POST YOUR NOVEL EXCERPT HERE!!!!

[jynxgirl.livejournal.com]

POST YOUR NOVEL EXCERPT HERE!!!!

Please keep it relatively short, and only in this thread. Thanks!

No more than 4000 words, and please no multiple posts!

Comments

[jedi-bria.livejournal.com]

Beth walked in the door and was greeted by the smell of all purpose machine lubricant and cookies and she realized she was home. Granted, the house was far cry from the sleeping birth on The Winding Maiden, but it felt welcoming none the less. Nenway usually felt canned, too many people packed in to such a tight space. With everything regulated, it was rare something would come up and surprise her, but no government official could predict the combination of all purpose oil and cookies. Beth supposed many households in Tinkertown knew the euphoric bliss the smells brought. Perhaps it was that combination that spurred great inventive minds like her brother’s.

Abner and Elijah currently sat at the table, technical drawings and illegible notes littered before them. Every once in a while a hand would dart to a plate of cookies sitting on top of a stack of books.

“No, that won’t work, see the strap here he would interfere….” Anber was saying, running his finger along an arc on the drawing.

“What if we place the mechanism here and-” Elijah reached towards the diagram only to have his lover push the chocolate stained hand away.

“That could work, but I don’t have access to parts that small.” Abner took a bite of a cookie.

“Schina does, get them from her.” Supplied Elijah.

Beth reached over the duo and grabbed a cookie for herself, knocking into Elijah along the way.

“Hey, watch it!” The young man glared up at her in indignation.

"Airship pirate." Beth shrugged at him and took a bite of her prize.

Abner ignored the animosity building around him, “I can’t, Schina refuses to parcel post and after the last time we went to see her, I don’t think the Portal officer would let us….” His voice died as his eyes fell on his sister, her mouth full.

“What?” Crumbs spewed from her mouth, “Do I have chocolate on my face?”

[sugar-shrapnel.livejournal.com]

Please don't think I am a total red-pen fiend but you mean 'berth' not 'birth'. It's good though. :)

[jedi-bria.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I don't mind, I do typos all the time and wouldn't catch it. However in that instance I did mean birth. As in a sleeping birth on a ship.

[sugar-shrapnel.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berth

[jedi-bria.livejournal.com]

Oops sorry. Completly missed that. Perhaps I shouldn't be answering comments after just waking up. THanks again.

[usedusernames.livejournal.com]

“Tha’s right. That’s where we come from, an’ we’s on our way to Sacramento. You knowed that,” George added a little critically. “An’ you know why we’ve gotta head to Sacramento, don’t you?”

“I forgot.”

“You ain’t forgot.”

“I forgot, George.” Lennie spoke quietly, but his fear of George had slipped out of mind. He loaded the supplies back into his bindle.

“That’s good,” George praised, “You cleanin’ that up without me tellin’ you to.” He slid easily into his next topic, “You wasn’t so good in Auburn. You done bad things up there, an’ you’s jus’ too dumb to know you done it.”

Lennie apologized sincerely and instinctively.

“I awready know that you‘s sorry. You’s always sorry. But me an’ your Aunt Clara always hadda get you out of messes in Auburn. Ain’t you remember none of that? Well, I guess it don’t matter so much now we ain’t there; maybe it’ll be dif’ernt in Sacramento, huh? You gonna do any bad things in Sacramento?”

Lennie shook his head and shoulders in a half-bodied, fully enthusiastic ‘no’.

[lowbatterie.livejournal.com]

Oooh. I love Of Mice And Men. I'm interested to see what you do with it (despite and almost in spite of your icon :D).

[usedusernames.livejournal.com]

xD Thanks! I loved it when we had to read it a couple years ago; it's one of the few 'force-this-on-highschool-freshmen' books I think holds up.

[lowbatterie.livejournal.com]

“Cleo is a slave driver!” Peregrine declared, flopping down on the Commons’ main couch, her red-striped staff thrown down beside her.

“She only does what she thinks is best,” Hawthorne countered, wiping at his face and wishing he could go for a swim.

“Well, what she thinks is best is inhuman,” Peregrine replied stubbornly.

“What, can’t hack it Per?” Romulus drawled, poking his half-black staff at the younger girl. He received a growl and a vaguely coherent threat about where he might find that stick were he do to something unfortunate. “What is this sudden fascination with sticking objects up my—“

“Look,” Aurelia cut in very specifically, cutting eyes at Romulus’ unapologetic expression. “She didn’t become High Vesta by sitting on her ass every day,” she argued, pulling off her gloves and laying them on the back of the couch.

“Gideon is High Vestor and he does nothing except walk around barefoot all the time,” Octavian observed, calmly spinning his intricately, though only partially, carved staff.

“Have you ever worked out with Gideon one on one?” Aurelia asked, turning her head enough to make Perry go weak at the knees for the sight of her long, graceful neck.

“No,” he conceded, twirling the staff from left hand to right and ending with it vertical parallel to his spine behind his back, the leather of his gloves straining slightly in protest of his tight grip.

Aurelia scoffed. “Then don’t make comments about what Gideon does and does not do,” she warned, pulling her long brown braid forward to unravel the twisted locks. Peregrine was doing her level best not to stare at her slender fingers as they danced through her silky russet locks, but Hawthorne was having a hard time hiding the smile forming at her nervousness.

“Don’t pretend you know so much, dearest Aurelia,” Romulus interjected, his eyes focused upon his staff as he rubbed it gently against the thigh of his pant. His perch upon the tall stool was met with a flashing stare and a sudden tumble. Disheveled, Romulus put a hand to his hair, pale fingers combing it back as he glared right back at his childhood… well, friend didn’t seem to be the right word. “Very mature.”

A practiced, angelic expression softened her dark brown eyes. “Whatever are you talking about, dearest Romulus? I hope you’re quite alright. That was quite a fall.” Her head tilted sympathetically.

A snicker traveled around the room, and Peregrine even sat up to glance over the back of the plush sofa. When she spied the tall teenager sprawled, discombobulated and furious upon the floor, she fell back into the pillows with a cackle. Aurelia’s eyebrows seemed curious at her explosion of laughter, but both corners of her mouth turned upward with amusement, more so because Per seemed to take such delight in her juvenile tricks.

Romulus slowly gathered himself, careful not to mar his meticulously polished staff on his way back to standing.

“I’ll be in my room,” he all but muttered, the closest the put-together young man ever came to a typical teenaged tantrum. He left with all the dignity he could, though most of it remained on the floor with the toppled stool.

“I’ll bet his ego is more bruised than his butt,” Hawthorne ventured, grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m not sure, that was quite a fall, socially and literally. However, that’s a contest I’m sure I don’t want to discover who wins,” Octavian said blandly. He pushed a rogue lock of white-blonde hair behind his ear and then made a frustrated noise. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to clean up.”

Aurelia placed a thoughtful hand on her chin and strapped an arm across her stomach to brace the elbow of her first arm, watching as Octavian swept upstairs almost as gracefully as Cleo, a thoughtful look upon her face. “It’s interesting to find a man with such self-confidence that he can leave the room with more elegance than I,” she mused aloud, pursing her lips against a smile despite her peers’ chorus of laughter again.

finally getting back on the wagon after a week of midterms

[ruth-the-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Raina had never kept count of all the men she had slept with, but at sixteen she said a safe guess would be something like a thousand: a thousand men, handsome and ugly, young and old, skinny and fat, rough and gentle, by the side of the road, in the school at night, in the fields, by the river, in the gray sand and the brambles, the sweetness of berries and all the downy new grass crushed beneath them, a man’s shirt soaked through with juice—thimbleberry, stone berry, whitebark and red—and somewhere in the middle all that sweetness the lost scent of some stolen childhood, some sounds, some motions, the man grunting, skin torn, body cold, but smoothing, roughly, Raina’s hair against her neck, and she looking up and embracing him gently, the sky above her sliced by thorns, and she with her own crown, the leader of the child crusade, the virgin mother of the lost men of the world, the last living saint—I knew all that. I knew all that, had always known it; knew, the way Jennie and Anna and Rabbit knew that Raina Dautermann slept with their boyfriends and their fathers and their brothers and any other many that passed through town, that Raina was, to all those men, a kind of saint. And still I managed to know all that without seeing her as someone who could fall in love, as hard in love, as perfectly, stupidly, sweetly in love as the simplest girl in town.
I knew it all and did not know the simplest thing about it, and it seems amazing to me, amazing that I did not know the thing that was as simple to understand as the need for it was simple in the first place: she was a saint because she loved, because she loved, because she loved—how can you be a saint otherwise? She loved all her men, the ugly ones, the cruel ones, the lost ones, the old ones, the fat ones, the young ones, the handsome ones; she loved them as much as a woman loves her husband, as a mother loves her son, as much as any shepherd must love his flock, and if any man who met her on the road, any brother, any father, any man old or young had asked her to stay with him forever, she would have. She would have stayed with any of them, but in all the time she lived in Snowden Bobby was the first one to ask, Bobby the first one to see her not as the last living saint but as a girl who loved him and would do anything for him and nothing more—and though I think back at times on how stupid I was, how many simple thing I did not know, it is a comfort to remember there was someone in the world who knew even less than me.
In any high school science class you will learn that men, though they can do almost anything—write poems and symphonies, paint pictures, tame lions, sail across the widest oceans, and map the craters of the moon—no man can do something as basic, as perfectly elementary, as growing a single leaf or blade of grass, of producing a praying mantis, an Osage orange, a handful of clay, a piece of stone, a cold. It is true of everyone. It was true of my father, of all the men I have loved, of all the men I have known, and all the women; of the shy ones, the sweet ones, the stupid ones, the mean ones, the beautiful ones, the ugly ones, the weak ones, the strong ones, the faithful ones, the smart ones. It is true of me. It was not true of Raina: while the rest of the world read and wrote and built and learned and ate and ran and drew and sang and thought and did their best, as people here on earth, to make one thing that was great enough to disguise the fact that it was only human, Raina loved, loved, loved, like grass grew and rain fell and rivers ran and ice thawed and coltfoots opened to the sun in spring. She loved like no one else there was, and I knew it could not be a thing that came from her, from that small body, the girl who was only a girl, in the end, a pretty girl, a sweet girl, a hard girl, but a girl: it was not hers. It went from her to everyone she met and she gave it away and gave it away and never asked for a single thing in return.

Re: finally getting back on the wagon after a week of midterms

[sentienthought.livejournal.com]

Amazing. I'd be interested in reading your novel when it is finished. I like how you took something that might be controversial and gave it a complexity, so things are not what they seem at first sight. I also love your prose and the repetition - it's almost poetic.

Re: finally getting back on the wagon after a week of midterms

[ruth-the-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I often have a hard time moving plot forward because I get so caught up in the smallest details of what I'm writing--a lot of the time my fiction feels like a series of poems smashed together, and I have to try really hard not to go through editing all the extraneous stuff before I'm done. But thank you, again, and I'd love for you to read my novel when it's finished as well.

Re: finally getting back on the wagon after a week of midterms

[sentienthought.livejournal.com]

I don't think any of your words are extraneous actually. It is what good poetry is, finding meaning in unlikely things. I hope you don't mind that I added you. Please do let me know if you finish the book! I've never read anything like it, and I'm very interested in how it would turn out. :)

Re: finally getting back on the wagon after a week of midterms

[ruth-the-sleuth.livejournal.com]

of course not! I will add you back and we can both keep abreast of each others' writing. It'll probably be some time before I'm finish because what I'm working on will no doubt be far more than 50,000 words, but I am determined to persevere.

Re: finally getting back on the wagon after a week of midterms

[my-cream-tea.livejournal.com]

I am truly jealous.

Re: finally getting back on the wagon after a week of midterms

[ruth-the-sleuth.livejournal.com]

I am truly flattered. ^_^

[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

She heard the subtle sounds she knew, from sleeping next to him for years, meant that he was waking up. Turning towards him, she slipped her hand beneath the blanket and slid it across his chest, the sprinkling of coarse hair tickling her sensitive palm. There was no effort in molding her body to his; it knew, on instinct, exactly how to fit its curves to his.

“Morning,” Katherine whispered, moving her lips to his neck, feeling his pulse beating beneath the warm skin.

He made a deep sound in the back of his throat in response.

She knew that if her hand trailed down to his center, she would find him hard and alert, as he was most mornings. Making love in the morning is a privilege for couples who don’t have children and careers that pull them out of bed almost before the sun rises; they hadn’t had such freedom in a long time. Katherine’s keen ears had not heard a single sound from outside their bedroom; privacy, so hard to come by, was theirs, at least for a little while. Just the thought of it made a fierce warmth run through her, and she pressed herself more invitingly against him.

“Isn’t it nice to have a morning off together,” she purred as her hand began its descent, “when we can lay in bed for an hour without worrying about getting up and facing the world?”

At her last word, the alarm on Malcolm’s bedside table went off, as if punctuating her sentence. Katherine glanced at the clock: 8:57.

After shutting the alarm off, Malcolm tossed back the blanket and swung his legs off the side of the bed. “Didn’t I tell you?” he said absently, pulling his robe on. “There’s a meeting in my department this afternoon that I have to attend, so my first lecture was moved up.”

Katherine sat up, the blanket falling off of her shoulders and leaving her vulnerable to the cold air. “No,” she replied, her voice as quiet as someone who was afraid to speak up. “I thought we’d be able to spend the morning together.”

“I’m sorry,” Malcolm said briskly, already halfway out the door. “There was nothing I could do about the change of schedule.”

Katherine watched him disappear into the hallway; she listened to the water rush through the pipes and rain down into the bathtub. She felt a prickling heat behind her eyelids, and shook herself out of the trance of disappointment she had fallen into. Don’t cry, she told herself. Don’t cry over a couple of lost hours. It’s not that important.

But as she left the bed and started towards the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee, she wondered if it was those lost hours that had broken her heart, or if it was the way Malcolm had barely looked at her, and spoken to her as if she were a stranger… or, if it was the realization that this wasn’t the first time he’d done so.

I have to post this, because I totally grossed myself out writing it.

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

Before he had finished talking, Anna's mouth was on his skin, and her teeth cut through the flesh. She felt the layers slide past her teeth, and counted them as they went: skin, fat, muscle. She tilted her head expertly, picturing the anatomy in her mind as she angled her approach, skipped the softer, sluggish basilic vein and punctured the elastic wall of the brachial artery. There! Her mouth filled with blood, and her eyelids fluttered with the sensation of it. Above her, she heard Tylo hiss between his teeth, but she ignored him, wrapping her hand around his arm and pulling him closer. He released his hold on his upper arm, and the blood flowed faster, not with a discernible pulse, but with a strong and steady flow. She swallowed, and swallowed again as heat rushed through her body. This was all that mattered. Time blurred, and she lost count of the number of times she had let her mouth fill and swallow. All she knew, when Tylo tried to prise her from his arm, was that she never wanted to stop. Tylo made a small noise, then hooked his fingers in her tangled hair, tugging her away with a sharp pull.

Re: I have to post this, because I totally grossed myself out writing it.

[ruth-the-sleuth.livejournal.com]

It's so rare that vampires actually see to know their way around the human anatomy. This is great.

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

Tess had only taken a few steps when she spotted them. For two days, these same three protesters and been marching and chanting, oblivious to the fact that they clearly had the wrong address.

Yesterday, she'd tried to reason with them, only to discover that they had apparently built up a strong resistance to reason, and they weren't even willing to consider the possibility that they were at the wrong location.

Today, she was just going to ignore them.

As she got closer, they began shouting louder and waving their signs more frantically. Two of them were carrying 'Stop Abortion' signs, while the third had a 'God Hates Fags' sign on which someone had scrawled 'and baby kilers!!!' with a red magic marker.

Their anger and atrocious spelling aside, there was something almost sad about the three lone protesters, huddled miserably in the brutal cold, unable or unwilling to understand that there was nothing for them to protest here.

She would almost feel sorry for them, if their faces weren't twisted up in such expressions of rage and hate.

"Slut!" one of them screamed, as she walked by.

Tess stopped, trying to will herself to ignore them and just keep walking.

"Murdering WHORE!"

She sighed and turned around. "Two things," she said, trying to keep her voice calm, "First, I'm not a patient. I work here. I explained that to you yesterday."

"You're still a KILLER!" one of them yelled, and then they all began repeatedly chanting, "Killer!"

Well, technically, if their sign was to be believed, she would be a 'kiler', but there was no point in picking nits. "And second," she continued, "and this is the really important part," she raised her voice so that they could hear her above their murmured chants, "You are in the wrong place!"

"This is where GOD wants us to be!"

"Then God needs a new map," she snapped, "because we don't do abortions here."

"How DARE you mock the Lord?!"

"I'm just trying to tell you, AGAIN, that this is a Fertility Clinic. We help women become pregnant. None of our patients are here for abortions."

"Liar! You just want us to leave so you can talk them into killing their babies!"

Tess sighed again, refusing to get drawn into the same kind of pointless debate as yesterday. "You have the wrong address," she said slowly, hoping against all odds that it might sink in this time.

"This is the address they gave us!" one of the protesters insisted, waving around one of the flyers that they'd been trying to force on passers-by.

"May I see that please?" Tess asked.

The protestors looked back and forth at each other, as if they weren't sure if she should have one or not. They were supposed to hand them out, but they clearly also felt that she had some nefarious purpose in mind.

"Please?"

They handed her a flyer, filled with an assortment of badly written falsehoods and half-truths, and she turned it over to look at the address.

"Is this where you're supposed to be protesting?" she asked.

"Yes," one of them answered cautiously, as if it might be a trick question.

"Well, there's the problem then," Tess said, "That isn't our address. That's on the other side of town."

One of the protestors pointed at the street sign.

"Yes, it's the same street," she said, "but not the right address. This road runs all the way through town. See? This isn't the right street number. I promise you, this isn't where you meant to be."

"It don't matter," one man insisted, grabbing the flyer back, "We won't stop, until we shut you ALL down!"

"I already explained--"

At that point, they all began singing some hymn, very loudly and off-key, so Tess decided to give up and go inside. There was no point in freezing her ass off for these idiots.

"Suit yourselves," she called out above the singing, "but if you harass any of my patients, I will call the police."

Tess walked away, shaking her head at the absurdity of self-proclaimed 'pro-lifers' shouting protests at women who were here to try to BECOME pregnant.

An excerpt from chapter one.

[anahatanad.livejournal.com]

'I haven't had this much fun in a long time, sister. Why haven't you invited me over before?'

Samantha shrugged her shoulders and fiddled with a pregnancy test box. 'I don't know. Why didn't you invite me over to your place or just invite yourself over?' Her eyes met Elisabeth's. Elisabeth looked away and shrugged her own shoulders. 'I think it may be time for the first few.'

Elisabeth grabbed a handful of boxes and handed them to Samantha. 'Good luck.'

Samantha took the handful of boxes and walked slowly, cautiously to the downstairs toilet. The powder room, as her mother preferred to call it, was pink and feminine. Thanks to the glorious invention of discreet air fresheners, the small half bathroom smelt of lilacs and fresh peaches. It was an intoxicating fragrance, and most likely why Andrew never bothered to use that bathroom... That and the fact that every time he tried to, Samantha would hit him playfully on the bum and tell him to use the upstairs or romp room toilets. Those ones were much more man-friendly, she thought. She hoped that he didn't resent her for it and made a mental note to thank him properly later for respecting her bathroom related wish.

With a sigh, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. She turned to the side, puffed out her stomach, and arched her back. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, she thought to herself. Or maybe she'd look like a beached whale. She wasn't sure about that, but she was sure that she was trying to distract herself from the more serious thoughts and worries in her head. She frowned and rubbed her toned but still puffed out stomach.

The bathroom's counter top was covered in used pregnancy tests and the dainty basket by the toilet was filled with their cardboard boxes. Three hands strummed the kitchen table top in unison. All eyes were on the wall mounted clock. The air was very tense. The three women held their breaths as they watched the seconds tick by. When the big hand finally moved, they exhaled in unison. Samantha shook her arms and head, in an attempt to shake off the worry and stress that were weighing her down emotionally.

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

In another part of the world there is a tsunami going on, and two men are caught in a whirlpool going around and around. They do not speak the same language; one was a tourist in this place and the other a worker who lived without running water or electricity in his home with the children and wife who were swept away like his shoes. for now all the details about them as individuals are meaningless because the man and the man who are going around and around in this whirlpool are caught in each others eyes. They don’t have words because a silence holds them, there aren't any birds or sounds at all, all the noise and fury has stopped and they are caught as they go round on this odd merrygoround of water and furniture and bits of pieces of other peoples lives. The one man thinks (or is it the other man) "this is the most perfect moment in time." and the other man thinks, "isn’t it odd that he is smlling at me…I wonder if I am smiling at him?...."

[twistdfateangel.livejournal.com]

“... Apparently, Yashina and Milovy are in Lumierailles.”

“Who are they?” asked Sophie.

“By birthright and breeding, the Grand Duchess' future handmaidens,” said Tristaine. There was a hint of loathing in her voice.

“There's something wrong with them, isn't there?” It was less of a question on Sophie's part and more of a statement of the obvious. “Did they kill someone?”

“Ha! Not outright,” said Miroslav.

“They're a pack of young harpies,” Tristaine continued, “They'd start a conspiracy, just to liven up a dull morning. Last heard, Lady Agafya Milovy was very cold to her husband at court and danced three waltzes with another man.”

“Perhaps they quarreled?” Sophie wasn't holding her breath over it.

“She was waltzing with Duke Afanasy Frolov, the Minister of War, and a man twenty years her elder,” Miroslav snorted with an edge of malice, “Not to mention, the only remaining heir should something happen to both the Prince Regent and the Grand Duchess. There's a rather vocal faction at court that would rather not wait for such tragedies.”

“So, you think that Lady Milovy would rather take her chances at being an Imperial favorite than being a Lord's wife?”

“Lord Yashin is the Minister of Education,” Tristaine supplied, shoving a handful of the morning paper under the logs on the fireplace. Miroslav took out the crystal again and flicked it carelessly at the hearth. The kindling beneath crackled to life and began to catch at the bark. “Admittedly, he's a bit of a milksop, better suited to teaching, but he certainly doesn't deserve Lady Milovy or that sister of his.”

“Anna Yashina was as innocent as you, Sophie,” she went on, “But she was sent to learn feminine accomplishments here, in Lumierailles.”

“With her aunt, Mariya the She-Devil,” Miroslav said, fishing out an engraved flask, “Lady Mariya Vodniya was quite the sorceress, as well as quite the dilletante. No-one with any taste liked her, but her sister was an idiot and believed all 'dear Risha' needed was to exercize some motherlyinstincts. Instead, 'dear Risha' exposed her to some of the worst the four Vampiric Houses can offer, the most decayed sorcerous families and the vilest creatures mankind has ever bred. Anna Yashina returned home and showed some signs of repentance, but after a while... The decadence had clearly seeped into her mind. She loves a scandal, even when its her own.”

“They hardly seems like proper companions for a Grand Duchess!” Sophie blurted out, “Can't they be exiled or banished from court?”

“Sadly, not yet,” Miroslav replied between punctuating swigs, “its complicated. The family members of an Imperial Minister or Advisor can't be sent away from court without a divorce, a widowhood, or her husband's exile. It's an old law that nobody is inclined to change. Yashin is madly devoted to his bride and sister, and neither of them would dream of putting the golden goose in a stew pot. Yashin is fairly inoffensive and too smart to annoy his employer, so, I'm afraid we're stuck with the two brats until either Yashin realizes they're leeches or does something characteristically stupid.”

“Is it possible,” Sophie hazarded, “that they might have something to do with the deaths of the male heirs? If you want something to gossip about and you're bored enough, who's to say someone brought up like Anna Yashina wouldn't turn to assassination? And Agafya Milovy would probably like very much to be the Imperial favorite as you said. She'd be literally two steps away from that now.”

Miroslav and Tristaine were staring at her in surprise. Sophie realized that she'd been thinking aloud and had probably said something they were all thinking and didn't dare say. “I—I'm sorry,” she stammered, “but it just occurred to me that foolish people do unspeakable things every day in the name of entertainment.”

“Well, well, Miro,” said Tristaine in mild amazement, “It appears our little western sparrow isn't nearly so innocent as we first believed.”

“I think I leave you two ladies to gossip,” Miroslav said, “some battles are best fought in the drawing rooms.” He bowed and took his leave, chastely locking the door behind him.

[zafu.livejournal.com]

It was completely impossible to break away from her. Their eyes had locked the moment Peter had jumped from her touch, and now that she held his gaze there was no way she was going to let go. She had been waiting years and years for this moment.

Natasha’s life had existed so that this moment would come to pass. In this, her final act, Natasha imbedded all of her hopes for the world. As she began to fall and before Peter could do anything to prevent it, if in fact he could do anything at all, she had hit the linoleum floor.

Whether the spell had was broken then or whether there had never been a spell at all, Peter didn’t know. And there would be no way of every finding out, either. Other nurses rushed around the two of them, trying to revive Natasha. Peter was left standing there, people swarming around him and a dead old gypsy at the center.

The only thing left was a piece of warn, felt-soft piece of paper in the palm of his hand.

[jynxgirl.livejournal.com]

Emily examined the puzzle piece carefully through the plastic evidence bag. The piece was a bizarre mixture of golds, browns and reds. “Do you think this means anything important?” She held the bag out to Tomas.

He glanced at it. “Probably not. It was likely just a piece of trash left over from a bored, depressed, choir boy.”

Emily scowled at him, “What is your problem with Catholicism? You've been down on everything to do with that church since we got there. Just get it off your chest, so we can get on with the case.”

“Are you sure you want to know?” Tomas' voice was bitter, and low. “When I was a kid, I was forced to go to church every Sunday. My parents were devout Catholics, and at first, I wanted to go all the time. I prayed to God every night. I asked for very little from God. I was a good kid, and made sure that, to the best of my ability, I followed all the rules.”

Emily put down her paperwork, and gave her full attention to her partner. He was staring off into space, and didn't even seem to be looking at her. The puzzle was still held in her hands.

“When I was twelve years old, my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I prayed every night for four months. I begged. I bargained. I even pleaded with God to let her live.” He refused to make eye contact with her, and started playing with the pens on his desk, “She died five months after she was diagnosed.”

Emily felt her stomach drop. “I am so sorry Tomas.”

He shook his head, “It's not your fault. I never went back to church after that. I just can't respect the religion when it tells you to put all your faith in God, and when you need that faith to mean something, there is just nothing there.”

Emily met his eyes, and saw them full of overwhelming sadness. She wanted to reach out to him but was fairly certain anything she said would just make him feel worse.

“I know you are Catholic, Emmy. It's okay. I won't hold it against you. I still believe in God. I just get a little touchy around churches and priests.” His smile made her feel a lot better. “Just don't get me going on nuns.”

She laughed, tossing the piece of evidence on her desk and groaning. “You just had to go there.” She chucked a pen at him, hitting him squarely in the chest.

[bluemoon02.livejournal.com]

My rendition of the 'To be or not to be' soliloquey:

To be, or not to be. To be or not to be. To be or not to be to be or not to be.

Tobeornottobe!

Rhythms and rhythms of questions in my head, centre around tobeornottobe.

Slings and arrows and torture and pain, isn't that all that life is? That's what the Buddhists say. Biddhists and Nietzsche -- who'd have thought they'd ever agree on anything? To suffer, to be courageous, the old British stiff upperlip. It's noble. Or, at least, that's what we grow up to believe. Noble to suffer, and cowardice to save yourself.

It just sounds passive to me. Stand with your face lifted to the rain, the wind, the hurricanes that batter at you every day. What idiot would do this, when there's shelter to be had? Cheat nature, cheat the pain. Cheat God! And why not?

To die?

To sleep?

To be or not to be to be or not to be tobeornottobe?

To sleep perchance to dream -- aye! There's the rub of it. The grind that carries on when the body shuts down, whirring and pounding, ever moving but never changing. Again and again my father visits me, until I can't tell his true ghost from the ghost in my mind. Jung had a lot to say about dreams, but nothing to do with the ghosts, the shadows, the living dead, the tortured souls that inhabibt my head. They scream for redemption, for revenge -- but who am I? What am I? A boy, a child. What can I do? And all of this, when I'm still yet living. I don't know, yet, what lies beyond the grave, nor what dreams will torture my rest when the body shuts down forever.

To be or not to be.

Stop and breathe, Hamlet. Pause, just a moment.

There's a man in the village says he's waiting for his telegraph from the queen. Only another eight months to go. He's shriveled and miserable to the eye, with numerous untold ailments and diseases, I'm sure. But what makes his life so pitiable? Surely the length of it. I, eighteen, bemoan my sufferings. What suffering has he endured, a man five times my age?

The pain of birth first, that ripping from the safety of the womb, the knowledge of the pain you inflict on the innocent incubator of your life; Then growth of mind and body, so fast in those early years, a language learn from scratch in all of eighteen months -- so quick, that acquisition of knowledge, and then so long and lingering the stumbling loss and forgetfulness that follows; then childhood, where one is forced to mix with other children, a species who lives to find fault in its fellows; then my own age which, surely, can only be defined by the discovery of the grandest pains: of death, of love, of finding fault in that which we thought perfection. The pain still left to discover I can't imagine, but I'm sure that old man could enlighten me. And to top all this, the weariness of simply living, the exhaustion of breathing in and out, the constant thrum of the heart, the eternal thrum of the pulse. Exhausting.

Time scorns him like it scorns no other.

Then there is that something -- or nothing -- after death. A lost land. We live in a time when the world is mapped, is photographed from high above the earth, and we begind to map other planets, below the earth's surface, to decide on the make up of things so small we cannot see them. Death is the last mystery -- and it scares the shit out of every last one of us. That's the reason: we toil and travail, assert courage and nobility, simply to hide from that looming, inevitable mystery.

Better the devil you know?

Now *that's* cowardice!

Their -- (our) -- hue of 'brave' resolutiong is all muddied with the sickly pale cast of fear, and life, this great enterprise that's really the pith of moment, exists only to distract the sheep-like masses from their shadowy end.

The loss of action. The domination of mind.

To sleep perchance to dream.

To be, or not to be?

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Dear friend,

I don't blame you for not replying to my last two emails. They were bad, weren't they? And I kept saying that it gets worse... It turns out that I didn't know how much worse it was going to get.

There are no words to tell you how much I hate and despise myself at this minute. I cannot believe that I could be such an awful, fickle person, that I could go against everything I believe in, that I could go back on what I said - and meant, please believe I meant it - in my last letter.

The thing is that ever since Doug made those little insinuations, hinted to me that he might be up for... you know?... last week, it's been running through my mind: what if? why not? After all... I said I don't fancy him (or did I? I'm so confused now that I can't remember what I wrote and what I thought) but on some level, physically at least, that had to be a lie. Of course it did. Because, after all, he looks like Josh, and I fancy Josh. More than fancy. There's something in him that calls to something deep inside me, and of course that something's not there with Doug. But he has an unfair advantage. He has the same deep blue eyes, and the same tousled, dark hair. He has the same little nuances in his voice, and I know that I could pretend he was Josh without even having to shut my eyes. And the worst thing is this: sometimes I want to. There, I said it. Sometimes - and more and more the more I think about it - I want to kiss Doug. I want to do more. I know, I know, I'm a horrible person for thinking this way, and there is no way for it to be anything other than wrong. I sit here and I say to myself, 'No one would ever find out. No one would ever find out. No one would ever find out.' And the more I say it, the more I know it's complete bullshit. I'm deluding myself. Of course they would find out. This is my husband's brother, his twin brother. I know what this family is like - what any family is like. Things get around. It's natural.

And yet. And yet. I'm flesh and blood, I'm not a marble saint. I can't be expected to do without any form of physical affection for ever. I know that with Doug it would be mere lust on his part, and something between wish-fulfilment and self-delusion on mine. And yet there's a part of me that says, why not? Yes, it would be wrong, but would it be any more wrong than what Josh is doing to me by bringing me down here, shutting me off from my family, my friends and my potential, and effectively ignoring me? If this were fifty years ago, and I were the man, I wouldn't stand for it. I'd go straight out and have an affair. Because, you know, I have a right to sex, right? It's one of the things you agree to when you get married. Oh, it's not fair. Why me? Why do I have to make this choice?

Maybe it's some kind of obscure test. Maybe Josh and Doug have got together in some weird twin pact and decided to test my fidelity. My God, I'm getting paranoid. If I seriously thought either of them was capable of doing that I'd be out of here before you could blink. That would be so seriously twisted. I don't know, though. I don't belong down here, with the mist and the waves. It's not my home. I don't know how things work here. Theoretically... No. These are human beings, and I have a right to expect them to behave like ordinary, decent human beings. I have a responsibility to do the same myself. Please remind me about that when I forget - which I seem to do far too often these days. If I'm not prepared to remain faithful to Josh I must get out. And I can't get out. There's enough left there. We can rescue it, if only I can stay strong.

I don't know whether you'd like to email me to remind me that this is a spectacularly bad idea. I ought to be able to work it out by myself, and in my stronger moments I can. Just... remind me, OK?

Jenna xx

[veedub.livejournal.com]

Bee had put in several years at Blums Evanston, a high-end clothing store, bringing home many stories of the eccentric rich women customers with whom she had to put up. And when she came home she would try to be a good 1950's housewife and make interesting meals. Cooking shows on TV at the time included those of Francois Pope and the early shows of Julia Child. Everything seemed to have pineapple on it, or marshmallows. In the summer on really hot nights we would drive up to Wilmette, where there was a deli where you could get smoked fish, pickles, potato salad, and other deli treats to bring home and eat. But Saturday nights were, invariably, boiled Oscar Meyer hot dogs and Campbell's Pork and Beans, with potato chips and pickles. I think those Saturday night beans helped me along the road to dating-- anything to avoid having to eat hot dogs and beans yet again.

any thoughts...?

[agdhani.livejournal.com]

(I realize the editor is out on extended vacation for November, but I'm curious as to how to make this imagery more...erotic? It's not porn by any stretch, but as the first real glimpse of a woman the MC gets I'm trying to convey the impact it would have...make it more vivid...and while I see it in my head as vivid, I'm not sure the words are working.)


She appeared to be bathing, using casual languid motions to moisten a cloth in a basin at her feet and then draw it over her silhouetted form. Her back was to him. When she stood straight, her hands fumbled at the top of her head until her long hair fell free around her shoulders. Still humming, she picked up a brush and began to brush her hair. Kavan was mesmerized, trapped by the sight of her. He had never been so intimately aware of a woman’s curves before, the narrowness of her waist, the roundness of her small hips. With a swing of her head she turned sideways so that he could view the shape of her there as well, lush, not too thin, and inviting, from the curve of her calves up to the swell of her bosom. Propping her foot upon a crate, she bent again, picked up a larger cloth, and began to dry herself.
With a strangled moan, his eyes unable to look away from the roundness of her breast, Kavan straightened, realizing what he was doing. Mortified, he turned and fled, not aware that the woman had turned to face the canvas wall as if aware of his presence at last.

[chokethewind.livejournal.com]

The last time that he had jumped from a building, he had never considered the possibility that he might live through the ordeal. There had been a lot of panicked screams, someone shouting about a terrorist and then for an ambulance, and then, quite remarkably, there had been a pigeon. He'd been utterly and completely disappointed by the entire affair—so disappointed, in fact, that he'd gone and lived at a camp in a mountain where he was granted the opportunity to complain and whine about just how utterly and completely disappointed he was, exactly, in the entire affair. Sometimes he would complain and whine about other affairs, but for the most part he'd stuck to the event involving the roof of the building and the pigeon.

That had been a million years ago, however, and it seemed like his jumping days were over—all except for those days, of course, when he sat in this cubicle, which always startled him, because for some reason, someone had painted it a gorgeous color of sprightly sunflower yellow. Sometimes it blinded him, and sometimes he found calm staring into the yellow walls, but for the most part, there was only the annoyance, as well as the annoyances that occurred in this office, annoyances that were usually enough to reinstate every thought he'd ever had in his roof-jumping days that Dr. Phil had supposedly stamped out of him.

Opening paragraphs. ^^

[ma-chienne.livejournal.com]

I saw her do it. She took him right outside and bashed his bloody head in. It wasn’t pretty, not one bit, but we’ve both seen worse. Explosions, dismemberment, stabbings, shootings, the whole bit. It’s what we do .She sets them up, and I’m the one pulls the trigger. That’s my girl. That’s my Alexandra, the sweetest girl you’ll ever meet who just happens to love everything bloody and horrible about the world. You wouldn’t know unless you’ve seen her eyes. She beat the lad’s nose ‘til it went sideways and wasn’t happy until his jaw looked the same.

And Christ, that was just the waiter. I think even I would’ve been scared to see what she’d have done to the target if I didn’t get him first. I watched her through the window, crosshairs focused on the bald head of whatever fat guy we were told to kill this time. His name was Italian or some shit like that. She took that waiter’s clothes, dumped him behind some rubbish can and waltzed right on in, looking as if she had worked there all her life. No one noticed her name was Adam. I don’t know why. Hell, I could see it clearly through my scope and I was blocks away. The pants were a little long –she was a small girl- but she did away with the tie. I was a little upset. My crosshairs hid half her face when I focused on the target, but I could see the smile. She probably introduced herself: “Hi, I’m Adrienne. I’ll be your server tonight…” and all that nonsense. Neither of us ever used our real name for this sort of thing.

This reminds me...

Hi. I’m Edward. Or, there’s a pretty good chance I’m Edward. I went by Nathaniel once; then I was Paul. I remember my actual name, but I’ve used a shitload of names, so I pick and choose my favorites. Listen to me for two seconds and you can tell where I’m from. I’ll save you the trouble: Dublin. For the stupid, it’s in Ireland. I don’t have red hair though. Not right now anyway. Alexandra and I have both dyed our hair sometimes, for business and for pleasure. A guy could never make it in this business unless he has a little fun.

Let’s clear up a few misconceptions while we’re at it. This business isn’t glamorous. You kill people. You pull a trigger, someone dies, the end. There’s no parties, no tuxedoes, none of that shit. Sometimes, you go to the funeral, mainly because there is free food. Every now and then, you get a car chase, but you try to stay away from those. There are no karate masters. Well, there’s some, but I’m not one of them. I don’t need to be. I have bullets. There’s no such thing as an individual. There’s an entire hierarchy that everyone needs to obey. The highest ones, well they don’t have an official group name, but my associates and I call them the Aristocracy. Like in most Aristocracies, no one likes them, but everyone assures them that their shit doesn’t stink. I hate those goddamned, self-righteous, pompous, rat-kissing sons of bitches.

But I’m their errand boy, their personal assassin. For now.

Back to business. Alexandra’s gotten him out of the seat. He’s headed to the bathroom. From the finger signals I can see, she put laxatives in his drink. Crude, Alexandra, crude. That steak looked pretty good. I’ll have to come back here some time. My sight followed the guy as he left the room, heading to the bathroom as quick as his fat little legs could carry him. I looked in that bathroom window. I couldn’t get a clean shot before he entered the stall so I waited. I talked to myself. I often do. This time around, I decided that Prague really wasn’t as boring as I made it out to be and was worthy of another visit.

Ah, he’s out. It’s about damn time. He’s washing his hands. Well, at least he’ll be clean for the police.

Christ, people scream too much.

(Opening piece)

latest from 'The Poisoned Veil'

[ladyseraph-756.livejournal.com]

“What would he do to you if you didn’t marry me? Would he hurt you?”
She said nothing, merely uncovering the back of her neck. He gasped at the livid red mark on the freckled neck with horror.
“He did this to you?”
“Yes, he did.” The calmness of her voice as she talked about it made it even more horrific. “It took a lot to break me to his will. I wanted to remain pure when I took my vows and I wouldn’t bend no matter what threats he threw at me. Then he lost his temper at my stubbornness one day and held the poker to my neck until I submitted to him and agreed to the match. It hasn’t healed properly yet, no matter what salves I use on it. I weakened in my resolve. I gave up my dream because I was too damned weak to stand my ground. -“
“Don’t say that, Marchelline! You are so brave.”
“Brave? Me?”
“Yes!” he said firmly. “What your father did was wrong beyond belief. If my father can sanction that then I am ashamed and disgusted. I know someone who can make a salve for your neck-”.
He thought of Babette and her unparalleled skills with herbs. They were a family and it had been destroyed by his father and most damning of all his own stupid pride.
"Thank you, Ghislain"
“How could they both do this to us?” he whispered utterly appalled at the abusive, mainpulative man behind the avuncular facade of Daniel de Courfeyrac. “They tell us they love us, then destroy us for their sport and demand our loyalty and our love in return.”
“Do you not want this either?” she regarded with those childlike clear eyes. “Let us be frank. I can’t be the only one to bare her soul here?”
“I’m sorry to hurt you, Marchelline. You are a lovely girl and talking to you, I feel we could get on really well-“
“But your heart is not yours. You’re still in love with her...-“ she hesitated, an embarrassed flush on her freckled face.
He wasn’t sure he could go on. Marchelline’s suffering and the memory of Eve lying on their bed weeping while he forced himself to walk away overwhelmed him emotionally.
He felt the comforting touch of her hand as she brushed away the tears streaming down his face.
“You love her. Don’t you, Ghislain?” she said gently. “How ever did you let her go , when you love her so passionately?”
She looked at the minature in his hand.
So this is Eve Ravensbourne, the foreigner. Thought Marchelline to herself. How was I ever meant to compete with that? No wonder he’s obsessed with her.
Close up the woman was ravishing. Those huge limpid grey green eyes fringed with golden lashes. The lovely fine features of her face with it’s spattering of freckles as if the sun had affectionately bestowed a kiss there. The shape of her pink full lips as she curved her mouth into a subtle smile almost inviting the viewer to kiss her.
“Nightingale-“ he whispered staring at the minature with such obvious adoration and love Marchelline’s tender heart twisted painfully in her chest.
He loves her. He will never let her go. How could I ever compare with a goddess like that?
He whipped the portrait away back into it’s russet leather case and slipped it back to his coat pocket. “Christ, they’ve come out.”
A she saw the panic in his dark eyes Marchelline kept her head. “Ghislain, make love to me!”
“But- I wouldn’t like to insult you. .”
“Don’t be stupid!” she hissed back desperately. “If my father realises we’ve confided in each other, our lives won’t be worth living! Kiss my hand, try to touch me, whisper fine words. Convince them that you want me now. Pretend I’m Eve if you have to-“
“I couldn’t. It would be dishonest-“
“Just do it, for Christ’s sake!” she snapped. “Please, for my sake-“
It’s a role. You can do this , Ghislain. If Marchelline can summon up the guile and courage to defeat our father’s joint plans then so can you. Stop being such a sap!
“Oh Monsieur Bouchard! Please do not take such liberties with me!” she cried pushing herself close enough that the ruse wold be convincing to an outsider.
“Marchelline, be kind-“ he said taking her cue. “-grant me the smallest favour. One sweet kiss-“
“Do not think you can take liberties with me, sir! I am not one of your doxies who you can treat with disrespect. I am to be your wife , not your mistress!”

[mlleraquel.livejournal.com]

There was a long silence between them as they stood in the hall, shifting over to beside the door for 4A so they could listen better. Mary leaned against the door carefully, resting her ear against it. Trevor went for a more casual stance, leaning back against the wall with his hands still in his pockets and his eyes closed. The two inside could not have been far from the door, as Mary could hear them almost perfectly. Daphne’s light voice was in great contrast to the deep baritone of the man she was with, and Mary could hear the dangerous purring that was pulling the man to his death.

A silence broke inside the apartment, and Mary could only imagine what was happening. She could hear movement but no longer could she hear their voices. Despite Trevor’s constant reassurance earlier in the evening, she could not help but be worried. There were a few muffled sounds from the other side of the door and then silence. Mary looked up at Trevor as she became deaf to anything that could be happening in the apartment. He remained unmoved, his eyes still closed, his face impassive. It was not until Mary heard footsteps from the other side of the door that she took her eyes off him and took a step away from the door. The footsteps were coming toward her and she did not want to be leaning against the door when it opened.

“Come on in,” Daphne greeted them as she opened the door, moving out of their way as they entered the apartment. She wandered into the kitchen and went to washing off her hands and her knife as they walked further into the apartment, Trevor leading Mary into the bedroom. They stood in the doorway and looked at the man who was sprawled on the bed, his wrists tied to the bedposts with two neckties and his throat clearly sliced open.

“Daphne,” Trevor called to her, amusement ringing in his voice. “Care to tell me what you were planning to do, here, had you not taken care of him right away?” Daphne walked over to them, glancing at the man as Trevor pointed to his wrists and the expert knots holding them to the bedposts.

“No, I do not care to tell you,” Daphne retorted, grinning broadly as she slipped the knife into a sheath. “And I think you should be happy about that.”

[luck-overdue.livejournal.com]

The world opened up for us as we drove 70 mph down the darkened streets. The roads were desolate and it was oddly reminiscent of the rapture, but the weight of our situation was more severe than an impending apocalypse. We were sinners, but there was no hope for redemption.

The only noise heard was the sound of static prevailing over two stations vying for airplay. We drowned out the muffled screams emanating from the back seat with our screaming consciences. The four of us sat in silence and wondered if we were too far gone, if it was at all possible to turn back time. We all had idealized notions of playing the role of tragic hero, ones who superseded the moral hierarchy and did good through a little sin. We told each other we could escape and save hundreds from a life of brainless servitude to a manmade deity.

We’ve been on the run for three days now, and we’ve inconspicuously traveled from small town to small town. Four petite girls seemingly incapable of brute strength is hardly the cause of alarm. But it’s not our strength that people need to worry about; it’s our mental instability.

[direcorrector.livejournal.com]

My grandmother remembers when this place was still a planet. This tiny little frozen rock in the back 40 of the Solar System. If there is a bright light in the center of the universe this really IS the planet that it is farthest from … except it’s not a planet anymore. It’s just a glorified asteroid that shares a name with a Disney dog; a dwarf forever obscured by the shadows of giants.
We disembarked from the Martian colony 5 years ago. Although if it weren’t for the reddish sky, the slightly colder weather, and the vague scent of rusty iron in the air, you would think you were on Earth… well maybe the Upper Peninsula of Michigan part of Earth… but definitely not Mars. You could walk around without any special protective gear. There was a new atmosphere so we could breathe normally… and certainly no fear of getting a Martian sun burn. Still, it had lost something. It had lost the exotic extraterrestrial feel it used to have the first time I was there; back when we still had to use spacesuits to walk around… back when it took 4 months to fly there from Earth, instead of the 4 weeks last time I was there. For all I know it takes 4 days or 4 minutes by now with the way technology advances.
That is why I agreed to go on this exploratory mission. I wanted to see the rest of the Solar System before all the other planets just became sequels of Earth. As we orbited around the far side of Pluto, I could see the surface of the planet silhouetted by the tiny pin prick of Sol, our sun, trillions of kilometers away. I wonder if this is how Admiral Perry felt when he arrived at the North Pole which, at the time, was a place as cold and remote and uncharted and unapproachable… sounds like a few of my last attempts at relationships.
Pluto was surprisingly… shiny! It did not have the marble swirls of Jupiter, or the deep azures and emeralds of Neptune. Still if you like sparkly yellowish brown and a terrain made of frozen cow farts, Pluto is the place for you.