meme propagation
Feb. 9th, 2006 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennySince ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala dusted it off, and since I feel like I need to organize my head.
first lines of works in progress
"Amante Dorée" (otherwise known as the transsexual alternate history New Orleans story)
"You are importunate, m'sieur."
In Nouvelle Orléans, the jewel of the Territoire Louisiane, the greatest American city of the Empire Français, to speak French with the hard drawl of an American could be a liability--or, if one carried it off well, a great asset. Annabel St. Clair worked hard to make her voice as much an asset as her hair or her skin or her brilliantly blue eyes.
"Ashes, Ashes"
Snow fell from the gray sky like ashes.
"Blue Lace Agate" (a Ghoul Hunters story)
They hadn't caught the shoggoth larva smugglers yet, but the head of the BPI's southeast hub had other things on his mind: "And, ah, how are you and Sharpton doing, Keller?"
"The Bone Key" (a Kyle Murchison Booth story)
I had been in the paper when the Parrington opened its new fossil exhibit, an ugly, gawky presence half-hidden behind a diplodocus skull.
"The Clockwork Pianist" (an Artists' Challenge* for Rhino Carries the Moon)
Christian Molnar played as perfectly and lifelessly as a music box.
"Coyote Gets His Own Back"
Luther shot the coyote bitch on Wednesday. She didn't make a sound, just fell ass over teakettle into the defile, blood blooming across her neck and chest. She was dead--there was no doubt about that, then or later.
"Draco campestris" (an Artists' Challenge)
The Museum owns eighty-nine specimens of the genus Draco.
"Fiddleback Ferns"
"Are these fiddleback ferns, Mommy?" Cindy asked.
"Fiddlehead, honey," Marjorie said absently. "Fiddlebacks are nasty spiders." It was only later that she would realize that Cindy, for once in her vacuous Barbie-obsessed life, had been exactly right.
Fiddleback ferns indeed.
"Letter from a Teddy Bear on Veterans' Day" (an Artists' Challenge)
It is early morning, barely dawn. It rained all night, and it will be raining again soon. The air tastes green and fresh and heavy. The park is deserted. I walk along the path, carrying the teddy bear in my left hand, as if it were something as normal as a newspaper. Somewhere ahead of me, the Wall is waiting.
"A Light in Troy"
She went down to the beach in the early mornings, to walk among the cruel black rocks and stare out at the waves.
"Listening to Bone" (a Kyle Murchison Booth story)
In clement weather, I sometimes went to the Henry Davenport Public Zoological Gardens on my lunch break.
"A Night in Electric Squidland" (a Ghoul Hunters story)
Some days, Mick Sharpton was almost normal.
"No Man's Land"
He wakes up tasting dirt.
"Sundered"
The nameplate on the door still said LT. MICHELLE THORNE, and Rachel wondered how long it would be before it was changed.
"Under the Beansidhe's Pillow" (an Artists' Challenge)
The Beansidhe does a lot of wailing during the crossing.
"Why Do You Linger?" (an Artists' Challenge)
"Why do you linger?" he asks the empty room.
Dust motes fall through the dim shaft of sunlight from the window, and there is no answer.
"The World Without Sleep" (a Kyle Murchison Booth story)
In the January that I turned thirty-five, sleep became a foreign and hostile country.
"The Hostage Crisis on the Derelict Mistral Freighter D35-692N-C, Queen of Liverpool"
My father's funeral was held this morning, broadcast live--a morbid irony--on twenty channels, relayed off-planet by telecommunications satellites he had owned.
"Imposters" (a Ghoul Hunters story)
They were pulling out of the parking lot of St. Dymphna's Psychiatric Hospital when the radio crackled into life.
The Marriage of True Minds (gay spies and science fiction)
The greatest danger was that he wanted to trust.
The Mirador
So, to begin with, General Mercator was dead.
"Somewhere Beneath Those Waves Was Her Home" (an Artists' Challenge)
The selkie woman stands at the window, staring out at the sea.
The Aftermath of the Glastalvon Rebellion (Marian science fiction--as in Queen Mary Tudor)
Cuthbert Swetenham, who had been the ninth Earl of Glastalvon, rose to his feet as the transparent fourth wall of his cell vanished. It worried him, a little, how something that was already invisible could vanish, but he had no other words to describe the phenomenon.
"The Bride of Nyarlahotep" (a Ghoul Hunters story)
It was any BPI agent's least favorite job.
The Emperor of the Elflands
An urgent voice, a hand shaking roughly at his shoulder. "Maiah! Maiah, wake up!"
"Moonwork"
In January, Jenny Sutpen's baby died.
Schrödinger's Parable of the Cat (more gay spies and science fiction)
The heat in Hylant Station was like nothing Tanasestefeth had ever imagined.
The Second Son (otherwise known as the Arthurian pre-Raphaelite Eliot steampunk noir story)
On the twenty-fourth of April, Medraut dreamed of Loheris again.
"Spider's Rose" (an Artists' Challenge)
Long ago, in a world none of them can remember, the vampires were taught to dance.
Summerdown
My sister Isobel was nervous.
"Thirdhop Scarp" (a Kyle Murchison Booth story)
I cut off her head before I buried her.
"To Die for Moonlight" (a Kyle Murchison Booth story)
It was an open question in the Parrington Museum which of Samuel Mather Parrington's two daughters was more to be feared.
"Under Babylon" (a Ghoul Hunters story)
Mick Sharpton's howl of outrage--"oh fuck no!"--was clearly audible in the junior agents' office. "Mickey-boy's just seen next week's duty roster," Livermore said smugly. "I told Adams he was going to screech like a scalded cat."
The White Devil (John Webster, meet Southern Gothic)
Since I was a little girl, I've always told my father my dreams. Except for one.
---
*Askelisem about Artists' Challenges if you're interested.
matociquala dusted it off, and since I feel like I need to organize my head.first lines of works in progress
"Amante Dorée" (otherwise known as the transsexual alternate history New Orleans story)
"You are importunate, m'sieur."
In Nouvelle Orléans, the jewel of the Territoire Louisiane, the greatest American city of the Empire Français, to speak French with the hard drawl of an American could be a liability--or, if one carried it off well, a great asset. Annabel St. Clair worked hard to make her voice as much an asset as her hair or her skin or her brilliantly blue eyes.
"Ashes, Ashes"
Snow fell from the gray sky like ashes.
"Blue Lace Agate" (a Ghoul Hunters story)
They hadn't caught the shoggoth larva smugglers yet, but the head of the BPI's southeast hub had other things on his mind: "And, ah, how are you and Sharpton doing, Keller?"
"The Bone Key" (a Kyle Murchison Booth story)
I had been in the paper when the Parrington opened its new fossil exhibit, an ugly, gawky presence half-hidden behind a diplodocus skull.
"The Clockwork Pianist" (an Artists' Challenge* for Rhino Carries the Moon)
Christian Molnar played as perfectly and lifelessly as a music box.
"Coyote Gets His Own Back"
Luther shot the coyote bitch on Wednesday. She didn't make a sound, just fell ass over teakettle into the defile, blood blooming across her neck and chest. She was dead--there was no doubt about that, then or later.
"Draco campestris" (an Artists' Challenge)
The Museum owns eighty-nine specimens of the genus Draco.
"Fiddleback Ferns"
"Are these fiddleback ferns, Mommy?" Cindy asked.
"Fiddlehead, honey," Marjorie said absently. "Fiddlebacks are nasty spiders." It was only later that she would realize that Cindy, for once in her vacuous Barbie-obsessed life, had been exactly right.
Fiddleback ferns indeed.
"Letter from a Teddy Bear on Veterans' Day" (an Artists' Challenge)
It is early morning, barely dawn. It rained all night, and it will be raining again soon. The air tastes green and fresh and heavy. The park is deserted. I walk along the path, carrying the teddy bear in my left hand, as if it were something as normal as a newspaper. Somewhere ahead of me, the Wall is waiting.
"A Light in Troy"
She went down to the beach in the early mornings, to walk among the cruel black rocks and stare out at the waves.
"Listening to Bone" (a Kyle Murchison Booth story)
In clement weather, I sometimes went to the Henry Davenport Public Zoological Gardens on my lunch break.
"A Night in Electric Squidland" (a Ghoul Hunters story)
Some days, Mick Sharpton was almost normal.
"No Man's Land"
He wakes up tasting dirt.
"Sundered"
The nameplate on the door still said LT. MICHELLE THORNE, and Rachel wondered how long it would be before it was changed.
"Under the Beansidhe's Pillow" (an Artists' Challenge)
The Beansidhe does a lot of wailing during the crossing.
"Why Do You Linger?" (an Artists' Challenge)
"Why do you linger?" he asks the empty room.
Dust motes fall through the dim shaft of sunlight from the window, and there is no answer.
"The World Without Sleep" (a Kyle Murchison Booth story)
In the January that I turned thirty-five, sleep became a foreign and hostile country.
"The Hostage Crisis on the Derelict Mistral Freighter D35-692N-C, Queen of Liverpool"
My father's funeral was held this morning, broadcast live--a morbid irony--on twenty channels, relayed off-planet by telecommunications satellites he had owned.
"Imposters" (a Ghoul Hunters story)
They were pulling out of the parking lot of St. Dymphna's Psychiatric Hospital when the radio crackled into life.
The Marriage of True Minds (gay spies and science fiction)
The greatest danger was that he wanted to trust.
The Mirador
So, to begin with, General Mercator was dead.
"Somewhere Beneath Those Waves Was Her Home" (an Artists' Challenge)
The selkie woman stands at the window, staring out at the sea.
The Aftermath of the Glastalvon Rebellion (Marian science fiction--as in Queen Mary Tudor)
Cuthbert Swetenham, who had been the ninth Earl of Glastalvon, rose to his feet as the transparent fourth wall of his cell vanished. It worried him, a little, how something that was already invisible could vanish, but he had no other words to describe the phenomenon.
"The Bride of Nyarlahotep" (a Ghoul Hunters story)
It was any BPI agent's least favorite job.
The Emperor of the Elflands
An urgent voice, a hand shaking roughly at his shoulder. "Maiah! Maiah, wake up!"
"Moonwork"
In January, Jenny Sutpen's baby died.
Schrödinger's Parable of the Cat (more gay spies and science fiction)
The heat in Hylant Station was like nothing Tanasestefeth had ever imagined.
The Second Son (otherwise known as the Arthurian pre-Raphaelite Eliot steampunk noir story)
On the twenty-fourth of April, Medraut dreamed of Loheris again.
"Spider's Rose" (an Artists' Challenge)
Long ago, in a world none of them can remember, the vampires were taught to dance.
Summerdown
My sister Isobel was nervous.
"Thirdhop Scarp" (a Kyle Murchison Booth story)
I cut off her head before I buried her.
"To Die for Moonlight" (a Kyle Murchison Booth story)
It was an open question in the Parrington Museum which of Samuel Mather Parrington's two daughters was more to be feared.
"Under Babylon" (a Ghoul Hunters story)
Mick Sharpton's howl of outrage--"oh fuck no!"--was clearly audible in the junior agents' office. "Mickey-boy's just seen next week's duty roster," Livermore said smugly. "I told Adams he was going to screech like a scalded cat."
The White Devil (John Webster, meet Southern Gothic)
Since I was a little girl, I've always told my father my dreams. Except for one.
---
*Ask
elisem about Artists' Challenges if you're interested.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-10 03:34 am (UTC)I would love to do a KMB collection. If somebody were interested in publishing it.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 09:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 08:56 pm (UTC)Marian sf--sounds VERY cool.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 09:27 pm (UTC)Dare I ask where you submitted this to?
no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 10:06 pm (UTC)It's currently at Paradox.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-10 03:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-10 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 09:52 pm (UTC)There's something bothering me about the word "Glastalvon". It is the thing that often bothers me about people trying to make up words that were originally P-Celtic or Welsh and have been through English, which is that it doesn't feel quite right in a way that's hard to define. If you intend it to mean "Blue High Anglesey" and to be pronounced Glas-tal-VOHN, that's OK, though "tal" didn't come into Welsh until relatively recently... I keep stumbling on the L. Your other Welsh reader(s) may also have this problem.
Did you see
no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 10:05 pm (UTC)And I hadn't seen