WIP meme - a goat following the flock

[elingregory]

This is all over the place today, posted mostly by proper writers with followings. But I'm posting this as a cautionary tale to anyone who thinks "oh hey, I have a shiny idea, I'll write a book about it!"

Shiny ideas can be evil. Shiny ideas can take over you life and your hard drive. Shiny ideas are truculent and aggressive ratbags who interfere with each other. And the worst thing about them - they travel in herds!

Solitary shiny ideas that can be properly attended to are lovely things but when does that ever happen.

Meme:

Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.



Alike As Two Bees
Anatolios
Applejack
Blighs Ferry
Eleventh Hour
Emrys
A Fierce Reaping
A Gleam of Splendour
Henry Vance
The Imperial Ideal
Keladra
The Language of Flowers
Moonlight Shadow
Norton Wood
Old Stories
On a Lee Shore
Regency Rubbish
Short in the Saddle
Spices to Belhaven
Tears of Heaven
Town Mouse
The Wanderer

Name one of them and I'll give you a snippet from it and/or tell you something about it.

In other news, I find I am required to write a guide book for work, during my normal working hours in addition to my normal tasks, and it needs to be print run ready by the end of January. OMG so much fact checking!!!!

Comments

[wulfila.livejournal.com]

Spices to Belhaven, please!

Good luck with the guide book (but it is a shame that they just require you to write it in such a short time during your normal working hours - I guess they want to save money and don't mean to pay you for all the extra work?)

By the way, is the meme only for published writers?

[elin-gregory.livejournal.com]

I see no reason why any writer can't play with the meme. A WIP is a WIP as far as I am concerned.

Thanks for the good wishes about the guide book. 10k words will do it, but it has to be completely accurate AND reasonably entertaining AND cover 938 years. I'll be doing a lot of editing.

Spices to Belhaven was written as a gift for a friend, a local vicar's wife, :D It's an antidote to all that appallingly wet Legolas fan fic that was on the net in the late 90s. I thought it might be fun to write an elf who was a long way from being wise and benign. So my 'hero' [he thinks he's a hero] is a 'fixer' for hire with a very nasty sense of humour and some anger management issues. I borrowed his name from Guy Gavriel Kay - what he won't know won't hurt him. The story is complete, but OMG does it need editing!

Snippet:

“And when has the cold ever bothered one of your sort?” Dravix asked and that was when he got out the strongbox and began to make the brightly gleaming piles of gold.
Gavriel had broken after the fifth pile of coins had been completed and Dravix Meek, equally slowly, had begun to put them back.
“Oh, all right then, you’ve convinced me,” Gavriel said and sat up reaching for the gold but Dravix leaned forward, too, his hands hovering protectively.
“Cash on delivery,” he warned. “When the stock is in my storeroom you get your money plus a nice bonus if everything is to my satisfaction.”
“Expenses? Give in, Dravix, I can still walk.”
“The usual.”
“And the room? The room plus, for a week?”
“And the room with all the usual perks.”
“The redhead, I think,” Gavriel said slowly. “Yes, you know the one, the thin, nervy girl with the frightened eyes.”
“I’ve never noticed that’s she’s frightened.”
“She is around me.”
Dravix sighed shaking his head. “You drive a hard bargain, you ice-hearted bastard.”
“Why so surprised? My sort is renowned for it.” Gavriel smiled, smoothing his long white hair back neatly over his pointed ears. He listened carefully to his instructions then left with a comfortably heavy purse at his hip.
“I’ll want a full report, mind,” Dravix said by way of farewell.
“Naturally.” Gavriel blew him a kiss as he drew the door closed behind him and it wasn’t until he had left the yard and was on his way to the stables, Meek’s chickens scattering hysterically before him, that his sweet smile turned into a scowl of discontent.

[wulfila.livejournal.com]

Definitely edit the story - the snippet with the very unheroic hero sounds great, and I like the basic idea (and the scattering chickens - details like that are what make your writing such fun). Thank you for posting it!