#WWW Wednesday and #WIPpet Wednesday – September 23, 2015

Thing that I learned on the weekend: watching Labyrinth the same afternoon as you plan on introducing the main villain into your story will result in said villain not being especially evil and intimidating, but rather bringing ALL THE SNARK and coming off as rather camp. Thanks for that, David Bowie.

Oh, stop it.

Anyway, said main villain did become a little bit more villainous once I dragged him off Clara’s sofa where he was lounging elegantly, and had him issue some threats in Clara’s direction. Though even then, he remained a little bit darkly alluring. At least to me.

Now that I’ve said all that, I will confess that this rant, while true, was mostly just an excuse to use a Jareth gif in a post, and you’re not actually going to meet the Creelan King (who still needs a name) in today’s WIPpet. This is because I’m trying to keep my WIPpets in order, to avoid as much context confusion as can be avoided in WIPpets. So you will meet him in the next couple of weeks.

Today’s WIPpet takes place the day after Clara was attacked by Creelan soldiers, and later found out her boyfriend was the Prince of a magical kingdom. He’s had to rush back there for now, and Clara is returning home to an empty house. Five paragraphs because it’s the 23rd and 2+3 = 5.

The first sign that something was wrong again was that the front door was wide open when she reached it. Unless her housemate, Rachel, had returned from holidays a few days early, Clara was the only one around with a key.

Her anxiety increased as she slowly made her way up the porch steps and was able to see that the lock had been broken. The handle from the screen door swung upside down, attached to the metal by only one of the two screws, and even that one was hanging loose.

Clara edged back towards the porch steps, sliding her phone out her pocket and dialing 000. Her heart was beating quickly and her mouth had gone dry as the memory of the claws in her back returned vividly.

“Emergency. Police, fire or ambulance?”

“Police, please,” Clara whispered, glancing back towards the door.

WIPpet Wednesday is hosted by K. L. Schwengel. You can join in by posting an excerpt from your WIP that somehow relates to the date (i.e. me adding the two digits together) and linking up here.

Now it’s time for WWW Wednesday, in which we talk about what we’re reading, have been reading and are going to read. This one is hosted over at Sam’s blog, and you can join in by leaving a comment on tonight’s post.

• What are you currently reading?

I finally started The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway, but I think it’s going to be a slow read. It’s much denser than most thing I read, but every now and then it’s surprising me with a really beautiful turn of phrase (see yesterday’s post for some examples).

I’m trying to finish Blood Charged by Lindsay Buroker. I made the mistake of putting this aside for a while in lieu of new releases and that sort of thing, and when I cam back, I had lost interest. But I’m at 80% of the three-book bundle, so I really want to finish it anyway.

I also started Evensong by Krista Walsh, which I have been aware of for the whole 18 months+ that it has been available, but only just procured. I’m still getting into it, but going by my friends’ reviews, I think I should enjoy it.

• What did you recently finish reading?

The Hollow Boy (Lockwood & Co. #3) by Jonathan Stroud. It gave me SUCH A BOOK HANGOVER. Which is why I haven’t managed to finish anything else this week. There were some parts (particularly in the last third) that I really loved, and other parts that I didn’t, and it didn’t quite hold up to the first two, but I was all book hungover anyway.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

That’s a wonderful question. I have a couple of Doctor Who audio books from the library that I need to put on my phone. One is read by Neve McIntosh, who plays Madam Vastra in the show, and wow, her accent is beautiful (I did listen to a little bit of it in the car while other half was grabbing some groceries the other night). As for what I’ll read in print, I have no idea.

I must now love and leave you in favour of a late-night (9:20, which amounts to late-night for me) netball match I said I would attend. Except then I started getting a cold this morning, and I’d really rather not go. But we have to pay a fee if we forfeit, and I’d rather pay to be there than pay to not be there. Ergh. Anyway. Thanks for visiting and I’ll see you later!

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