#WIPpet Wednesday – Daddy Issues

The five leads in ABCTV’s “ANZAC Girls”

Psst! This post got rather lengthy (like over 1000 words, lengthy!) so if you’re just here for the WIPpet, scroll down about halfway and you’ll find it! 🙂

So as part of the commemoration of the beginning of the First World War, the ABC has started showing a series called “ANZAC Girls” (that’s Australian and New Zealand Army Corps), which follows the stories of five women who enlist as nurses and operate in Cairo in 1915. A lot of the scenes in the wartime hospital in A More Complicated Fairytale are based on what I picked up when I was working at the Australian War Memorial, but I didn’t do a huge amount of secondary research, other than what I gleaned from reading the letters and papers that crossed my desk. What I have realised from watching the first episode of ANZAC Girls is that the hospital Cait works in, and that Felipe is admitted to, in AMCF is about the most sanitised wartime hospital in the history of ever. I’m pretty sure Cait never gets a drop of blood on her. So that’s something I plan on working in the near future.

In the meantime, though, I’ve been continuing on completing an outline for An Eventual Happily Ever After. Somehow I have managed this in spite of Superman being on TV on Saturday night and me realising that I am a fool to have never watched the Superman movies before and thusly downloading them and watching one a night (though I took a break last night, and I’m out tonight and tomorrow, so IV and the two newer ones will have to wait until the weekend). There are bits in my outline that aren’t great, and are sort of temporary “get-from-A-to-B”s, but at the moment I want to know how to get from A – Z and then I’ll figure out the nitty-gritty later. I’ll probably have to cut out one scene I really liked in the original NaNo draft, because I can’t see a way for them to logically get to the necessary location…

Actually! I take that back, I just took a break from writing this post, drew a rough map of the country in which most of the story takes place and the route Ginny and Peter will take through it, and it might still work. Which makes me happy. And drawing a map was a good idea, anyway.

Tangent: the pen I used to sketch said map is a LiveScribe Wifi Smartpen which not only writes what I tell it to, but also takes photos of it and converts it to a file it can sync to my Evernote account, and also records everything I say while I’m writing. Edy got it for me for my birthday because I’d been going on about it, and when I first got it, I was thinking, “Oh god, I just made my boyfriend spend an exorbitant amount of money on something that is really better suited to someone who’s going to lectures or meetings all the time and can make proper use of it!” and I was feeling rather guilty. But I just listened back to the audio of what I was saying while I was mapping and I actually think this might be a valuable plotting tool. Also I literally said “… and stowaway shenanigans can happen here” and then promptly forgot I said it until I heard it again, so there will probably be more amusing things like that. So basically have a pen and Dictaphone all rolled into one (the only real downside is it requires special paper printed at 600 dpi on a laser printer, so at the moment I’m being very conservative with the 50 page starter booklet).

So! After all that, I suppose you are expecting a WIPpet. I am going to cheat slightly with my WIPpet math week, because I was typing this up on Tuesday night, which was the 12th of August, so I’m giving you 12 paragraphs. 😛 They’re kind of lengthy (though under 500 words all together), feel free to skim. This is the scene I was going to share last week. Tension between Prince Felipe and his father is hinted at towards the end of AMCF, but I expanded on it here. Felipe and Cait are supposed to be dining with the guests who attended their youngest daughter’s Naming Day ceremony. However, having just learned that Ginny has gone missing, they’re somewhat preoccupied.

It was when his friend reached the door that he noticed his father standing in the doorway. The King’s arms were crossed and he was frowning.

“Father,” Prince Felipe said, suddenly becoming less confident. Cait took his hand under the table. While he was known to argue with the King on many occasions, sometimes he still came across as a little boy in trouble when his father frowned at him.

“I have a roomful of guests wondering why their hosts are not at lunch. Would you care to explain?”

“Father, Cait’s sister has gone missing. No one has seen her since the end of the Naming Ceremony. Surely finding her is more important than a lunch held so that some nobles and diplomats can fuss over a baby who would much rather be left alone to sleep?”

King Gilles pressed his lips together tightly. “I would have thought that perhaps the prince would make an appearance, if not his wife.”

Felipe looked like he was about to keep arguing, so Cait intervened. “Perhaps you should discuss the issue with your father outside, rather than in front of everyone?” The last thing she wanted was for the King and Prince to have one of their many arguments in front of a roomful of the prince’s knights.

Prince Felipe nodded, and stood up. As he moved out of the room, King Gilles joined him.

“You can’t just decide you’re not going to turn up to an important function, Felipe!” the King admonished him in a low voice. “You have certain obligations!”

“My obligations are to my family, first and foremost!”

“That’s very noble of you, but as the Crown Prince, you have just as much duty to your position as to your family. You are expected out there.”

“I will go and meet those guests once I am certain that I have done all I can to ensure that Ginny is found. Once my men are out combing the city, then I will make my appearance.”

For a moment, the King and the Prince just stared at each other in the hallway, before Prince Felipe turned on his heel and made his way back into the meeting room. King Gilles was left to angrily make his way back to the banquet hall and try and placate his son’s guests until Felipe hopefully turned up.

Please join us for WIPpet Wednesday! All you need to do is post an excerpt from your WIP that somehow relates to the date, and then join up with us here. Thanks to K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂 I’m going to head off now to continue working. See you all soon! 🙂

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