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nanowrimo_lj2011-11-11 11:49 pm
jupitersings.livejournal.com) wrote in nanowrimo_lj2011-11-11 11:49 pm
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11 November: Daily Excerpt
Feel free to share an excerpt from your novel here, though we ask that you keep it to PG-13, and if there are any triggers please list them in the title of your comment for people to see.
Please try to keep it under 1500 words for the sake of LJ not liking very long comments.
Please try to keep it under 1500 words for the sake of LJ not liking very long comments.
no subject
Any background information:
Excerpt:
“And is it true that coming up with a profile is as much an art as a science? Instinct, intuition...”
Lane gave a small laugh, which somehow, coming from him, was inclusive rather than patronising. He leaned forward to emphasise that he was sharing trade secrets. Farmer leaned forward to demonstrate that he recognised he was being let in, and appreciated the fact.
A part of him had missed this, so very much. The people around him these days all said everything they needed to in words; nothing else was conscious, controlled. Sometimes not even the words were controlled, while body language, intonation, all those tiny little gestures and facial expressions were available to read like a newspaper. Lane was different; Lane was challenging, Lane was aware, incredibly aware, of his own mind and body and he chose exactly what to lay open to the public and what to keep. Farmer was in his element. He had not played the game like this in years.
“What we tend to call intuition,” Lane was saying, “is really just the culmination of all the experience we've forgotten, or that we never noticed acquiring in the first place. For example, if I introduced you to ten new police recruits and you could only talk to them for a few seconds each, could you pick out the ones who would go on to be good officers? Flake out? Become chief constable?”
Farmer didn't hesitate; false modesty would be meaningless with Lane. “Yes, I could.”
“Why?”
“Practice. I spent a long time learning to understand people, to predict their behaviour.”
“As did I.” Lane smiled again; it was more natural this time. Farmer, who suspected Lane only smiled for personal as opposed to social reasons once or twice a year, felt gratified. Special.
That was it, right there; no need for complex terminology. Lane made him feel special. He made everyone he met feel special.
“Now,” he continued, his tone brisk as his gaze warmed Farmer like a caress, “if your sergeant, say, saw you doing this, how would she describe the achievement? What would she put it down to, this apparently supernatural ability of yours to sort the wheat from the chaff?”
Farmer smiled. “Intuition.”
“Exactly, Inspector. Intuition is merely the accumulation of experience. It's practice, plain and simple. The reason it seems amazing, sometimes even to ourselves, is because there's so much information we collect and catalogue and use without even being aware that we know it.”
Not all of us, Farmer thought. You know. You always know. He said nothing, saluted Lane with his coffee cup. “Thank you, Professor.”
no subject
Any background information: There has been a murder on campus.
Excerpt: I lost her around the corner, and swore, heavily. God this was terribly annoying. Let's see what did I know about Krista? Honestly, not a hell of a lot. Suck. Ok, Harry said he found her in a tree the first night she was here, and she liked Stephen King, and...Horses! I don't know why I decided to check the stables first. Maybe because we'd just been talking about it. It just seemd like the best plan. Turned out I was right cause I found her with Starbuck. “Krista?” I said, coming into the stall with her and the horse. “What's wrong?”
“I...I think it might be my fault he's dead.” She said softly, not meeting my eyes.
Ok, not exactly what I was expecting. “How could it be your fault. You were in the room with me the night he died. What? Because you came here and suddenly a student ended up murdered it's your fault.”
“I was sent here because my step-father and mother were murdered by my father.” She stated, not looking up from the horse. “He's still on the loose and they think I'm the next target. I should have been dead already. I was supposed to be home that night. But I snuck out.” She was crying now, and the horse knickered, bending it's head to slightly butt her in a caring manner.
“You don't neccesarily know that.” I said, coming up next to her. “This could be unrelated. It probably is unrelated.”
“But I can't be sure.” She said, finally looking up at me. “What if he is after me? What if this is him trying to scare me.”
no subject
Any background information::none required
Excerpt:It was the sound of that over-flying aircraft, and the fantasies in his head connected to it as it crossed the sky and faded into the distance, that Simon focused on to the exclusion of all other sensory input. He assumed that was why he had not noticed any approaching footsteps until a shadow crossed before him and stretched out between him and the sun. Startled enough by the sudden appearance, though he assumed it to be Eden or Chat or one of the others, he snorted, “You’re cutting off my tan…” before even opening his eyes.
“May I sit?”
The stilted voice with the lyrical, unfamiliar accent came just as Simon opened his eyes. The shadow was tall, as tall as Chat, but narrow in the hips and shoulder, with arms that struck Simon as slightly too long. What he saw was more of a silhouette, golden light flaring behind it as a halo around the moon in an eclipse. The sunlight seemed brighter to Simon than it should be, given the hour of the day, and his eyes, adjusting to the glare, could not immediately focus on anything about the shadow other than its darkness against the light. Simon opened his mouth to speak, but the shadow spread above him filled him with an emotion he could only define as awe, stealing away both the words in his throat and the breath from his lungs that should have allowed him to articulate his reply. Instead, he dumbly nodded and swallowed hard, waiting to see what the speaker did next.
no subject
Any background information:More from the 18th century epic
Excerpt:Sophie followed Paolo out of the door. It was ridiculous that she was forced to do this. Follow him like some crazed lovestruck maid.
I have more self-respect then that surely? I have to know the truth. Not knowing is driving me mad.
She saw him by the bar leaning close to another woman. She laughed as she squirmed on his lap.
Sophie reeled. She retreated from the tavern, mind racing as she tried to register what she’d just seen.
He’s cheating on me! How could he!
You don’t know what you saw. There could be a perfectly logical explanation for what you saw.
A logical explanation for having a half-dressed wench on his lap?
She was going to find out the truth. She was going to confront him once and for all. At least she would know the truth, even if it broke her heart for she was sick of living a lie.
no subject
Any background information: Pat has a very supportive teacher, Father Bamford, who shares his interest in philosophy and history.
Excerpt: “That’s ridiculous.”
It was December, and the hot, dry summer had long ago given way to the chill grey of an Irish autumn, then a dark winter. They were sitting, again, on the broken sofa in the old house, with lemonade and sandwiches to hand; what set today apart from any other meeting was that it was a Friday, not a Sunday. In fact, it was the last Friday of school, which was why Jack had proposed they meet up – to compare notes, to relax, and, most of all, to celebrate the few brief weeks of relative freedom.
He said it again, since Pat had ignored him. “That’s ridiculous. He’s giving you homework for a class he doesn’t even teach?”
“It’s not homework.” Pat rolled his eyes, putting the books he was carrying onto the floor by the record pile. “I just can’t afford them myself, and he thought I might be interested in them. Think he’s right, too – they look pretty good, like.”
“They look boring as hell,” Jack retorted, and meant it. The books were thick and heavy, and had serious-sounding titles like Medieval Philosophy: An Introduction and Revelations of Divine Love. To somebody for whom any book much more serious than a Beano annual was inclined to seem like a waste of time, boring was an understatement. He knew Pat would enjoy them, of course, he just couldn’t fathom why – or why somebody would willingly give themselves that kind of heavy reading to do during the Christmas holidays. It was insane.
Then again, he’d come to peace months ago with the fact that his best friend was an insane Catholic, so he could move on from that. It wasn’t really a surprise if Pat wanted to waste his Christmas trudging through dense treatises on theology. It was stupid, but it wasn’t a surprise.
In typical Jack mode, this line of thought lasted all of thirty seconds before he started looking for the gag. “Revelations of Divine Love? That a subtle hint from Father Priestypants to you, Pat?”
no subject
Any background information: Anui is my MC. Pumae is a child she's recently become friends with. Pumae just got stabbed in the back, and there's no healer coming. Anui is supposed to be telling him that he's dying, and that he should follow the god of children to Death, but Anui doesn't have the heart to do it.
Excerpt:
Anui choked on a sob. The voice came again. “Tell him.”
“If I tell you a story, will you go to sleep?” Anui struggled to come up with something. “When you were a baby, we went to the big city to have you blessed in a temple. Overnight we stopped in a wood, in a big glade of flowers. We woke to see you in the arms of Puma, covered in butterflies.” She would give the flower goddess an offering later, to make up for her inclusion in the lie. “She gave you milk while we watched.”
Already Pumae’s breath was slowing.
“She held you to her breast all night. In the morning, you were back in my arms as if nothing had happened, but you were clutching a white petal tight in your fist. We went straight home; what priest could give a greater blessing than a goddess? And we named you Pumae, because you were blessed by the flower goddess.”
Pumae was completely still.
Anui screamed.
no subject
Any background information: bonus points if you recognise where I got the names of the two aviators from
Excerpt:
“Our ship could do with a cat,” said Perfidy.
“Are you joking? Cats are bad luck!” commented Massebot.
“That's black cats, stupid!”
“No, on a ship they're all bad luck! They eat rats, so the rats can't leave the sinking ship!”
“Airships don't sink, they explode violently! You don't get survivors from an exploding airship, even rats!”
“Can we not talk about exploding airships just before we get on an airship?” requested Tracy.
“Don't worry, the Emporium has never exploded once!” Perfidy promised them.
“It would if we had a cat!” said Massebot.
“Would you be quiet? Guards are looking!” whispered the Paladin irritably. He had been trying to scan the streets for signs of demonic activity. Their route took them past the street where Tracy had met the cultists but obviously it wasn't going to be overtly filled with suspicious figures in hooded robes whispering about demons and pointedly avoiding guards, apart from themselves. During the day, even a particularly dark day, there was work to do, and the inhabitants of the well-to-do area of town were all busy working in the banks and the courtrooms and managing the affairs of the Guilds. The streets had been washed clean and the motors for the clockwork lamps lit up by apprentices who hated the work but were happy to receive the generous tips, giving it the look of order and respectability common to all secret covens of demon-worshippers. Eventually, he gave up and they made their way to the front gate.