got to the 'tokolosh story' and I knew!!!

Wow. :hi: So nice to see you here. :)




Namatu. That cake has been boxed, bubble-wrapped and airmailed to you. You don't even have to share. Plenty more where that came from. :D (And I've got Susie to back me up on that.)
 

Marya

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Oh Gail, good to connect with you! And there I was, thinking that nobody would know anything about my little African leprechaun, or tokolosh.

When I was growing up in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, everyone talked about tokoloshes as if they were just samanga monkeys or chameleons and I was 15 before I realised they didn't 'exist' on the same plane of reality as the rest of us.

A couple of years ago, I was at a dinner party in the Welsh marches, close to where the Elizabethan magician Dr John Dee lived and the guests were talking about his 'familiars', a cat named Greymalkin (what else?) and a black crow. I wondered what would happen if someone brought along a tokolosh to a gathering of British amateur magicians.

So far I have three wonderful scenes and then it all goes down the kitchen sink -- but let me persist.

Good finding you here.