Windchaser

Two exciting things have happened this week! XD (And no, I'm not talking about my two days off, because it'll actually be three days come tomorrow.)

Thing one: I have been sent awesome giftart!

Trice by Anna Ghislaine (garedeuropa/Website) I love the whole painterly style to this, and the way it's all glowwy; I've always enjoyed her bright, almost surrealist cartoony style, and of course predilection for monsters and weird creatures. (Original link)

Thing two: Guess what I found on my doormat when I got home yesterday!
( Pics under the cut! )
Lastly: Christmas Cards!
I have been rubbish at getting them ready on time for the last two years, so I've started creating them already for this year. Show of hands - anyone want one?

At last, I can make the post I have been itching to make since, ooh, about 1st November last year.

Drum roll please:
Ten months and nineteen days after I started it, the first draft of Memento Mori is finished!

( Fake cut to chapter 32 ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which Tevak finally gets his hands back on his prize, but Blink gets a little assistance from on high.
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and lastly…
( Fake cut to the epilogue ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which loose ends are tied up, and Blink gets one more opportunity to do good.
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WOO HOO

I now just have to edit it, and tidy it up, and get rid of the disappearing characters, and...

Edit: Typical - so excited to be posting it, I flubbed my html. (I forgot the password for the MM LJ at lunch, too - posting these last chapters is just dogged with failure.)

I am SO CLOSE to finishing this story. In fact, I want to finish it THIS WEEKEND. I have JUST ONE - one! - last "real" chapter left to go. Then I can get to re-plotting some of my other "dangling modifiers"; I need to work on the plot of "Good as Gold" (which I feel the need to try and finish for this year's Nano), as well as FT.

Anyway, onwards with MM:

( Fake cut to the little prologue I managed to get finished. ) Dreamwidth Mirror It's still fairly "rough-and-ready", as it were - just to get the point across until I get down to editing and polishing. (In the finished item, I hope the prologue will be a little longer, and a little more exciting, but for now, it's good enough.) It's mostly there to draw people into the action and make them curious.

And for the proper update:
( Fake cut to chapter 31 ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which Blink returns to Kust to see what's happened in her absence, and gets a little shocking news on the side. Oh, and bumps into someone she really didn't want to meet. We're all gearing up for the final showdown. *bites nails!*

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I've been thinking a little about other worldbuilding-y things, like why are groups of three so important among fliers? (Easy: three is the minimum group size needed to ensure an injured member of the party can be carried to safety - Screamer proved in Egypt that only having one wingmate isn't really enough to pull you out of a nosedive if you lose the power of flight. Same with bikes going around in fours - small models really need to be able to pair off for safety, if one is injured, one can stay with him/her while the other two go for help. Magic :) )

( Fake cut to chapter 30 ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which Blink manages the incredible, and actually gets into the Institute. OMG. And finds a little surprise inside.

Just fyi, "Hoo-dees" is the colloquial name for hooting deer. I've only just started to think about their names and things; I need to do a bit of worldbuilding before I edit the thing up. I don't really want to have to use the word "deer", for instance, it was a stop-gap so I didn't get too stuck. XD

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SEE, SEE? I told you I'd get it done in less than a month! *PROUD*

Blink is getting quite excited about the event coming up just around the corner!

( Fake cut to chapter 29 ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which Blink makes a shocking discovery about her little hosts, and Rae wonders if they should take drastic steps to resolve "the Tevak problem".

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So much for “determined to get the next chapter finished faster than the last” – I seem to have been even slower, this time. (It’s been about 40 days since I last posted! What.)

Again, “I am determined etc”, so I’m going to set myself a deadline, this time; next chapter by the 27th. That gives me a week to finally tame the creeping junkheap once and for all, and then a week to do the writing. If I can keep to the “50,000 in 30 days”, I’m sure I can write 6000 in a week.

Back to business. I actually posted the meat of the chapter before work, but ran out of time to link to it from my other journals, so here we go. Better late than never!

( Fake cut to chapter 28 ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which Tevak gives the Library an ultimatum – find Blink, or he’ll burn the place down – and certain little shocking revelations are made. Up in the danata colony, Blink struggles to work out where she’s meant to go from here – and scared that she’ll end up bringing the monster to their door.

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Like the last chapter, this one should have been finished a long time ago, but the creeping junkheap has kept me busy. But I WILL get this story finished! AND edited. *SUCH DETERMINATION*

( Fake cut to chapter 27 ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which the Library discuss Sarmis’ betrayal, and Blink struggles to see whether there’ll ever be a way out of this whole mess...

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Another chapter in less than 6 weeks! It's a miracle.

I had wanted to get this chapter finished and uploaded on the 1st, because it would have been the story’s “6-month birthday”. Happy Belated Birthday, MM?

Actually I’m not particularly happy because it means I still haven’t finished it, and I can’t edit what I haven’t finished. And I am determined to have something finished enough to self-publish by the end of 2012. Cue, end of the world?

( Fake cut to chapter 26 (Livejournal Mirror) ) In which Sarmis manages to blow his own cover, and Tevak discovers his prize is missing (and promptly also blows up).

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It’s been twenty two days since my last update. *le sigh* I need to be less nitpicky, less distracted, and more write-y, because I can’t edit / publish this if it’s not finished. Ragh.

My current count includes only my posted words. I have another 1600 words or so lurking on the master file (that’s getting on for 1% of story!); 170 in a prologue I’m going to put in and the remainder in the next chapters that come after what I’ve posted. I’m trying to be good and not write all the “fun” chapters first; joining everything up afterwards ends up with me throwing a lot of words away, that way.

( Fake cut to chapter 25 ) Dreamwidth Mirror In which Blink finally makes good her escape – but where are the danata taking her? Has she maybe just climbed out of the frying pan, and got straight into the fire?

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First, artiness.

Halli A sort of sketchy, "working doodle" of Halli. I'm still trying to pin down the species' final look; they're even LESS birdy than they used to be. She's descended from a flightless alien bird, for want of a better description. She's of the "sanuki" race, which means she's fairly strikingly coloured - primarily reddish/russet in skin-tone, with paler areas around her eyes and on her cheeks, dark lips and a dark stripe up her nose and over her head. Aron, the little male/"drae", is clavare; he's a lot paler, with darker eyestripe. (He reminds me a little of a badger. :P)

And some more pictures of "my wildlife".

	Great tits As in, the bird. And all right, OK, it's 3 shots of the same bird - but that foils my desire to make puns.
	Hop-along You can't tell from this photograph, but this adorable little ball of fluff only has one leg. When I first saw it, one leg was dangling pathetically behind it, and it looked like a huge effort to perch on anything because the leg would catch on things. The leg looks like it's possibly dropped off altogether, now. :( It doesn't even look like it's tucked up in its fluff, just... gone. Everything is still a huge wing-flapping effort, though. I suppose it must be really hard to balance.
	Hop-along My one-legged robin lunging for a crumb that's fallen down off the fat-ball holder. I put out a whole dish of food (you can see it in my pigeon photos), but apparently the fat-balls are better.
	Hop-along "What'choo looking at, anyway? Stop taking photos, person."
	Hop-along Action shot! A fluttering lunge for another morsel. Seriously, this poor little bird goes to such a huge effort to feed itself; it must be exhausting. I've not actually seen him/her for a few days, so I'm a little worried. I keep putting food out - the pigeons aren't eating ALL of it - but I've not seen either "Hop-along" or its mate recently.
	Hop-along's friend They're either mates, or just... unnaturally pacifist. They don't fight when they're together at the feeder, at least.
	Muted Sun On one side of the flat, the sun was peeking out through a really heavy, black cloud.
	Twinkling Rain That feeble, clouded sun gave some beautiful twinkling rain...
	Evening Rainbow ...and on the other side of the flat, a full rainbow! (Although it was so much brighter and more beautiful in real life.)

There's a pair of pudgy little dunnocks going crazy out there as I type this. We've just had another hailstorm - I think we've had... five or six in the last few days? - so they look rather windswept and buffetted around, like they have huge poofy skirts on.

Edit on 16/04/2012:
Panic over! Hop-along was back in the feed dish tonight. :) Phew!