Random Snippets from Who Knows When

I haven't done Snippets of a Story since... erm... November.  Cough.  And the fact is embarrassing me just a little. So we won't call these snippets after any particular month--we'll just pretend there are more of them all around, because more snippets would mean I'd been writing more, which would be a nice thing if it were true.

Oh, and everything's from The Rochesters.  Pet project, you know.

“Silence, minions!” Mark shrieked.  “The almighty, the immortal, the legendary crooner Mighty Lord Bing of the Crosby has deigned to grace our humble radio with his illustrious presence.  Fall on your kneeeeeees and hear the angel voice--”

Francie threw an afghan over his head.  “Will you just be quiet and let us listen?”

“Thursday night is game night if everyone’s not busy, usually.”  Celia jammed a large pot into a small one, attempted to shut the cabinet door and, failing, resorted to leaning on it.  “We draw straws to see who gets to pick the games.”

“What kind of games do you play?” asked Sylvia, who was sedately attending to the cutlery drawer.  

“Oh, all kinds.  Sometimes board games, sometimes party games.  Mark almost always picks Monopoly and Francie picks charades. Nobody likes it when it’s Timmy’s turn because he always picks Uncle Wiggily, which gets old really fast, and Alice has a reputation for picking Find The Grammatical Error In This Sentence.”

Sylvia snorted.

“No, I’m not kidding.  We really did play that one time.  Mark and I did a pretty good job of faking snores by the fourth round.  I don’t think we fooled Daddy, but Alice gave up and chose What’s My Line instead.”

Francie put a bowl of egg salad on the table and stared at Celia’s eyebrows.  “What, may I ask, has happened to your face, my dear?”

“She was born that way,” said Mark.  “You’ll get used to it in time.”

Alice put her hands on her hips.  “Celia, wipe off that eyebrow pencil.  I said a little bit.  You look like Groucho Marx.”

“I was practicing my make-up for the wedding,” said Celia, aggrieved.  She put a tentative finger on one eyebrow and brought it down again smudged with black.  “And I do not either look like Groucho Marx.”

“Someone very wise once said that it is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt,” said George.  “I don’t know who originated the remark, but it must have been someone wise, because nobody quotes stupid people.”

“Don’t be so reasonable,” growled Celia.  “Of course I don’t expect them to come.  I simply intend to have the party without them.”

“How are you going to have a party without any guests?”

“There’s still us.  We make up a pretty large party ourselves.  We’ll have our party, and we’ll have fun.” The murderous look on Celia’s face indicated that fun would be had or consequences would be suffered.

[Sylvia] had tried her hardest not to cry when she first saw her reflection in the mirror—it was as if part of her head had been removed.  All of a sudden her neck seemed much longer and thinner, making her short-haired head appear as if it were sitting atop her shoulders like a giraffe’s noggin.  Added to which, Alice had twisted back some pieces on either side of her head and fastened them with barrettes in what was evidently supposed to be an attempt at softening the blow but really succeeded only in making it look as if Sylvia had giraffe horns. 

Hippety Hop

“I am not exactly sure where Francie is at present.”  Celia piled a stack of too many board games into Sylvia’s arms.   “However, there are sounds issuing from the general vicinity of the bathroom that vaguely resemble those of a howler monkey, and so I am going to summon all my psychological powers and guess that she is taking a shower.”
“I will have you know,” Francie shouted from the bathroom, “that if anyone sounds like a howler monkey in the shower in THIS house, it is CERTAINLY not me, and I might add that Que Sera, Sera is supposed to be sung in a thing called a KEY.”
“I don’t sing Que Sera, Sera in the shower.  You do,” Celia hollered back.  “Put some clothes on and help us with… um… things.”
“What things?”
“You know, THINGS!” Celia plopped a stack of paper plates on top of the games, causing Sylvia to stagger a bit, and ran to the bathroom door.  “FOR THE PARTY,” she added in a whisper that would have pleased any stage manager.

~The Rochesters

My darling Rachel very kindly invited me to be the next stop on the blog hop Anne Elisabeth Stengl started a few weeks ago, and I'm quite thrilled, honored and delighted to be asked!  The shebang is being called "The Next Big Thing," and as my Cozy Story, as I call it, is the next big thing for me, that's what I'll be nattering about today.

(Before you read any further, however, redirect your browser to Rachel's stop in the blog hop and go read that... she's sharing some juicy details about her tour de force, Fly Away Home!)

What is the working title of your book?

Har dee har har.  I don't actually have one.  Well, I suppose I call it The Rochesters, but... can we call it a title receiving unemployment?  Because it's not working.  Not for me.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I feel like I'm ripping off Rachel's post, but the truth is that it came from a short story I wrote a couple of years ago.  I'm not going to tell much about the short story because to be honest I'm heartily ashamed of it (isn't that the way it always goes?) but I do owe a lot to it.  :D

What genre does your book fall under?

"Gentle fiction," as they call it.  It's not quite juvenile fiction, but I'd hate to call it young adult fiction because I have a thing called a grudge against young adult fiction.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I'm choosing to regard this question as if the movie rendition were being made fifty years ago.  Heh.  Because most of the faces I've placed with my characters are either dead or seriously too old for their parts.  Dream casting, people. Dream casting.

Julie Andrews as Sylvia Lemmins

Gregory Peck as Mr. Rochester

Claire Foy as Alice

Elinor Donahue as Francie

Emma Watson as Celia

Some random kid whose face is fuzzy in my brain as Mark (in other words, haven't found him yet)

Ronnie Howard as Timmy 

Shirley Temple (when she's not being horrid) as Patsy

Richard Beymer as George

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Orphaned Sylvia Lemmins struggles to fit in as she spends the summer with her unusual cousins in a hilarious story written by an exceedingly modest author who stinks at one-sentence synopses.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I dreamed a dream in time gone by that someday I'd get a book published through an agency... and I think I may see what can be done about that for The Rochesters.  No promises, but I want to give it a shot.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Ain't done yet.  I'm about 40,000 words into it and not yet halfway through, so... I'm guessing the end product will be about 100,000 words.  And I've been working on it off and on since... July 2012?

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Pretty much anything by Elizabeth Enright.  Also Two are Better Than One and Louly by Carol Ryrie Brink.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

My siblings, however cheesy it may sound. We're a hilarious bunch, plain and simple, and I'm trying to communicate that humorous family dynamic in this book.

Patsy came to lunch that day with a bath towel wound in intricate formations around her curly head.  “I am Cleopatra.”
“Bow down, slaves,” said Mark.  “Darest thou to sit in the royal one’s presence?  Off with your heads.”
“If you’re Cleopatra, I’m Pharaoh.”  Timmy looked around for a headdress of his own.  “What did pharaohs wear on their heads?”
“I’m a snake,” said Mark, dropping to the floor and slithering around Alice to the feet of Cleopatra, where he gnashed his teeth and wriggled.  “Cleopatra died from a snake bite, you know.”
“Patsy, put that down.”  Francie swept Cleopatra’s headdress away and flung it over the newel post at the bottom of the stairs.  “That’s the towel I take showers with, for goodness’ sake.”
“That’s the towel Francie takes showers with,” the snake informed Timmy and Sylvia solemnly.  “I, on the other hand, take showers with soap.” 

Thanks, Rachel, for tagging me! I'm passing this on to my sister the Anne-girl at Scribblings... she's pretty close to releasing a novel and I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say about it!

Novemberish Snippety Things

I had a "Snippets of Half NaNo" post all planned. I did, really I did.  All nicely laid out, with my favorite bits chosen and organized... in my head.  And here it is almost mid-December, practically Christmas,  A STEP AWAY FROM 2013, and I'm only JUST getting around to it.

C'est la vie.

Anyways.  Snippets of The Rochesters, from November.  Nothing from December yet because I'll do that in January... besides, I've barely written anything this month.

“She doesn’t need this job, Sylvia.  She’s saving to go to beauty school and she doesn’t even have an interest in libraries.  She’s just working here to save up money so she can learn how to curl hair.  She could do that at the grocery store, for Pete’s sake.”  Celia was fuming now.

Mark snickered from the other side of the shelf. “I’ve never seen anybody curl hair at the grocery store.”

“Omelets are not uncivilized,” said Francie indignantly.  “Sylvia, did they ever serve omelets at your school?”

Sylvia, glad to be asked a question and not merely left to vegetate while everyone else did all the work, scrambled for an intelligent reply.  “Um?”

Francie plopped on the sofa beside them.  “Sylvia, where should we start?  How much do you know about the wedding and how much do you need to be filled in on?”

“Don’t say filled in on,” pleaded Alice.

Sylvia tried to remember if she had, indeed, been told anything at all about the wedding.  “I know Alice and George are getting married,” she volunteered hopefully.  “And I know from Francie’s part of the letter that the wedding’s going to be later this summer.  And… I think that’s all.”

“Goodness.”  Alice sat back against the sofa cushions.  “I really am awful at writing letters.”

“Do tell,” said Francie.

She had never seen a wedding dress up close and personal.  Even shop windows stuck an impertinent piece of glass between you and the lovely things, and most shop owners frowned upon teenage girls who came into the shops and requested permission to try on the bridal things.  She knew this for a fact because she’d watched Nancy Broderick and Claudia Willet do it once on a dare.  They had, of course, been kicked out, without an overabundance of ceremony.  

Celia thumped on the door.  “Sylvia, I hope you’re not washing your hair.”

Sylvia put her warm thoughts aside for the present and dropped her washcloth back into the sudsy water.  “No, no, I’m not.”
Did they have a rule about hair washing around here?  No one had mentioned it, and she had thought the girls’ heads all looked pretty clean. 

“What is this mysterious substance, anyway?”  Sylvia had wanted to ask since Celia had opened the evil-smelling pink bottle, but hadn’t had a chance to get a word in. 

“Yeah, what is it, anyway?” Francie inhaled a suspicious sniff.  “Celia, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Never you mind what it is.  You always make fun of me for ordering things from catalogs.” 

“This is from a catalog?  Sight unseen?  Not even recommended by the all-wise and all-knowing Janie Bassett?”  Francie pretended to swoon onto the bed.  Timmy, charmed by the idea of a new game, promptly swooned onto the floor.  

Half NaNo... The End

*coughcough it's December 5th already coughcough*

Technically this post should have appeared on Friday the 30th, but I was having a really crazy day that day... finishing the last-minute bits of the P&P95 Forever Club (a six-month project with a certain best friend that took a tremendous amount of time and of which I'm unashamedly proud) and racing to get 3500 words written so I could finish Half NaNo on time (more on that later), preparing for ten overnight guests (I kid you not) and dissolving into sobs of frustration over the waistband of a skirt I was making for my aunt that just wouldn't lie flat, only to find that I'd misunderstood the directions (I still maintain it was the stupid pattern's fault for printing confusing diagrams).  This is why I like to draft my own patterns.

So that is why I didn't get the post up until now.  Part of the reason also may be that I didn't want to admit defeat.

Yeah, defeat.

I fell 1,300 words short of my goal.  Thirteen hundred measly words.  Words I probably could have cranked out in under two hours if I had just had the time.  Which I didn't.

And yet, though I didn't make my goal, I don't feel like I failed.  This can mean one of two things-- a) that I simply refuse to admit that I couldn't do something or b) that the point of Half NaNo was more than just accomplishing 25K.

I'm going with B. Because I really did accomplish what I set out to accomplish with Half NaNo.  The Rochesters finished November at a whopping 32,256 words, which is far, far more than I would have written had I not been working under the Half NaNo threat incentive.  I learned way more about my characters.  (Even though I didn't do Beautiful People every week... cough cough ahem.)  I introduced new plot twists (one of which I'm thinking of scrapping, actually... but that's not the point).  I changed a character's name (because the old one just didn't sit right).  I wrote scenes that had been giving me trouble even just in the outline.  I wrote when I felt like it, I wrote when I didn't feel like it, I worked through a head cold and Thanksgiving and schoolwork and a computer crash.

And now, even though I didn't "win" Half NaNo, I feel pretty much invincible right now.  The feeling will pass, Lizzy, and no doubt more quickly than it should, but for now I'm enjoying it.

How'd you do?

Fourth Check-in {and the Half NaNo tag!}

This was what I was supposed to be doing this week.

And this is what I actually did this week...

{cooking}

{cleaning}

{school}

{reading}

{babysitting}

{traveling}

{spending time with family}

{sewing}

I am seriously embarrassed to tell you what my word count was for this week.  But I am a good girl, I am, and an honest one to boot, soooo...

I wrote 2,544 words this week.  

*cowers in shame*

This means my stats are as follows.

Word Count When This Piece of Craziness Began: 8,536
Total Word Count As Of Now:  25,045
Final Word Count Goal: 33,536
Daily Word Count Goal: 1,000
Average Daily Word Count: Eh, heh. Heh, heh, heh.
Words Remaining: 8,489

In other words, I have to do 8,489 words this coming week.  From Monday to Friday.  Do you think I can do it?  How about you?  What's your word count?  Are you feeling stressed and strained yet?

Favorite Bit Written This Week:

Francie sighed.  “Taste is immaterial.  Eggs are much less fattening than grilled cheese.”Alice choked back a laugh.  “Oh, Francie, really.  You’re not trying to reduce again, are you?”“Only a little.  For the wedding.  I have my reasons.”Alice raised her eyebrows.  “Well, it’s your lunch.”“You mean your funeral,” said Mark, peering into the pan and reeling back as if he’d been socked.  “If you don’t survive eating that thing, will you leave your bicycle to me?”Francie was saved from an annoyed retort by a thumping knock on the back door.   Alice dropped the plate of sandwiches into Sylvia’s startled hands and flew to get it.  Patsy beamed benevolently.  “It’s George,” she said, a bit after the fact, as Alice reentered the room with a tallish young man and Pumblechook.
Mark and Timmy immediately made kissing noises. 

Challenge Taken  This Week: Gasp! I forgot! 

Oops.

I'll do it next week.  I promise.  And I won't issue a new challenge this week, but instead I shall give all y'all a tag to fill out.  Everyone loves a tag, right? These things are fun and fun is good.

~What's the name of your project? When did you first come up with the idea? And how long have you been working on it?

~Sum up your novel in five words or less.

~Who is your favorite character?  Tell us about him or her.

~Where does your novel take place?  What time period?

~Do you have a theme song for your story?  What is it?

~What's been the hardest part to write so far?

~Which chapter was your favorite so far?

~Can you share one of your favorite snippets?  (One you haven't shared on your blog already)

~Are any aspects of your story drawn directly from your own life?  Give us an example.  

~Your main character gets dumped into a big city in the modern era (or if you're writing a contemporary work, he/she gets dumped in medieval London).  How does he/she respond?

~Who's the funniest character in your story? Tell us why! Give examples! Support your argument.  :D

~If you were forced to eliminate a character from your story--just wash them clean off the slate--who would it be?

~Do you plan on writing a sequel to your novel?

There you have it! I'm opening this tag to anyone and everyone who wants to participate.  Whether you're doing Half NaNo, full NaNoWriMo, or just writing without a specific challenge, go ahead and fill out the questions if you're interested.  Do please leave a link in the comments so I can see your answers! 

The Third Check-In

You know what I said last time about not meeting the goal?  Yeah.  That again.  But you know what?  I'm not letting it bother me.  Life is tremendously busy for me just now, and the fact that I got about 5200 words written this week (erm... last week... yes, this post is late) is good enough for me.  Will I finish Half NaNo, at the rate I'm going?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But at this point, I'm just enjoying the ride.

Are you?

Word Count When This Piece of Craziness Began: 8,536
Total Word Count As Of Now:  22,501 [before any writing was done today]
Final Word Count Goal: 33,536
Daily Word Count Goal: 1,000
Average Daily Word Count: too tired to do the math... but it's less than 1,000.  Heehee.
Words Remaining: 11,025

Challenge Taken This Week: I stuck in a pirate!  Well, I stuck in a pirate in a character's imagination.  Yes, that counts.  It's my challenge, after all.  :D

“We could get all kinds of people to come and stay.”  Mark stopped to pick up a stone and attempt to dribble it as he walked.  “Travelers from all over the world, maybe.  And they could tell stories around the dinner table.”
“And show us their jewels and treasures from the caves of Arabia,” said Celia dryly.
“Maybe they’d even be pirates!” Timmy’s eyes widened.  “If one was a pirate, we could keep him.”
“In Pumblechook’s doghouse?” inquired Celia.
“No, silly.  He could share a room with Mark and me.  You’d let a pirate have your bed, wouldn’t you, Mark?  If he had an eye patch?”
“Why couldn’t the pirate have your bed, if it comes to that?”
“Because I like my bed.”
“Well, I like mine, and I’m not letting any One-Eyed Hook come and take it away from me.  Pirates don’t take baths, you know.”
“I think I’ll be a pirate when I grow up,” said Timmy, awed.

Favorite Snippet Written This Week:

This lake was quite different, and it was a lovely, wild kind of different.  For starters, the beach was practically nonexistent—a thin stretch of pebbly sand with rocks here and there and no semblance of order whatsoever.  The lake itself was rather small, and Sylvia could see clearly to the other side.  Pine trees, which Aunt Janet had never approved of because they were wont to shed like St. Bernards, studded the banks, and the air smelled sharp and clean and cold, not sun-warmed and proper like it did in the mountains.  “Isn’t it gorgeous?” said Celia comfortably.

Challenge for Next Week:  Use a word you've never used before (and I'm referring to fifty-cent dictionary words, not swear words, as I hope you realize).  Put it in your narrative or casually drop it in a favorite character's dialogue--it's your call.  Don't forget to post the snippet containing your word on your blog and drop me a link in the comments!

Did you do last week's challenge?  How'd your week go overall?  Do share in the comments!

Popping by to say...

...that if you're having any trouble whatsoever with Half NaNo, or Real NaNo, or Just Plain Writing In General, or Hog Calling*, go check out this post from my writerly friend Jessica.  Jessica, by the way, will soon be releasing her long-anticipated novel Annabeth's War.  I've been drooling over the teeny-weeny bits my sister has condescended to tell me about (Anne-girl got to read the manuscript awhile back) and I can't wait for the book to come out! So I'm poking a wee bit of advertising into this incredibly short post.



And, actually, since I'm feeling guilty over the shortness of this post, I will give you something to giggle over before you depart.  You're welcome.

*Well, not really.