"Good as Gold", Chapter 19

Click here to get to chapter 18) In which Mirii finally meets Sei again, and… well, is even more confused about what to think about this whole mess. Velia and Pau sneak about in the Lanali city, getting so close to the terrorists that Yannis would really not be happy if he knew about it! and Brennan finds out exactly what his captors have in store for him.

Posted words: 78140 out of 100,000

"Good as Gold", Chapter 18

(Click here to get to chapter 18) In which Mirii meets Yannis’ contact in the foreign lab (and gets even more confused), Brennan moves out to the hospital, Biohazard makes a surprising discovery of his own, and Asenka crosses swords with the sinister doctor Hueil.

Posted words: 72452 out of 100,000

"Good as Gold", chapter 17

(Click here to get to chapter 15) In which the twins discuss their limited progress, Eri gets a message, and Asenka starts to have second thoughts about what they’re doing.

Posted words: 63,568 out of 100,000

"Good as Gold", chapter 16

(Click here to get to chapter 15) In which Mirii visits the market with Yannis (who - as always - has an ulterior motive for the visit), and Sei finally begins to find out what his abductor is up to.

Posted words: 57,361 out of 100,000

"Good as Gold", chapter 15

I'm being a little bit of a NaNoRebel, this year! I felt like trying to finally get "Good as Gold" finished - in draft form, if nothing else - so may I present the first new material of NanoWriMo 2012:

(Click here to get to chapter 15 on Dreamwidth or Livejournal; choose which platform you prefer. ) In which a little deception is revealed, more trickery is planned, and Mirii considers her options...

Posted words: 50,445 out of 100,000

If you'd like to catch up, the story so far is posted on Dreamwidth and Livejournal.

Memento Mori - first draft complete!

This post is slightly belated (about a week); I never got as far as posting it, because I ran out of title icons for the individual chapters.

As with the previous half of the first draft, "chapters" 19-33 are now posted as a PDF on my website, and can be accessed by clicking the picture at the right. (Again, it's just over 2Mb, and about 80k words.) If you just want to read the last few chapters, they are here: Chapter 31, Chapter 32, Chapter 33 (Epilogue)

Thus, the first draft of Memento Mori is at last finished!

I now need to think about getting to work on editing it, so I can publish it, although I may try and get "Good as Gold" finished first. (That, I think, will be my project this November.) It makes more sense to publish that and "Thunder Daughter" first, seeing as they explain a little about certain aspects of Memento Mori (notably, the feared "blood fevers").

I’ve always considered doing illustrated “special editions” of things, but as the photograph below shows, that may end up being prohibitively expensive. (I checked on Lulu’s price calculator, the base cost of a 300-page perfect bound full colour book would be in the region of £42. I’m not sure many people would be willing to fork over that much.)

The delay in making this post did allow me to get this item ready to go into it, however. As soon as the first draft was finished – and that is pretty much literally, as soon as the last word was typed I was formatting it to send off – I got the first draft printed up as a book (via “Lulu”, a print-on-demand service). It took about a week to arrive. I purchased two copies – one for me, to put in my bookcase as a “reward” for finishing it, and one to loan out to people at work; the loan copy is already out in the wild.

Edit: I'm not sure why it's so difficult to get things to post with the correct formatting, on here.

Memento Mori, Chapter 30

I am getting SO CLOSE to finishing this, I can almost SMELL it.

(Click here for chapter 30) 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

156801 ♥ 200000

Memento Mori, chapter 29

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. I'm getting quite excited too as I'm getting close to the finish, WOO.

(Click here for chapter 29) In which Blink makes an unbelievable discovery about her little hosts, and Rae wonders if they should take drastic steps to resolve "the Tevak problem".

148213 ♥ 200000

Memento Mori, Chapter 28

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!

(Click here for chapter 28) 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.

144440 ♥ 200000

Memento Mori, Chapter 27

I am determined to get the next chapter done quicker than the last. *srs face* I can’t keep going with the whole “one chapter every month” pace, I’ve kinda ground 90% to a halt here. Otherwise I’ll never get the first draft finished by August. I want to get the darn thing edited and finished asap.

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

137869 ♥ 200000

Edit: Whoops! Can't count

Memento Mori, Chapter 26

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

I had wanted to get this chapter finished and uploaded on the 1st May, because it would have been the story’s “6-month birthday”, but I had a little writer's block. Happy Belated Birthday, anyway, 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?)

(Click here to get to chapter 26) In which Sarmis manages to blow his own cover, and Tevak discovers his prize is missing (and promptly also blows up).

131523 ♥ 200000

Memento Mori, Chapter 25

(Click here to get to chapter 25) 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?

I'm getting close to the end, now, I can feel it. *wiggles* Soon I'll be able to get down to editing it.

125214 ♥ 200000

Memento Mori - Chapters 21-24

I came along to post chapter 24, which I have been taking an unfeasibly long time to write, and realised I'd managed to NOT post chapters 21-23. (I would say, I think it was probably because my laptop with the little oblong titles had gone to be repaired, but that's a bad excuse.)

Now I have them, though, let's get on with the show!

Click here to get to chapter 21 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 testing Tevak's patience like this... Although at least you showed Zinovy why he shouldn't touch you!)

Click here to get to chapter 22 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?).

Click here to get to chapter 23 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...

Click here to get to chapter 24 In which Halli spots someone sneaking somewhere he shouldn't be (alliteration intentional), Tevak lays down an ultimatum - as does Odati - and three of the smallest sapient creatures in the known universe hold out a very BIG hand in a gesture of kindness.

118695 ♥ 200000

Memento Mori, chapter 20

Click here to get to chapter 20 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.

Another longish chapter. I decided to just... keep going until the point I'd decided on as a stop point, instead of divide it up.

Edit: Oops, got my colours wrong.

92938 ♥ 100000

Memento Mori, chapter 19

Click here to get to chapter 19 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.)

85407 ♥ 100000

Memento Mori - Part 1

A new year, a new post (at last!).

I know. I haven't posted here for a while. I should confess, I haven't really had much TO post, as I'd been busy getting ready for NaNoWriMo in November, and battling a zombie desktop PC (...and then, of course, WRITING said NaNo.)

I planned on linking to each chapter of MM I wrote as I uploaded it, but the icons were on the dead PC, and by the time I got up to chapter 15 and still hadn't linked to any individual one, I thought it was about time to stop planning and get to doing. Thus, "chapters" 1-18 are now posted as a PDF on my website, and can be accessed by clicking the picture at the right. (It's just over 2Mb, and about 80k words. Should download fairly quickly.)

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. :)

Lastly, I have an account on Dreamwidth now. I hope it'll be a fraction more reliable than LJ.

Future Tense, chapter 9

    It's taken me a while to write this, and it's sadly a bit of a "nothing-chapter", but at last, I have some more of this story to upload. (All right, actually I uploaded it last week, on the 8th, I just neglected to update this.)
    At long last, Skywarp gets over his little tantrum, and is finally allowed home from hospital. Not that it feels terribly like home...

Toccata and Fugue, chapter 17 (and 16!)

This SHOULD have been posted on the 6th, when I actually uploaded the chapter, but I forgot.

Alone in the abandoned corridors of the derelict Surkea Hospital, Blink finally works out that nothing she has yet come up against is what it seems...

Edit: In fact, I just noticed that I didn't post chapter 16 when I uploaded it, either. *slap wrist*

NaNoWriMo 2011?

Just working on some little things. This is something I threw together which is sort of becoming this year's "theme", I suppose? Yellow and orange, hexagons, trees, old broken things, and so on. I'll try and come up with some sort of blurb for it eventually! XD

The Blue AU continues...

OK I'll tidy this up in a minute... XD

At long last, I've POSTED the first 50,000 words of "Toccata and Fugue"! I got them written back before the ahem, "interesting" trip to Munich, but hadn't actively posted all of them. I have a couple of thousand still in reserve, so... we'll see how long before I get it finished! (Getting snowed in in Germany seems to have temporarily killed my creative drive, but never mind. It'll pick back up. *crosses fingers*)

Toccata and Fugue at Livejournal
Links to the chapters, in tidy little clumps:    Part 1!    |    Part 2!    |    Part 3!

Plus! At last! Have a chapter of Future Tense. I had this 99% written back in mid October, but NaNoWriMo barged it out of the way, and (of course) a certain teleport was misbehaving.

I hope to have some more Adverse Camber finished at some point, too, but before that, I really HAVE to get my Xmas cards finished. I already know I'm going to miss the last post for sending things abroad (...as it's this friday, and I still haven't finished the cards. Heh. ¬_¬), but I'd like to at least have the cards in my possession before Christmas!