bit of a Tiff

All of a sudden Tiff (technically a “Tiffany”) has a bounty hanging over her if she leaves the physical boundaries of Pandora’s Edge.  My Tiff, the techy geek!  That’s going to be an intersting thread to explore.  Will the Lullabye League be holding the other end?  She’s been curious about them for ages and Zac bribed her with their access codes to wear a frock but I thought that was heading for a completely different and romantic conclusion.  Okay, a bounty still could facilitate that ending, it’s just… little Tiff?

Carnivale

Odd how quickly one short story written entirely for a keyword challenge connects to another … and another … and, oops, that’s a series or something perilously close to A Plan.  Luckily, this particular plan will only remain a plan for one more story.  Then I’ll have six Carnivale Vignettes featuring acrobats (emphasis on bat), roses and deep-fried locusts.  There’s a secondary stage to this plan but as I have co-conspirators, that will have to wait.

Slightly suspicious and I’m pretending it doesn’t exist: a sense that I’ve skimmed past this lot in an earlier story, the one about the astrologer and the vampire.

Give Quarter

My quartet of Rogue Mapping short stories needs an intro:

Some people are born with a gift for pushing boundaries.
Some go on to form a company that specialises in exploring the fluid edges redefining the world with every sunrise.
Those people are Rogue Mapping.
From remote mountain peaks where every breath calls angels closer, to cutting-edge inner urban zones they chart their own courses.

That’s my first cut, written on the tram home after raiding the supermarket: there’s something about that combination…

pointless

I almost threw a book across the room last night, very sad, and all because the point of view in the last story tended to shift every few paragraphs … and to minor, meaningless characters.  Why?  And how could her editor let her get away with it?  Not a surprise the best of the three vampires stories was by Katie Mac: clever, funny, lovely characters, adds something new to her story arc while visiting previous players.  The first story was forgettable.  The third one sadly wasn’t for all the wrong reasons.  I couldn’t even finish it.

To think I’d been worried about POV slips…

apple child

My brain is waving again… a long time ago someone asked if I was going to bump off one of my Urchins - no!  But I could make her leave instead, which of course meant she’d return later for a cameo and contrast.  Was that it?  Hmmm, maybe I could bump her off after that.  Now I’m ninety-five percent sure she is dead.  I’ll have to give her a happy storyline in between the adult appearances as otherwise she’s just pathetic and doomed, and she really had potential, my little Eden.  The aftershocks are lingering into Give No Quarter or whatever it ends up being called.

note to self: Tiff was tracking Eden because of Cash.

my lady of the lotus

Also known as In Bloom or the 4th Siren’s Gate epsiode although I scribbled the notes for it earlier.  I think it began because I knew Rhone was going to turn up later and while scribbling notes for him “harem” as in he’d inspire them appeared.  That, plus an ongoing exchange at work regarding the dancing boys failing to appear, combined with a few snippets from Al’s commentary, became a story where Angel has to rescue an arts/gossip columnist from captivity.  Some captivity!  Yet for some reason Lady Lotus doesn’t appreciate being serenaded by a trio of hula hooping champions.

Like most of my characters, she’ll be back later; there’s a romantic subplot to untangle except her wannabe captor is as yet nameless.

furballs

The cats finally played nice!  It took a bribe of pink bubbly and the Labyrinth soundtrack playing in the background but I finally wrangled the talking cats story into order.  Now I have to find the title for the Rogue Mapping quartet: It was going to be “Elementary” seeing as each story plays with a different element … now, I’m inclined towards “Quarter Given” or some such, even though that title almost fits the much later story set in Nightingale Ridge.

I’ll let that bubble away.  The decks are almost clear of distractions; The Novel looms.

Then it’s Angel #10 and the Bais du Morte novella and I should do something about Ria’s rescue of Garrick and Lindeth from the dungeon.

Nightingale Ridge

On my mental map Nightingale Ridge is somewhere west of Siren’s Gate, out in the badlands over the mountains, not necessarily the same world  … it’s also east of Rogue Mapping, especially east of Vanity’s Three Star Establishment where the coffee is good, lemon spiders are frothy, and the entire structure is ready to sink into the ground at the yank of a lever to avoid the sandstorms.  Vanity’s is where Sterling and Rhone from SG first encounter RM in the very shapely form of Amanda Lawrence.  I’ve just finished the story which is why that particular combination is on my mind.

Seeing as work is quiet, I’m playing with an RM story that jumped out of nowhere and demanded attention.  Amanda’s in the background, Sterling’s associate’s are there to add tension when the twins locate their contact, and I’m wondering if the setting is in fact Nightingale Ridge.  I like the name (it fits my naming pattern; must try to break that), I like some of the geographical features… so it could be.  And this story feels as though quite a few years have passed.

Nightingale Ridge.

Could be.

view from shaded corners

There are times when playing with my charcters isn’t enough … that’s when I wander into Gayla’s worlds where Ferals don’t necessarily play nice, vampires really don’t, demons are misunderstood, and steamy hot tub scenes are likely.  And watch out for those blueberry muffins.

Contemporary fantasy.  With a twist.

Mmmm!

Watching the Shadow Connor series grow has been delicious.  I can’t wait until I can have the … was going to say “the whole series in hardcopy” but I suspect Shady will be delighting me for years to come; I’ll probably have to get a new favourites shelf.

Flare

I ended up writing three pieces for the Flare challenge celebrating the june solstice and the full moon falling within the same week.  The third one was the sweet First Spark about luring fireflies to spell out the words I Love You.  The second one, Only The Dust isn’t as strong or sweet but it also plays with avoiding romantic entanglements: yes, that is the Winterlark hiding from a summer fling who refuses to stay flung.  But considering it’s her, he must be pretty damn special.

The first one… is very different from my usual fare.  Not so sweet or comic, and written in the first person.  I wrote it on the monday, after turning over phrases while walking from work to the supermarket.  It got worse on the tram home with my groceries; the closest scrap of paper was the shopping list so transcribing the notes into coherence later was interesting:

whispering in chinese red, yoghurt, something crispy, they said it was all midsummer moon my madness, minestrone

Something like that.  Thee and I wrote itself and once I’d recovered I could see all sorts of resonances in it.  Ophelia was fairly obvious, a bit of Narcissus and Wuthering Heights, some Janet from the Tam Lin tale, Lady of Shallot.  I think I like it; I’m not sure what I’ll do with it long term, except hope her lover is waiting on the other side of the pond/moon-made mirror.  Anyway, it’s featured in the Blue Room this week, chosen by the lovely Bellmusker.