Teaser Tuesday: A Shiny New Idea

So last night at about two in the morning I had this idea. And I was a good person, for once, and wrote it down instead of pretending I'd remember it in the morning so I could go back to sleep. I've been working on that idea all day, and guys, I'm pretty excited about it. I don't want to say too much in case this project fizzles out on me, but so far I like it.

The story, very tentatively titled Smoke and Mirrors (I know, it's terribly original. Perhaps the one thing that John Green and I have in common as writers is that we both find titles kind of impossible), is going to be told through at least four different points of view, the four siblings of the Marks family, and will take place in London and in Bombay (cue research!!).

Here's the opening two pages; I hope you guys like it! Please let me know what you think of it so far.

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May 1878

London, England

            When Josephine Marks entered her sisters’ bedchamber, bright sunlight was streaming through both of the windows, in spite of the fact that every other window in the house displayed the typical dreary London rain. 

            “Kate,” she called, stepping through the doorframe and at once wishing she had not. 

            The room – or, at least half the room, including the half that now blocked Josephine’s path – looked rather as though it had been torn to pieces by an overeager dog or a particularly violent windstorm. Books littered the wood floors and hid the green, red and brown swirls of the Persian carpet. Clothes had been taken out from one of the tall, carved wardrobes and dumped unceremoniously onto one of the four-poster beds or thrown half-heartedly into one of the many steamer trunks crowding the room. The other four-poster, surrounded by a swath of uncluttered carpet, had things piled upon it as well, but these books were left in orderly rows, and clothes was neatly folded into an open steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. Those neat stacks were greatly in contrast with the piles of hair ribbons and sashes and bonnets that tumbled down from the bed opposite and spilt all across the floor.

            All this was strewn about, and yet there was no sign of the two sixteen year old girls who inhabited the room. 

            “Kate?” Josephine said again, stepping carefully around an atlas, opened, of course, to maps of India. “Kate, do come out from wherever it is you are hiding. Grandmamma has been wanting you this last half hour.” 

            There was still no response. Then again, Kate was well aware that an interview with Grandmamma was sure to cause more than a few fireworks. But Josephine was not about to retreat without what she had come for, so she changed tactics.

            “Clara?” 

            Still stepping over the things that Kate had thrown willy-nilly about the room, Josephine looked behind an open wardrobe door and pulled aside the neatly hanging curtains around Clara’s bed, but discovered no giggling sisters. 

            “Clara, dearest, do please come out.” 

            But of course, there was no reply from the neater and nearly always silent twin. She had hoped that perhaps Clara could be prevailed upon to give up the game first, but as always, the two were steadfastly together in whatever mischief they were up to this time. 

            It was then that Josephine tripped over a boot that had been left lying on the ground. She almost fell herself, catching herself on the lid of a steamer trunk, but she could clearly hear Kate giggling from wherever it was that she was hiding. 

            “Katherine Georgiana Marks, if you do not show yourself this instant, I shall tell Mamma and you shall have to give up magic from now till Michaelmas.” 

            “Oh, Josy, do be reasonable. It was just a bit of fun.” 

            Josephine blinked, and suddenly there were two girls right in front of her, sitting cross-legged with their skirts pooled about their knees in the small empty space between the two beds. Clara, at least, had the decency to look apologetic.

New Work in Progress!!!

I have started something new, blogsphere! Something I am very excited about. Something that looks sort of like this:



Yes! It is my first epic fantasy wip in about five years, and it is called HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

Here's a really rough little blurb I worked up for you guys:

The castle has a real name, of course, but its inhabitants refer to it only as The Beginning. It is a convent school for noble girls, who are separated from the rest of society and educated there while they wait for their knight in shining armor to literally rescue them and whisk them off into their very own fairytale ending.

But Lady Caroline has had more than enough sitting around. With only one year left before it’s assumed no one will ever rescue her and she will have to stay forever in The Beginning, teaching future nobles how to curtsey, she comes up with a plan. She disguises herself as a boy and rescues her best friend, Elisamarie, and the two of them set out to fix up a fairytale of their own design.

But the world outside The Beginning isn’t as accommodating as the girls had thought. When Elisamarie is captured, Caroline has to try and rescue her again – for real this time.

What do you guys think? Rescuing Elisamarie is only part of the plot - I need to work a bit on weaving this whole thing together. But this is the basic idea so far. I'm really excited to get working on it!

(Also, thanks to my lovely friend Ella for making the picture of the map blog-able. Computer savvy, I am not. :P)

Writerly Buzzwords

Of late, I've been spending an awful lot of time at the Teens Writing for Teens thread on Absolute Write. And I have been coming across so many terms that people outside the circle of crazed writers on the query-go-round, on sub, and hey, even on the bookshelves, know anything about. One of them is my best friend, who has been increasingly going "what?" when I talk about writing stuff (to be fair, when she talks about colorists and inkers and various kinds of pens, I'm just as confused. ;P).

So, in an effort to chronicle writing lingo, I shall make a list. And will probably forget a lot (a note: I need to write a post about writing things down as opposed to saying to myself that I'll remember something for later, 'cause that never works).

1. query - the business letter for writers. Basically, saying to a prospective agent "my book is cool, ask for more and I will love you forever."

2. query-go-round - that hellish time of sending emails out into the interwebs and hoping for a response. And getting rejections out of most of those responses.

3. synopsis - not your middle school book report summary. This explains the plot, as does the query, but a) is longer, b) reveals the ending, and c) is more plot driven while a query is more character driven. Methinks.

4. SNI - stands for Shiny New Idea. What I call a plot bunny, for this reason: calling something a shiny new idea suggests that it is pretty and distracting you from whatever you're supposed to be doing. Calling something a plot bunny seems, to me, to signify something that is cute and attention-getting, but once you first pay attention to it it will BITE YOU AND NEVER LET YOU GO.

5. agents - awesomeness squared.

6. publishers - awesomeness cubed.

(I feel like I'm being very obvious here, but the good one I had before is not coming to me. See writing things down prior to forgetting them.)

7. sleep deprivation - perfectly normal.

8. the "you-suck" soundtrack - the case of the blues that all writers are fighting off on a constant basis. Writing is a constant ego-maker and -breaker. Depending upon the particular second.

9. voice - God, but I've heard a lot about voice lately. Basically, the way your character talks, especially applicable to first person since the way the character talks is the prose for the whole book.

10. trope - generally obnoxious stereotypes (usually particular to a genre, like the old mentor type in fantasy stories) that are extremely fun to mess with.

Well. There's ten, anyway. I feel like this could have been a good deal more original, but alas, that's where the not writing things down comes in.

So, does anybody have any other writerly buzzwords I seem to have left out? Do please comment and tell me! :D