Tag: come back

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The Green Man

http://cghub.com/images/view/31678/

Miriam first met the Green Man less than a week out of her mother’s womb. Her father swaddled her in the same linen cloth he’d been brought in by his father. The flax for that linen had been grown, retted, scutched, and heckled by famous druidess [her name] when she was just a student. Now—old enough to be mated and a mother herself—she came to tell him she was the last. He would never again meet another decendent of Laux.

I was possible the Green Man already knew this. It was possible her grandfather or her father had known it and had been preparing the Green Man for the revelation for years. She didn’t think so.

Worse, she wouldn’t have time to prepare him properly before she left for Kek.

I’m forcing this and getting distracted by the research part, and I can feel a night of screwing around brewing.

151 words on day 708

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Dead Dragon; Dame

http://gorillaartfare.com/2011/02/burn-to-shine/

At first Jessica Matthews clung to the sword for fear the beast was not yet dead; she might lose her grip if it rose up again. The rest of the world filled her consideration in stages and her focus softened to allow for the things around her which weren’t a dragon. Her desperate grasp on the pommel was technically shoddy. Her knees were in the snow and cold. Sweat and snow-melt soaked her torn tights; each time she exhaled a chilly breeze ran between her body and the still-hot scales of the dragon. She didn’t worry it’s blood would stain her limited edition Schepacz t-shirt, but the thought of ruining her leather duster slapped her with dread. She stood.

A movie scene of boys drinking the blood of a newly killed deer.

A clear solution—tears she supposed—pooled in the corner of the dragon’s iridescent eye. The liquid appeared tinged with purple or may have only seemed that way because of the eye’s swimming hues. It was shot with a tendril of red blood which acted more like a crack through granite than one liquid in another. Jessica touched the surface with a single finger then dipped in two to get more of a taste. She expected the tears to be salty, but not sweet as well. And they were. [a little more here]

Finally removing her left hand from the pommel of her borrowed sword she wedged her fingers into the pocket of her denim cut-offs and pulled out a bottle of contact saline. She squeezed the bottle till it made several wispy wet-air noises and she was certain it was as empty as she could get it. She squeezed it and far shut as she could get it and dipped the tip into the dragon’s tears. She capped the bottle once it was full, stuffed it in her shorts, tugged the sword free, and walked away from her kill.

319 words on day 692

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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