365: Word Count

Today's word count is 1731. I'm pretty happy with that; it's about two chapters in Mr Feathercott's Business. Here's a little sample:

“Good morning, Mr Feathercott.”
Mr Feathercott would have ignored her, had not the infuriating manners of his youth forced him to return the salutation.
“I trust you slept well, Mrs Feathercott,”
“Yes, Mr Feathercott.”
“How comforting. I had a very unpleasant evening,” Mr Feathercott said, still not looking up from his meagre meal. The smell of bacon and eggs made him stomach turn rather abruptly.
“Oh?” Mrs Feathercott replied, clearly preoccupied.
Mr Feathercott was not satisfied with this. His wife, surely, should show more concern for his welfare! He wanted to complain, moreover, of her lack of support the night before. But complaining would mean recalling the disagreeable events of the previous evening, and Mr Feathercott did not wish to be confronted with this.
They breakfasted largely in silence, with Mrs Feathercott eating with a healthy appetite and Mr Feathercott regarding the glistening bacon with a look halfway between disgust and desire. Their repast was nearing an end when a small figure entered by the side door which led to the kitchen...

The Right Place to Write?

I've been doing a little bit of catch-up blog reading before university starts again, and YA Highway's Road Trip Wednesday for this week (or rather, last week, as it turns out...) asks where your favourite place to write is. Now, I'm going to be cliched and say that I need to write somewhere quiet. Since I do most of my writing on the computer nowadays, it's often at my desk. Wherever I end up, it has to be a very quiet, private place. I can't work with distractions all around me (and in my house distractions are a way of life!) so my room is the obvious choice. I tend to write in bed, especially when it's down on paper. But I actually find this incredibly uncomfortable.

Ideally, I'd love a hammock or a comfy sunlounge somewhere. I like being out in the daylight and feeling the breeze around me; it makes me feel a little more connected to the world around me when I'm in my hermit-like writing mode.

Mr Feathercott's Business, Chapter One

Had one wandered up a remote London road one gloomy Tuesday in 1957 one might have observed Mr Feathercott making his way home, his impeccably trimmed whiskers drooping in the chill evening air.
On the other hand one might not have; for Mr Feathercott was a singularly unremarkable character, with his wilting whiskers and his crushed bowler hat. Mr Feathercott, alas, was the last of a race of rather ordinary Victorian gentlemen, now nearing his seventieth year, and with no notable achievements in his long life to single him out for fame and fortune. Born to a dying race, Mr Feathercott had lived much of his life in obscurity. He had once brushed the hand of celebrity with his overly large nose when he had, after the unfortunate drowning of his elder brother (unfortunate insofar as it brought his heretofore ignorant brother into some sort of renown) come to a moderate inheritance. Moderate it was indeed, for ‘moderate’ was a word which could be applied to Mr Feathercott from the tip of his frayed bowler to the toes of his unpolished brown shoes.

Mr Feathercott's Business

Had one wandered up a remote London road one gloomy Tuesday in 1957 one might have observed Mr Feathercott making his way home, his impeccably trimmed whiskers drooping in the chill evening air.
On the other hand one might not have; for Mr Feathercott was a singularly unremarkable character, with his wilting whiskers and his crushed bowler hat. Mr Feathercott, alas, was the last of a race of rather ordinary Victorian gentlemen, now nearing his seventieth year, and with no notable achievements in his long life to single him out for fame and fortune.

Mr Feathercott's Business chronicles the lives of the Feathercott family - Mr Feathercott, his wife Esther, and his three daughters - over the course of the '50s and '60s.

Life in the Feathercott household follows a well-defined and inescapable order. Mr Feathercott, the aging academic, spends his life pondering Mr Dickens and snoozing in his favourite chair by the fire. His dissatisfied wife Esther, twenty years his junior, has long ago faded into the throes of middle age yet she cannot forget the encounter with a handsome ginger-whiskered man more than two decades ago.
But times are changing, and Mr Feathercott's carefully ordered world is being systematically eroded piece by piece. His daughter Maud, newly wed to the charming and devastatingly handsome Peter, cannot wait to escape to Chicago with her husband. Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, is busy raising a family and caring for her own husband, but she finds herself unconsciously drifting towards music stands and record stores when the soulful tunes of the King of Rock 'n' Roll are heard. And as for Gladys, the Feathercott's youngest daughter - well, nobody speaks of her, save in a lowered voice as if afraid that the gossip will spread on telepathic thought waves.
Useless, archaic and mildly irritating, Mr Feathercott's world will be turned upside down. And it all begins with an encounter in a deserted pantry...

Chapter One

Project 365: Soul Catchers, Chapter One

When one considers soul’s mates, one thinks of three words; destiny, love, and impossibility.

Destiny operated on a tight schedule in the kingdom of Stillvalley. While in other universes Destiny might be known for her fickleness, in Stillvalley she was as sharp as a needle and just as likely to prick you till you bled. She ran an efficient operation and never failed to reward heavy tippers. It was her duty to ensure that each and every being in Stillvalley, from the lowliest flea to the mightiest beast, had a soul’s mate. And she had never missed one single solitary creature.

Well. Not yet, anyway.

Soul Catchers

Destiny has your soul.

What if there was a place where there was a somebody for everybody? In the kingdom of Stillvalley, everyone has a soulmate - whether they like it or not.

But when one young farm girl appears to flout destiny and reach her sixteenth birthday without her soul's mate, danger threatens to cloud Stillvalley and destroy it from the outside in. The King's Wards are slipping, allowing contingents of the kingdom's most deadly enemies, the elves, to enter by stealth and destroy Stillvalley.

Only Alunah, the farm girl who managed to escape destiny, can save the kingdom now. Accompanied by a poacher called Wren and armed only with her handy sickle, Alunah must travel to Stillvalley Castle and consult the most famous witch in the land. But Alunah's quest to find her soul's mate and save the kingdom will change the way she views the world forever. Loyalties will be tested, fears realised, and nothing in Stillvalley will ever be the same.

Chapter One