Favorite lines you've written

eruthford

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She looks out of her apartment through the television to see rare things – glamour, light and excitement.

I, on the other hand, look in this seventh-floor flat in a block built during the Brezhnev era as something rare, a shelter, a safe place where I like to go because there, no one wants to shout at me about George Bush’s wars, or conversely, ask me for an autograph.
 

Twick

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Aelfinn goes for his dream job, with unhappy results:

****
I take a deep breath. “As you say, I am a son of Gethelread. But I am no warrior, nor am I the king’s heir. I would like to know how one might become a student here.”

The head aeward still says nothing, just stares at me with pale eyes.

The silence rattles me, makes me lose concentration. “I’m a good student.” Collect yourself, Aelfinn. Don’t waste this chance. “Master Alebeate says I learn even the most complicated things as quickly as anyone he’s ever seen. I can do sums involving large numbers, and more advanced calculations, such as areas and volumes. I can read and write well, and can translate from any language of the Coastal Lands into Haeasenluni.”

“As any young man of decent education should be able to do,” the man with the moustache says. “What about Measirai?”

“What?” Not good. I’ve never been instructed in it.

He sighs. “Can you read Measirai? The language spoken by those of Ishla-Re? What about Tarkhelan? Several new manuscripts have come in, and we could use more help with their translation.”

I stare at the floor. Master Alebeate never taught me Ishlan or Tarkhelan. I don’t think he knows them himself. “No, Master. I haven’t learned those. But,” I try to put a good face on it, “I would be willing to learn. I promise I would work very hard.”

“We rarely accept adults,” the young man says. “I started here when I was seven years old. By your age I had already developed a dozen new ways of measuring the movement of the stars.”

“That is truly amazing, Master. You must be very learned indeed.” I keep my eyes down. “It would be a great honour if I could study under you.”

The bald man looks at me with distain. “You seem to have a middling-good education.” I look up hopefully. “For a warrior, but not a scholar.”

“As you can see,” I say, my chest so tight I can hardly make the words audible, “I’m not a warrior. It would be a dream come true if I could study here.”

“Why did you never come before? If you had come here as a child, perhaps something could have been arranged. But at your age? Ridiculous!”

“Truly, Master, I had no idea of the glories of this Shrine until I saw it with my own eyes. If I had, I would have begged my father to send me as soon as possible.”

I’ve said something wrong. The bald man’s eyes narrow and the young man sits back, as if I have somehow sealed my fate.

“So. The king sent you,” the bald man says. It’s a statement rather than a question. “Why? What does he want?”
 

kwanzaabot

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It's not my favourite line, but I had a giggle after writing it. It's a footnote at the bottom of the page after a character wonders why geese fly in uneven V-shapes. He suspects that it's because geese can't count.

*Although he was, in fact, completely wrong. Birds can and do count, and are actually pretty good at it considering they don't have any fingers and are yet to invent the pocket calculator.

I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep it, because although my book is a comic fantasy, it feels too Pratchett-like. The man was my hero, so I don't know if I can bring myself to emulate him. It feels like sacrilege.
 

Twick

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It's not my favourite line, but I had a giggle after writing it. It's a footnote at the bottom of the page after a character wonders why geese fly in uneven V-shapes. He suspects that it's because geese can't count.



I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep it, because although my book is a comic fantasy, it feels too Pratchett-like. The man was my hero, so I don't know if I can bring myself to emulate him. It feels like sacrilege.

Keep it! We need someone to keep Pratchett's torch burning.
 

Ellis Clover

watching The Office again
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This here, then, explained her reticence until now; this vein of straight earnestness in her nature, this passion, almost, that she must have known was off-putting. It reeked of an unfashionable optimism; it was full-on, it was not the way people were; it exposed her sophistication as a veneer at once teenage-tough and flimsy as the aluminium blinds.
 

Primus

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"Show them the authority of your palace. It encompasses everything from your faculties to your misconceptions. The masses will gladly expose their heart, betray your threat. And that threat either extinguishes itself, or you punish it."
 

Anna Spargo-Ryan

Just pokin' about
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A bit from a dystopian short inspired by the abortion funding block:

The baby is allergic to hunger. She realises this while she’s crouching at the creek, where the dry ground slides into a prehistoric gold rush. The body is swollen, then stiff. After she’s dug a hole with her own hands she rinses them in the dust and they come back glittering with mica. Overhead, the thud of rotary blades. She walks and walks beside the creek, calling out to it, and near the end of the journey it fills with water. A fish glints brightly, and another fish. She remembers a time she sat on a jetty with a line in and played the water like a game. Now that she’s at the ocean she’s not brave enough to swim, so she stands with her feet apart and it collects around her and over her, until she is bloated in the beds of coral skulls.
 

Cindyt

Gettin wiggy wit it
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"Don't see many Colonists and Cherokee--much less white women--never mind two together--up here on the Tennessee!" One eye leered at Love-ly and the other at Gigesdi Dikata (Mimi).
 

WolfGrave

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"gods, i'm sick of fucking corn." he said, working through another mouthful.

"stop fucking the corn then?"
 

Grayson Moon

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"How did you get in?"

"The window."

"But door isn't locked."

"So you're telling me to break into the house like a normal person?"
 
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Cindyt

Gettin wiggy wit it
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He longed for red velvet breeches and a curly white wig, a whole house to himself and a garden; a horse and a buggy; a wife and a son.

Man cannot serve God and Mammon.

“But, Lord, what of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph? And Solomon! He had a wealth unlike any before or after his him! You blessed them with all their heart’s desire and then some. Why can’t I have a few fancies, too.

No small voice replied.
 

D.L. Shepherd

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Wide eyed, she watched as the darkness poured in through the open window, dripped down the wall, and crept towards her, eating everything in its path and replacing it with nothingness.
 

Twick

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Wide eyed, she watched as the darkness poured in through the open window, dripped down the wall, and crept towards her, eating everything in its path and replacing it with nothingness.

Oooooh. Nice.
 

Cindyt

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Jenny: “What are you looking for?”

Hut: “Me wig.”

"Ye wig!?"

“Stupid, I’d not waste coin on a wig.”

“That’s right! You’d be downstairs seeing how fast ye could waste it on bloody rum!"

"Would not!"

"Would too!"

"Would not! I'd be up her with me bottle!"
 
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Sonsofthepharaohs

Still writing the ancient Egyptian tetralogy
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Kiya contemplates how she might conceive a child by her unconscious (possibly terminal) husband:

'Trying to conceive using a severed penis might be a ridiculous idea, but swallowing the seed itself seemed perfectly logical - after all, it took root in the belly, didn’t it? As long as it ended up there one way or another, what did it matter which way it went in?'

And a few paras later:

'But as she looked down at Djehuty’s wilted manhood again, she saw the flaw in her plan. If he was too far gone to become aroused, how was she supposed to get the seed out in the first place? In the myth, Isis had used some sort of magic ointment on Horus’ member to make it hard. Did it have to be hard, or could she just milk it like an udder? Only one way to find out.'
 

horrorchix89

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"Look at me like that again, and I'll make sure the last thing you'll ever see out of those cute little doggy eyes will be the tip of my sword. Woof, woof."