Archive | March 2014

Camp Nano: Help me Plan!

Mar25

Okay, so I’ve been tossing an idea around for ages and I’ve decided (it was @inventrix’s fault 😉 to make a go at if for April CampNano.

Basic idea: Every Crime Procedural, every Medical Show, every Serious Detective Show (maybe not those; I don’t watch those) seems to go through a series of episodes – there’s The Bondage Episode, the Furry Episode (Bones combined those into the pony play episode), the little people episode, the wrestling episode (Bones, again, combined those into little people wrestling), the Hoarders episode… and so on.

What I need:

A list of episodes.

A cast, or ideas about a cast.

A hook. I’m thiiiinking it’s urban fantasy, but not absolutely certain.

Ideas for takes on those types of episodes.

Help?

(Eta: looking at writing either 4-10,000-word episodes or 8-5,000-word orrr 6-6,667-word episodes, at least to begin with.)

(Eta2: @pritchmr – this is a cool webiste with tons of TV tropes http://designthroughstorytelling.net/periodic/ )

Episode Idea List
cult!
computer hacker
mild-mannered-academic-is-actually-a-killer
government conspiracy
non-government conspiracy (Illuminati)
crazy house party gone wrong
missing child
serial killer
Buried treasure
supernatural problem is actually a frame-up
[Supernatural] critters gone rabid/feral
– Something that started or happened a long time ago (e.g. something triggered by someone trying to retrieve the loot from a famous crime, or finding a dead body long after the death and having to figure out what happened)
– What looks like a murder turns out to be an accident in the end.
– LARP
cross-cultural misunderstanding gone horribly awry
operating in unfamiliar territory (possibly not useful for such a short run)
lying to protect the actual guilty/responsible party
being from some other world
Circus!

Urban Fantasy Episodes Idea List
The Werewolves
The Fae

Cast Ideas
the nerdy one,
the pretty one,
the sassy/snarky one,
the pragmatic/”brawn” one,
the smart but quiet one.
Kid genius (Shut up, Wesley!) – why not a girl kid genius for once? Need not be obnoxious.
unstable personality in some way
roll “the pretty one” and “the brawny one” togther into the rogue/acrobat/cat burgler; have the obvious combat heavy be a gunbunny or spellslinger.
the pet or mascot
the “pet” is the mentor.
the student/apprentice with common sense the teacher lacks.
the charismatic one (sometimes overlaps with the con man?).
the anti-bureaucrat (the one who can find records and cut red tape).
the nosy reporter.
the one who has a fling-of-the-week
the steady couple (trio, …)

UF Cast Ideas
a witch/wizard,
a vampire,
a werewulf or an ordinary human who turns into a werewulf at some point,
an ordinary human,
someone in a mentor role

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/696410.html. You can comment here or there.

The Language of the Strands

Mar24

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt to my other bingo call.

This fills the square “The Three Languages,” and is from the Stranded World, from the seasonal siblings’ mother Eugenia. The Stranded landing page is here.

The Three Languages: talking about Strands

 

“They say a child found the strands.” Eugenia had gathered her children for storytime.

She cleared her throat. “A child who had no skill. So her father sent her out to the woods to learn a language.

“She came back the next night. ‘I know how to speak to the wildness,’ she told her dad.” Eugenia always did the voices. “‘Bah,’ he said, ‘try again.'”

“She came back the next night, again. ‘I know how to speak the calm order.’ And ‘Bah,’ he said, ‘try again.'”

“And the third night. ‘I know how to speak to kinship.’ And that was that for her dad. ‘Out,’ he bellowed.

“And out she went. But she had learned the language of the Strands, and she did not return.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/696176.html. You can comment here or there.

Food Log 3/19 & 3/20

Mar21

The goal is to stay as close as possible to my daily points all week because this weekend is LARP and LARP = bad food. Also tight skirt 😉

19-Mar
Coffee as per normal
Cheerios, 1/2 cup
egg salad w/lettuce
Coco multigrain pop cake, x3
Puffed grain cake x2
Peanut Butter, 1T
Milk
Ovaltine 1T
Gym – 1/2 hour on the elliptical, mid-range
pizza

20-Mar
Coffee as per normal
Cheerios, 1/2 cup
Pad Thai Tofu
Shopping – in which I have an allergic reaction to shopping, oy.
Peep
Salad
Brownies (nom)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/695602.html. You can comment here or there.

March Is Women’s History Month – day three: Rin and her MOther

Mar20

March is Women’s History Month, and so for March I’m doing vignettes about or questions regarding any of my female characters, one/day from the 10th-31st.

The prompt post is here; please add more prompts 😉

This one comes from [personal profile] kelkyag, who asked for a continuation of Mother Knows… and Further Discussion Follows.

Rin & Girey are the main characters in my work-in-progress novella Into Lannamer.

“He comes from good blood.” Arinya’s mother Inatalana was watching her speculatively, chin on her hands. “He’s well-spoken-“

“You said that already.” Arinya/Rin smiled at her mother. “You have seven daughters, you know. You’ve got, what, seven grandchildren?”

“Twelve. You’ve been gone a while.”

“You don’t need for grandchildren and you don’t need for sons in law.”

Inatalana’s voice turned serious. “How many people have tried to kill you in the last year?”

“I was in a war.” Girey had, at least, not tried to kill her, although if he’d tried to take her as a war-bride, that might have changed quickly.

“I don’t mean in war, Arinyanca. I mean the people who’ve tried to kill you since the surrender was signed.”

Rin found herself squirming like a naughty schoolgirl. “They could have been after Girey.”

“They weren’t.” Inatalana shook her head. “You know they weren’t, Arinyanca.”

“Rin.” She corrected her mother without thinking of it, then ducked her head in apology. “I mean…”

“You’ve spent a lot of time down in the dirt, haven’t you?”

“War tends to be messy.” She rolled her shoulders, not quite able to look her mother in the eye. “They really were trying to kill me, weren’t they?”

“And they will, until you provide an heir. Why do you think Elin’s getting married so precipitously, and to such a… questionable sort?”

“If her husband is questionable, what would that say about a Bitrani Duke?”

“I’d say,” Inatalana dropped her voice to a bare murmur, “that a Bitrani Prince would be the perfect match for an Imperial Princess.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/695518.html. You can comment here or there.

Food Log!

Mar19

3/18/2014
Coffee as per normal
Museli (1/3 cup, with Milk, Skim)
Gumbo & rice – leftovers and still tasty
Cardio Shopping!
Coco multigrain pop cake, x2
Salad – with hard boiled egg, bacon, balsamic vinegar
Cookies (leftovers, mostly mint chip)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/695179.html. You can comment here or there.

Um whoops… food logs from Friday through monday <.

Mar18

3/14/2014
Coffee,as per normal
Cheerios
Coco multigrain pop cake, x3
Pad Thai Tofu
Gym – 1/2 hour elliptical
1/3 c couscous – 1
Fish sticks – 5
T tartar sauce- 1
Pie – Apple, crumble top

3/15/2014
Oatmeal
Diner food – quesadilla, 1/2 order mozz sticks, 1/2 milkshake
Cheese & crackers w/ summer sausage

3/16/2014
Oatmeal
Cheese & crackers
Gumbo & rice
Cookies – chocolate chip
Wine

3/17/2014
Coffee as per normal
Museli
Milk, Skim
egg salad w/ lettuce
corn crisps
Milk, 2%, 1/2c, w/ Ovaltine 1T

Gym – 1/2 hour elliptical

Fried chicken with veggies
Cookies

Whooops!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/695030.html. You can comment here or there.

The Answer is No, a vignette

Mar18

This takes place sometime during the “sign-up” phase of the Addergoole project – ~mid-to-late 1970’s. It was written in response to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s comment here.

Addergoole has a landing page here

“Take part in a Grigori breeding project? What are you, nuts?”

Regine had been anticipating responses like that; it was one reason (although not in any way close to her primary reason – they were her crew, and the closest thing to friends she had) that her team consisted of not just a Grigori, but a Mara and a Daeva as well.

She had not truly been anticipating the next rejection she received.

“Wait, you’re trying to breed more half-breeds? Why would you do that?”

“The term half-breed is certainly problematic, but it’s the term most commonly in use right now…”

“Forget terminology!” The man talking to her was… scruffy. He was the closest thing to a hobo Regine had ever seen in an Ellehemaei, and he had a body odor that was hard to ignore. “I’m talking about the way these kids’ll be treated!”

“They’ll have a full, extensive education with well-qualified professors and Mentors. They’ll receive every benefit a full-blooded child could hope for…”

“Except that they’ll be half-breeds. You might not know what it’s like, lady, with your perfect Grigori everything, but most of the full-blooded true Ellehemaei out there, they hate my kind.”

He had not dropped his Mask; now he did, revealing what Regine already knew, shaggy doglike ears and a jawline shaped more like a muzzle. “No, thank you. If I’m going to sire any kids, I’ll either do it with humans so human the kid’ll never Change, or if I find a fae that will have me, with purebloods so the kid’ll have a better chance than his dad.”

“But…”

“The answer is no, madam. I’d rather starve.”

Regine was left staring at his tail as he left. She was fairly certain he would not have listened nor consented even if she had managed to get out her last sentence.

But I’m trying to change the view of half-breeds in society.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/694764.html. You can comment here or there.

The Collar Job, Part XI

Mar17

Part I (and on LJ)

Part II (and on LJ)

Part III (and on LJ)

Part IV (and on LJ)

Part V (and on LJ)

Part VI (and on LJ)

Part VII (and on LJ)

Part VIII (and on LJ)

Part IX (and on LJ)

Part X (and on LJ)

This is … what happens when you let me watch an entire season of Leverage in a week and a half. *cough* Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

It’s written in an experimental style for me, and, well, it’s fanfic, so pls. be kind.

(this appears to be at least a two-parter at this point, in terms of TV episodes.)

Fade in from commercial.

“They’re going to do something stupid.” Eliot is holding Lady Anastasia’s cell phone and looking – affectionately frustrated. She, in turn, looks a little bemused.

“These friends of yours…”

“Team. They’re my team.”

“Special forces?” Her shoulders tense, just a little bit.

“No. Different sort of team.” He looks up at her, clearly weighing what he’s going to say. “We being overheard?”

“Not as long as the phone is off. My apartment is bug-free, at least.”

Eliot looks at the phone, turns it off, and hands it over to Anastasia. His movements are very careful, slow, and deliberate; even so, hers are every bit as cautious as she takes the phone from him and backs – backs – towards the other side of her room.

Eliot tracks her movement. “I’m not going to attack you.” It’s more of a grumble than would really be reassuring, but it gets her attention.

“I didn’t live this long turning my back on warriors.”

“Look, I -” His hands go to the collar around his neck. There’s a twitch that seems to move his entire body. “Look, your Ladyship, I belong to you. Yeah? That’s how it works?”

“That’s how it works.” She is watching him like a rabbit watching a snake. “That doesn’t mean you won’t snap my neck.”

“You’re going to have to turn your back on me eventually. It’s either that or put me back in chains.”

“If you’re as good as I think you are, chains would just irritate you.”

“Enough chains might slow me down.”

“They might. But that would bring its own problems.”

Eliot doesn’t say anything for a minute. His jaw is working but no sound is coming out.

“Tie me up.”

~

“All right, I’ve got them. This isn’t going to be easy, Nate-”

“It’s never easy. When it’s easy, then everything goes wrong. What do you have?”

“Relax, would you? Look, we’re all stressed about Eliot.” Hardison’s voice is sharper than the words would suggest.

They are sitting around their suite – Nate and Hardison, alone – Nate looking through piles of papers and Hardison manipulating computer networks through a bank of monitors that look entirely out of place.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” There is a glass next to Nate’s elbow; it is empty. He looks at it, looks at the bottle of whisky, and looks back at Hardison. “What do you have?”

“All right, so this family has three sisters, right? Alessia, Anastasia, and Adalia. Pretty common for Tír na Crazy here, except, one, none of them are twins – “

“That’s uncommon?”

“Man, where you been? They have all the twins, the more royal, the more twin. And secondly, there used to be seven of them.”

Cut to commercial.

Next: Deleted Scene – http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/700461.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/694293.html. You can comment here or there.

March Is Women’s History Month – day two: Kailani as a Tween

Mar16

March is Women’s History Month, and so for March I’m doing vignettes about or questions regarding any of my female characters, one/day from the 10th-31st.

The prompt post is here; please add more prompts 😉

This one comes from [personal profile] clare_dragonfly, who asked for Kailani as a tween.

Kailani is one of the three main characters in Addergoole, which also has a landing page here. (Stay tuned for the entirely-new rewrite of Book One of Addergoole, coming soon!)

“His name is Gibbous Moon Over the Lake, but we call him Moonlake.”

The instructor was an earthy woman – brown hair, browned skin, and a smell like loam – a friend of Kailani’s mother who called herself Stormshadow.

That was unimportant. What was important was that she was holding the bridle of a horse. A horse.

“He’s a very calm boy, but watch his ears. They’ll tell you if he’s upset, or interested in something, or spooked.” Stormshadow patted Moonlake’s head. “And his tail – you can hear it flicking back and forth.”

“Like cats.” Kai put her hand over her mouth, feeling her cheeks heating up already. “I mean…” She released her hand, “with the ears and the tail, not the same language, I mean, obviously, one’s a small carnivore-predator and the other one’s a large herbivore-grazer. But they both move their ears for emotions, and their tails. And here?” She touched the horse’s shoulders gently.

“Very good. Yes, they don’t use the same body language as cats, but if you’ve taught yourself to read feline body language with any rate of success, you should be able to handle horses with little problem. Of course, you’ll be on his back, which is different from cats, I’m sure.”

Kailani giggled. “It’s a little different, yes. But I really get to ride him? He won’t mind?”

“He won’t mind. Moonlake is a nice boy, and he likes being able to spend time with people. Here’s one more trick. You can offer him treats, but you have to be careful to keep your thumbs out of the way. Like this.”

Stormshadow wasn’t watching Moonlake; she was watching the young girl with the frizzy hair who was clearly falling in love. “No charge,” she told Moonchild, Kailani’s mother. “In another year, this girl is going to be working at my stable nonstop just to be around the horses.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/694127.html. You can comment here or there.