T-57 and counting

[truepenny]

640 words to end Chapter 10, and 1,191 words to begin Chapter 11

Total for today: 1,831 words

Total in Chapter 10: 11,126

Summerdown, Chapters 1 through 10: 83,838 (how nicely palindromic!) 85029 with the start of Chapter 11 added in.

Still to go: 89,971

Daily quota still: ~1,600 words

Mean things: even MORE unwelcome personal epiphanies; creepy children's counting rhymes.

Hollyred, blood red, bleeding red, axe!
How many girls did Twist attack?

You could jump-rope to that, right?

Comments

[lferion]

Go you on the words -- I'm rooting hard for you :-)

The counting rhyme -- I think many counting rhymes are creepy and reach something deep and scary, in a good way. This one has the right kind of metre and the first line is beautifully creepy. Skipping, jumping rope, some kind of intricate thread-the-needle/crack-the-whip game would go to it very well.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

All the jump rope songs with counting that I know are in the present tense, so I'd suggest "does" or "will" rather than "did" ... except the Lizzie Borden one. And the shipshun one, come to think. Maybe I'm just wrong about this.

But "axe" and "attack" almost rhyme in a way that makes me think it would in oral tradition, and goodness knows jumprope rhymes are oral tradition, become "attacks" however ungrammatical that is. How's "Count the girls that Twist attacks!" ? Or "Count out"? Or "See the pretty girls that Twist attacks! One, two, three..."

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

You're right about the slant rhyme problem. Thank you, and I will ponder.

[crown-of-ice.livejournal.com]

You could also have the children add in something gruesome with each count. Like " One! " and the other girls answer. " With an axe!" or " With a shovel!" Kids are gruesome, and it makes the game more fun if you incrementally up the gross factor with each jump.

Eureka!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I got it this morning while drying my hair.

Hollyred, blood red, bleeding red, axe!
How many died in Twist's attacks?

(My model is the counting rhyme I remember from my own childhood, which is past tense:

Cinderella
Dressed in yella
Went upstairs to kiss her fella
By mistake
She kissed a snake
How many doctors did it take?

)

Also, while the version my protagonist learned is a simple counting rhyme, there's another version--prevalent around Copperton, where Twist lived and murdered and died--that continues:

Katy Kempitt long and brown,
Scarlet Sadler lying down,
Lovely Lilybeth in her bed,
Poor little Polly lost her head...

I'm going to try to stop now.

Re: Eureka!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

That's brilliant. That has the authentic creepiness and the authentic rolls-off-the-tongueness.

I bet it would mutate in oral tradition to Lilibet, rather than keep the theta on the end.

And I think I'm just wrong about the present tense. I think I could see something wrong with the half-rhyme and in trying to figure out what was just flailing around. I think the ones I know are about half each way.

Re: Eureka!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

If I ever actually use that part of the rhyme, yes, I suspect you're right. Lilybet, not Lilybeth. However, this is honestly just a throwaway that pleases me. I doubt the murderous Twist will be mentioned again.

Re: Eureka!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Also, of course, there may be regional variation involved. Just as in the west of Corambis, the first line goes, Hollyred, blood red, screaming red, axe!