Windchaser

I did actually post the actual chapter earlier, but it was quite early in the morning and I decided to do the copy pasta to here and my Dreamwidth later.

( Fake cut to chapter 23 (Dreamwidth Mirror) ) In which Halli and Rae unwisely set out into enemy territory, but maybe make a new ally in the process, and Tevak... tries to show his softer side, but Blink isn't buying it. She's going to have to make a decision soon, though, because she's already hallucinating, and she can't stay in the basement forever...

111467 ♥ 200000

I have a week off work, and I wanted to push to get my first draft finished this week, but I also had plans to buy a wardrobe and clear out some of the junk in my study, so finishing this might take a back seat to everything else.

I really want to finish it, though, because I have so many unfinished stories hanging around. *shakefist* I still need to finish editing up "Thunder Daughter", so I can publish it - it took a bit of a back seat when I started Nano last November.

Hurr. So much to do, so little time to do it.

Lastly, I need to go and pick up my laptop sometime this week, as well (hopefully, *fingers crossed*) - yes, it is taking a long time to sort out, that's because the first time I went to pick it up, on the day they texted me (and reminded me!) that it would be ready on... it wasn't. In fact, they hadn't done ANYTHING because the guys that were supposed to be fixing it lost the questionnaire on which were the details of what they were supposed to be doing - but instead of phoning me, to tell me so, they waited until I came all the way in to the store (...but didn't tell the in-store guys either, who had to phone around to see where it was). That was the day I also missed the last bus home from the station (by about 2 minutes, and it was early anyway) and because no-one on Ravenswood ever needs to leave their home any time after 7pm, according to Ipswich Buses, had to walk all the way home (according to GoogleMaps, 3.69969 miles), in the rain, in the dark.

D'oh! This should have been posted a week or so ago (26th Feb), but I forgot to update this journal at the same time as my LJ.

( Fake cut to chapter 22 (Livejournal Mirror) ) In which Blink gets a much-needed (but not much-wanted) drink, and perhaps a new friend? Rae recovers enough to start making plans that Odati would definitely disagree with, and Whitesides pays a visit (or does he?).

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( Fake cut to chapter 21 (Livejournal Mirror)) In which Rae is bitten by a werewolf (well, a "were-something", anyway) and Blink's escape attempt comes to another abrupt and rather painful end. (Girl, you're going to be covered in bruises if you keep on trying to escape like this.)

Looks like I'm going to have to change my tracker bar again soon, because I'm a few words off 100k and I'm still nowhere near being done. *razz*

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( Fake cut to chapter 20 (Dreamwidth Mirror)) In which Halli and Rae discuss some of the more worrying things preying on their minds, and Blink learns a little more about her new home, and new hosts. And works out from crossing swords with Tevak that escaping is not going to be easy.

Another longish chapter (7500-ish words). Because I never seem to have any joy with dividing chapters up, I decided to just... keep going until the point I'd decided on as a stop point.

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Click here to get to chapter 19 (LJ Mirror) In which the Library discuss where Blink might have "sneaked away" to, and Blink finds that she's not precisely in the company of friends any more - although precisely how much trouble she is in, right now, hasn't quite sunk in yet.

Bit of a long chapter this time. (Almost 8000 words; I've been trying to keep to around 5000 for ease of reading, but I got carried away, haha. At least it's not like last time, where I divided a chapter because it was getting too long and it ended up 3 chapters.)

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In other news, I've been fiddling about with my plot for "Future Tense"; I think I've got such a bad case of writer's block because I have lots of notes, and a general idea of where I'm taking it, but... there doesn't really seem to be much cohesiveness with it all.

Edit: Not sure why DW doesn't like "hspace" but never mind XD

I know, I know, I should have posted this back on the first. Well, we're only one digit out, correct? Therefore:
belated
Happy New Year!

Haha. OK, time for a proper post. We'll start with my current project: Memento Mori.

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Hesger was once a gem of the Outer Rim; a young colony on a small forest world, important for its scientific prowess, and popular among holidaymakers for its beautiful scenery and health spas.

...all that was before the arrival of Hesgeri haemorrhagic fever, affectionately known as heff. Released accidentally by one of the teams researching a cure, the bioweapon ravages the population, in only a few years killing all but a handful of mutilated survivors, calling themselves “blights”. Under a self-imposed planetwide quarantine, the technological revolution collapses, and the cities grow derelict, with even electricity and running water turning into nothing but a distant memory.

It is on this abandoned world that Blink, a lovelorn robot girl trying to find a place to belong, finds herself; abducted, dumped and stranded, after a failed attempt to break into the mysterious Kust Institute of Science. With a future that looks pretty bleak, a dying cross-dimensional being “gifts” her with a new, biological body – a gift that is meant to help her survive, but feels more like a curse.

Blink must now come to terms not just with her new body and newfound mortality, but also that she may be trapped on this world for the rest of her life, with no way to even tell her family what has happened, and in constant danger from those who... don't precisely have her best interests in mind. Perhaps most importantly, however, she and her new friends must figure out the hidden extra that came with Frond's unwanted gift – a hidden extra that might just save the planet.

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I've got to what I think is about the halfway point (or maybe just over?) of "Memento Mori", so to make it a little easier to read than force people to click through each individual chapter on LJ, I've uploaded it as a PDF. If you click the little picture here, it should link to it. (It's just over 2Mb, and about 80k words. Should download fairly quickly.)

NB this is the first draft, so it's somewhat rough. Readable (I hope), but there's likely quite a few typos, flubs and dangling modifiers etc in it. ^_^

I am still going to be uploading the individual chapters to the Memento Mori LJ as I go, if anyone is interested in following along from there. Comments/critique/useful nitpickery welcome. :)

...I need to get me some icons. ¬_¬

(Lastly, I am of course quite amused by the fact that the skin I'm using on my dashboard is "Celerity". Come on, I had to.)

Edit: Where did these character flubs come from?

Chapters 16 and 17 were originally going to be all of 16, but it was getting ridiculously long and I cut it in half. To think that the first half of 16 was meant to just be filler until the dramatic scene at the end of 17-... whoops, did I say that out loud? Oh well. Teehee.

( Fake cut to chapter 16, part 1 ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which Blink and Halli go to visit the Institute and have a picnic, and there's totally no foreshadowing about things to come, nosiree.

Posted: 68243 ♥ 100000

Although if we're talking WRITTEN words... 70651 ♥ 100000

(That 3% extra is very important!)

So much for getting this story finished quickly, eh? *LE SIGH* I do still plan on getting it finished, but my "quickly" seems to be getting longer and longer. Anyway.

( Fake cut to Chapter Fourteen ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which another bombshell is dropped that Blink has to come to terms with, and... what was that noise? At least our main characters seem to have forgiven each other, somewhat.

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I just realised I fudged the link to chapter 11 in the last post; I hope I've fixed it, now!

Also, as LJ kept getting DDoS'ed, I wasn't able to post my winner badge. Yay! Although I'm still only... a third, maybe halfway through the story? So I've updated my little percentage bar to the number of words out of 100,000, so the bar stops shooting out of the end. ¬_¬

( At last, slightly late, Chapter 12 ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which our travellers are still squabbling, and go their separate ways for a few days, until they've got their tempers under control.

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52,152 ♥ 100,000

And we're almost up to double figures, with the chapter numbers!

Nice to see that the official widgets are still broken. All that red! *le sob* Very demotivational. Maybe I'll make one into a "demotivational" icon for when things aren't going so well (oh, so that'll be all the time, then). Aaannnd Firefox is being flakey; it's such fun, not being able to see what I've actually selected! *huff*

( On with the show! The obligatory fake cut to Chapter Nine ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which Blink and Rae finally meet up with something that seems like other intelligent life, but there might be bad things in store for Blink....

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Edit: ffff it's the 20th already. *cry*