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The Rescued Rescue

http://mcqueconcept.blogspot.com/2011/02/gondola.html

Mr. Cameron—at least—knew enough to stay away from me. I doubt the other refugees, our accidental comrades, even noticed me on the bow [boat part I couldn’t find the name for]. And the six person crew of Gondola 92 were either too busy or too scared to warn me off to a safer spot. But Frakes noticed me right away, and once he was no longer busy he came to get me down.

Gulls shrieked and swooped and slid under me. They rose up from under the ship on swells of air I never felt on my face or in my hair. Occasionally one might churn it’s wings but only to gain better advantage on another or to make an abrupt turn. As long as I watched I never observed one to stroke it’s wings to fly. These white birds just glided.

Behind me, a woman we pulled from the caravan redescribed the events of the [some group] attack and the rescued rescue to Mr. Cameron. It was a tribute to his stoicism that she prattled on ignorant of his loss and oblivious to his pain. I wanted to push her off this boat and into the smoke and fog buoying below us, so I could hug him or hit him. I wanted to bring back Captain Munro too. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault she died. I wanted to tell him it was me, but I wasn’t even able to convince myself of that; I think he may have been convincing himself it wasn’t me.

I’m strangling this one a bit too much tonight. I’ll come back to it in the morning.

268 words on day 684

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In

If you read 1000 Days daily and in order you know that I posed a question at the end of yesterday’s post. Maybe it was rhetorical or maybe it was more of a public wonderment and not exactly a question, but I have an answer. I’m in.

Contingent upon not being in if I feel like it later or if I want to add more plots to the stable.

Doing this the way I want may necessitate some changes in how I qualify daily writing here at 1000 Days. There will be times I need to construct the plot and that may not seem much like writing to you or even I, but it will seem as such to end-of-day-desperate Doug.

I’m off to do some of that now.

127 words on day 682

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This Bold Cusp

Here are the plots I like and may do something with:

A Weird Semblance Thereof (https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/20110105/a-weird-semblance-thereof/)
I’ll probably ransack this for the tidbits of new characterization I provided for Connor’s mother and some of the mystery there. The plot itself is trash.

The Fairy Plot
(https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/20110106/the-fairy-plot/)
This one puts some of the plot pieces together better than the others but still needs work. I aimed low for the Faerie cliché rather than tried to uncover something new.

Grumphook and Gertrude
(https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/20110107/grumphook-and-gertrude/)
This one I love for how well the pieces fell into place as I conjured it. I also love it for the title and the sense that Cathy Bates would be great as Gertrude.

Tempting Henry
(https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/20110201/tempting-henry/)
This turned out to have more twists than any other plot I came up with. The trouble was that I didn’t do a good job of getting the proper actions to match with the right events.

I can probably keep everything I wrote, but I need to add more and stir better.

Ten Beads for Iffan
(https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/20110202/ten-beads-for-iffan/)
I’m glad I revived this one. Now I have a piece I can shred and recreate.

The Transformation of a Honga Rider
(https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/20110203/the-transformation-of-a-honga-rider/)
I think this plot is workable enough, but I think I was too timid with the conflict. Set it on fire for better results.

Red Roy
(https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/20110204/red-roy/)
Wow. This is NOT what Red Roy originally was to be. It’s better and more managable with just one main character. Clean it up and rearrange the scenes I said I had in my head.

Tritti’s Ascension
(https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/20110210/trittis-ascension/)
The big pieces of this work well enough as captured. The juice is in the interpolating scenes.

Your Descent
(https://1000days.douglasblaine.com/20110211/your-descent/)
Close, but no cigar. This isn’t too bad in it’s own right, but it needs to jive with the Tritti thread if it’s going to be it’s own true story (not that it has to be, but it could).

The three from round one split two against one for rehashes and a brand new. Gertrude and Grumphook is the only one of nine that is blue sky new. Hmmm.

Interestingly, February coughed up twice as many plots I’d like to return to than January did despite my condemnation of my efforts in the second round. My best reason for that is that five of the six tackle plots I’ve long wanted to come back to plotting. At least now I have a sketch to fix up. The one other deals with material I’ve had stowed away in my brain for some time. Those six make good on several implicit promises.

I easily have enough here to work with the rest of this year—and more. I should promise a strategy. I should commit right here and right now. I should tell you that I’ll focus on these to the exclusion of all else. I should say 1000 Days is locked down and is no longer taking submissions. Instead I’ll leave you hanging and go sleep on this bold cusp.

500 words on day 681