Sorry to do this again (and a new extract!)

 I had an appointment with the community mental health team today, and it left me incredibly drained.

 Combined with not having much sleep last night, I've just been too exhausted to write.

 I'll make it up to you guys by having an extra post on Sunday, but for now here's an extract from a short story I wrote for a competition a while ago.

 I'm thinking of maybe putting it through a few more edits and self publishing it sometime.

Two Thousand Lenses

 I have a thousand pairs of glasses.

 For some women, it’s shoes, but for me it’s glasses.

 They say that shoes never let you down. Unlike all the other clothes you’ll ever buy, shoes will fit you and make you feel good. No matter how fat or thin you are, or ill, or spotty or whatever it is that makes you secretly hate yourself, your shoes will always be there. As long as you have feet, shoes will be your faithful companions.

 Glasses let you down.

 They have to; they’re constructions of glass, plastic and metal. You are made of flesh and they mock you with their timelessness, their perfection. Your eyesight gets worse but they stay the same: flawless crystallised sand.

 I like that, even though my body and eyes age and fail, they don’t. The things that I’ve seen in my life, I saw through them, and their timelessness is reassuring. Even if my memories start to falter, the images they saw are true. The help me to remember all the things that are important to me; the things that made me gasp in awe, the things that made me scream in pain, the things that made me smile wider than I ever thought possible, and the things that made me cry. Looking through the eyes that saw those things helps me remember them.

 You may think it’s childish, and it is, I started keeping my glasses after the first time I needed to get a new prescription.

 My first pair of glasses were horrible and terribly unstylish NHS glasses. The only advantage they had was that they were free.

 Of course, I didn’t really know that when I was seven, but it quickly felt like everyone else did. Fewer people had glasses back then, you see, and children can be so cruel.

 I’d like to say I was too tough to let the little blighters get to me, but I wasn’t. When you’re that age you just want everyone to like you. I think it’s worse for people like me, us creative types; our need for approval borders on desperate. I wasn’t that creative when I was small, so I just kept quiet and miserable.

 Within a few years, the septennial tradition came around again and I was treated to a trip to the cinema. Mum had seen it with her mother when she was a little girl, and she wanted to carry on the tradition with me.

 By the septennial tradition, I mean the re-release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves at the cinema. I don’t know if they do it anymore, and I’m also not sure whether that in itself is a blessing or a curse. On the one hand, it is a wonderful film, but on the other hand, it’s possibly the most terrifying thing that a small girl can see at the cinema.

 You get to be a bit blasé about the world when you’re seven, especially when the other children take against you, so I wasn’t exactly excited for it. We’d never really been movie people before that point.

 My opinion of it all changed drastically in just eighty minutes.

 People always concentrate too much on how Disney portrays its princesses, but it was actually how it portrayed villainy that caught my imagination, even if I was too young to really appreciate that at seven. Too young, maybe, or too scared to understand what I loved about it.

 I was unimpressed to begin with, but those dark scenes caught my imagination. The part where Snow White runs into the forest at the behest of the Huntsman terrified me the staring eyes, the clinging fingers... this teenage girl running scared from a woman who wanted her heart. Then after that, the Evil Queen’s transformation scene consumed my young imagination, even if I didn’t realise it.

 I felt inspired, and for the first time, I wanted to write.

Camp NaNoWriMo Update - Part Three (Kinda)

 Still ill, still barely wrote anything.

 -sigh-

 Since I've really got no news on this front, have an extract of what I did manage to write.

 As ever, comments would be appreciated. I can use all the encouragement I can get.

Herd

This entrance was a large and breezy garage, like a bus terminal.

Which was an apt comparison, there were buses parked there. Single decker and wider than the type usually seen, or that used to be seen, in cities and towns. They also looked like they’d had some kind of shielding attached to them and there was a railing around the top, like people were intended to stay up there.

The other members of Vault Mingo were starting to mill around outside the bus, looking nervous and scared.

Probably because of the three people in bulletproof vests with guns strapped to their backs and what looked like gas masks slung around their necks.

They looked cheery enough, though, all bright smiles and chatting to some of the other city folk who carried clipboards.

“Why are there people with guns?” Peter asked Dr Jones quietly.

“It’s for your protection, there’s been a few problems outside of the city walls lately.”

“Problems with who, exactly?” Peter demanded.

“Some bandits, there’s a community of them nearby. City hall is currently in discussion on what to do about them.”

He seemed very calm about the whole situation.

“They’re pretty easy to deal with, just keep them out. We’re generally concerned that they present a danger to themselves.”

Nine Over Five Writes... My Name is Medea

While I was trying to think of something to write for today's post, I went through some of my old writing projects. This included my NaNoWriMo project from last year, and I was surprised to see how much I actually had of it.

The project currently stands at nearly thirty eight thousand words, which surprised me, because it's been a long time since I looked at this.

I'm also looking at it thinking it may be a good idea to hop between Herd and MNiM, because I'm having a hard time with Herd right now.

Anyway, here's an extract from My Name is Medea. Enjoy.

My Name is Medea

 The one eyed man sat at his desk expecting a phone call containing grave news. If you asked him what the grave news was, he couldn’t tell you. If you asked him how he knew it would be so grave, he wouldn’t tell you.

He stared at a contract that he’d been given just minutes before by his secretary blindly. He couldn’t look like he was expecting this phone call when Frau Junker walked in and told him Lenore had called with some kind of emergency. She was sharp and was already suspicious that he was far more than he seemed.

It was part of the reason she was still working for him, a mind that sharp didn’t work into your life every day of the week.

To say ‘think of the devil’ would be a cruel thing to say about such a devout woman, but she did appear as though summoned.

There was a gentle knock on the door and she walked in like a controlled, yet severe, gale.

“Herr Emmerich, I’m sorry to disturb you, but Frau Allen has called. She insists on speaking with you, she says it relates to Fraulein Eviala.”

The one eyed man nodded.

“Put her through, please.”

Frau Junker nodded and turned to leave but the man called her back briefly.

“Frau Junker, please ensure that I am not disturbed during this phone call.”

She nodded and left the room.

The one eyed man sighed and reached up to his left eye with an idle hand as his other hovered over the receiver. He gently removed his false eye as the phone began to ring.

“Tell me the bad news, Lenore.”

There was a short pause before she spoke.

“We’re looking at a worst case scenario here. Not only has he shown up, he’s actively seeking her out. Someone is orchestrating this.”

The man nodded.

“What precautions have you taken?”

“I’ve warned her to stay away from him.”

The one eyed man placed the eye on the desk and drummed his fingers.

“For the moment, that will have to do. Keep me updated.”

“Of course.”

They said their goodbyes and he hung up the phone before resting his chin on his hands. He glanced at his calendar. It would take time to clear his schedule, and as he replaced his eye he knew that it would take too long and he would be too late.

But there was still one thing he could do.

He picked up the phone again.

Picture drafting and a new Silver Crosses extract

 True to my word, I had a break from working on Jon Snow. I also checked him out in daylight and he looks pretty good.

 I also started drafting my next big piece, a picture of Derren Brown. I'm planning to use the same paper as I'm using for Jon Snow, so all I can do is studies and tests.

 Here's a sneak peak:

 And here's that extract I promised. In this one, you get to meet Carl.

Carl had a cool car. It was one of the cooler cars she’d seen in real life, some real Bond type of stuff going on. A 2013 BMW S-series gran coupe, if she wasn’t mistaken.

 Mel was enjoying the ride to Soto’s house way more than she should, given the circumstances.

 “You’ve got to let me try this thing out one day,” Mel said, admiring the mod cons, “I bet it corners like a dream.”

 “It does,” he beamed, “I’ve been really looking forward to winter so I can spend more time driving. It’s a great car to drive through the snow.”

 Mel nodded and perused the file again.

 “So, what do you know about this residential area?”

 “It’s pretty popular among the young and affluent undead, I’ve got a place there. It’s mostly where people live when they settle down, it’s a great place to raise kids, I hear.”

 “Are you anywhere near Soto’s place?” she asked.

 He shook his head as they got off the main road.

 “I’m on the other side, it’s a bit far from the office, so I don’t usually have time to get there between realising it’s late and the sun rising. So I sleep in my office a lot.”

 “You should be more careful,” Mel noted as they turned the corner to get onto Soto’s road.

 “I know I- whoa!”

 Carl screeched the car to a halt as a wheelie bin landed directly in front of the car.

 Mel looked out of the windscreen and gaped.

 “What the hell?”

 Everything that Mel assumed had been on the lawn of the Soto and Ferris household was floating in mid-air. Plants, garden decorations, the hose and one very confused black cat.

 “Shit. If it’s like this out here, what the hell is it like inside?” she said, eyeing the situation through the passenger window. She could see the next door neighbours twitching their curtains and peering at the goings on in the garden.

 “If they’re still having mirrors broken, then it could be even worse,” Carl noted, watching the cat circle, “hell, if it’s in the kitchen...”

 They looked at each other.

 “We need to get them out of there,” Mel noted, slipping off her kitten heels.

 Carl’s grip on the steering wheel as he stared through the windscreen.

 Mel peered over her shoulder, thankfully there were seats in the back. She turned to back to Carl, his knuckles were slowly turning white and he was starting to shake.

 “Carl!”

 He jumped.

 “Come on.”

 He looked at her with scared eyes as he bit his lip.

 She sighed and put her hand on his, “you wanna help right?”

 He nodded.

 “Then let’s go, you’re a tough guy, we’ll be fine.”

 “You sure?” he asked.

 She nodded, “we’ll be fine. Besides, I ain’t afraid of no ghost, and neither should you be.”

 He cracked a smile.

 “Right.”

 “We need to go on three, ready?”

 He nodded again, more determined than scared this time.

 “One.”

 She undid her seat belt.

 “Two.”

 She unlocked the door and looked at Carl, he was following suit.

 “Three.”

 They opened their doors and ducked out of the car keeping their heads down.

 Mel led the way, ducking into the emptiest area of the garden cyclone of doom. Carl followed her, keeping his head down and running low.

 She stopped and put her hand up. Carl stopped behind her. The space they’d gone through just closed up behind them. In the eye of the storm they waited for another gap to open.

 Mel eyed the swirling maelstrom warily.

 Suddenly, Carl pushed at her shoulders.

 “Get down!”

 She let her self be pushed to the ground and looked up to see a deckchair fly over them.

 “You okay?” he asked.

 She got to her knees and caught the barbecue grill that was about to fall on them.

 “Go!” she shouted as the grill pushed down.

 Carl swallowed and nodded, scrambling to his feet as he dodged his way to the front door.

 Mel shoved back and threw the grill away from her, it flew across the garden and landed in the middle of the road. She scrambled to her feet and followed Carl to the door.

 She kicked it open without ceremony and pushed Carl inside, turning around to catch the cat as it flew straight into her chest, knocking her backwards off her feet. She put a hand on it and scrambled backwards.

 Carl slammed the door shut and dragged a shoe rack in front of it, wedging it shut.

 He crouched on the ground next to Mel.

 “Are you okay?” he asked scanning her for injuries and looking concerned.

 “Yeah,” she groaned, “I’m- Ow!”

 “What’s wrong?” he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

 “It’s this bloody cat!” she pushed at the purring creature, “get off!”

 It jumped off indignantly and stalked over to the wall, sitting down and cleaning itself.

 “Stupid thing was clawing me,” she complained, sitting up.

 Carl held out a hand and helped her up.

 “That’s good,” he smiled in relief, “I was worried.”

 “Yeah well, you don’t need to worry about me, I’m made of tough stuff.”

 Carl nodded but pulled her into a hug anyway.

 Mel swallowed and blinked in surprise for a moment but hugged back anyway.

 “I’m just glad you’re okay,” he said as they separated.

 She smiled at him before something in the corner of her eye caught her attention.

Another Silver Crosses preview!

 I have worked on Rarity a little more, but I think I'm going to give her another bake and have a break for a while. Work on something else for a little while.

 In the meantime, however, here's a short extract from Silver Crosses (which is at 4,267 words, at the moment):

 Mel has finally gotten out of the wheelchair and is being taken to meet the Lycan and Vampire council in her new home, she's a little unsteady on her feet.

  “I’ve got an idea. Sit down for a sec.” He steered her to a chair and sat her down.

 “Mom always said I had magic hands, let’s see if I’ve still got it,” he winked before carefully started massaging some of the life back into her legs.

 “I’m not sure this is helping, but damn, you’ve still got it.”

 Josh just beamed as the door opened.

 “Joshua, really? The woman is only just out of a wheelchair.”

 Mel and Josh jumped.

 A tall woman (5’11”) in a figure hugging (curvy, 11 and a half stone) black dress watched them as she leaned in the doorway, one dark eyebrow raised.

 “Um, hey Lucy,” Josh smiled, looking innocent but not letting go of Mel’s leg.

 ‘Lucy’ rolled her eyes and walked over to them.

 Mel took a few deep breaths, for all the mental preparation she had done, she was still a little nervous being around vampires.

 “Hello,” she said with a warm smile and soft Italian accent, “and welcome to our community. I am Lucretia Orbel, I vice-chair the vampire council.”

 “Oh, nice to meet- oh!” Mel groaned as Josh massaged the sensitive spot at the back of her knee, “Josh!”

 “Come now, Joshua, we are trying to have a conversation. If you insist on seducing the poor woman, can you not do it now?” Lucretia asked with an exasperated tone.

 “I’m not trying to seduce her!”

 Lucretia put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrow again, “please, do not try to fool me in these matters, especially since you know I am fully aware of your tactics when it comes to seducing somebody.”

 It was Mel’s turn to raise her eyebrow at Josh.

 He coughed and let go of Mel’s leg, standing up.

 I might try to do some character sketches tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have something to show you!