It’s 8:44 on Wednesday morning, and I have nothing prepared for WIPpet Wednesday. I HAVE FAILED YOU. *sobs* Lemme see what I’ve got handy…
I had a moment of panic a few days ago when I thought that I’d lost my vampires in the Not-So-Great Data Transfer (yes, it’s an event deserving of capital letters) that happened after my netbook broke/choclification of my USB drive. After much scrambling and searching, I found the story and… well, first I had a tiny little brain party, and then I read it over.
It’s better than I remembered. Not perfect, but worth finishing; I snorted over funny moments I’d forgotten about, and was appropriately disgusted over murder scene details (definitely going to need a warning on this one). I don’t know when I’ll have time to get to it, but it might be the first thing I post on Wattpad if I ever come up with a good title. So as part of the celebration of re-discovery, here’s 25 sentences. Shivva, Daniel and Trixie have just had a good feed at the club, and are on their way to investigate what will be the girls’ first murder.
–
Trixie passes out in the back seat of the Challenger before we get half way to Kilbride. She’s let me have the front seat for almost every ride since she “borrowed” and crashed Daniel’s GTO. I think it’s self-preservation, trying to stay invisible.
“Little too much of the good stuff there, kiddo?” Daniel asks, not taking his eyes off of the road, and Trixie mumbles something about being fine. We stop at Timmie’s on Topsail Road for coffee and doughnuts. Blood keeps us going, but caffeine is good for the soul, and a full stomach is one of our remaining pleasures.
“Did you feed?” I ask him, though I’m just making conversation. His colour is good, he looks practically alive. He’s relaxed and content, even though we’re on our way to a crime scene. Of course he ate.
“Yeah. Don’t think that one will be back any time soon, though.”
“Why, did she freak out?” I assume it was a girl. He likes them small and fragile.
“No, she got clingy.”
I can’t help but giggle. Daniel tries to frown, but he knows it’s funny. Every so often we’ll get one who’s been reading too much vampire romance, who gets a ridiculous crush on one of us and expects to be loved and protected in return. They don’t understand that they’re animals to us. “She started crying when I was done with her and left, ran after me, wanted to know my name, cried about loving me.” He has the good grace to at least look embarrassed for her.
“She didn’t know any better.”
“They never do.”
–
OK, back to revisions for me, and trying to figure out how to format my first pages to industry standard so I can get a sample edit from an editor I’m thinking of hiring. Can I just say that I have no freaking idea what “12pnt New Courier, spaced exactly 25pnt with widow control off; 1″ margins; .5″ first line indent, header and footer; 0 indentation and spacing; titles on 7th line down, name/title/pg# right header” means? Is this something that would be easier if I actually had MS Word?
Would slamming my head repeatedly into the keyboard accomplish anything? No?
OK. Let’s do this and get back to those revisions…
Thank you to K.L. Schwengel at My Random Muse for hosting! I won’t send you over to high-five her today, since she’s not around, but I WILL direct you to the linkie, where you’ll find the other WIPpeteers adding their contributions all day long. If you want to join in, just post your WIP snippet (relating somehow to today’s date) on your own blog, then add your link. FUN!
disregard the prologue 
September 25th, 2013 at 9:47 am
That’s a great line ‘blood keeps us going, but caffeine is good for the soul.’ Love the idea of these three vampires off to a crime scene and the poor girl who’d read too much vampire romance. Most definitely worth doing something with – hope you enjoyed your little brain party. 😉
September 25th, 2013 at 10:20 am
Great stuff! I laughed at this: ““No, she got clingy.”
I can’t help but giggle. Daniel tries to frown, but he knows it’s funny. Every so often we’ll get one who’s been reading too much vampire romance, who gets a ridiculous crush on one of us and expects to be loved and protected in return.”
Is your manuscript in Scrivener?
September 25th, 2013 at 10:23 am
It is, yeah. I transferred the pages to Open Office and did the best I could with it, but I’ll have to figure out how to do this all in Scrivener. They must have a tutorial available.
September 25th, 2013 at 10:21 am
Ha, ha! I so totally relate. Formatting is not my forte. In fact, one of the reasons I hired an independent publisher with my first ebook was because I don’t grasp it and when I just started submitting to agents (thinking I would go the traditional route) I got twelve different interested agents wanting it 12 different ways…I said F this…and self published through an independent press. I only had to submit my Word file to him…he did the rest.
September 25th, 2013 at 10:28 am
I almost cried this morning, I was so frustrated. If not understanding what “25 pt spacing” means (for a sample, no less) is a deal-breaker, this is probably not the editor I’m looking for, anyway.
I do want to do this myself, but it’s looking more and more like I’ll have to hire someone to format the final product. *snarl*
Maybe I could take a class…
September 25th, 2013 at 10:32 am
I don’t know if you know or follow Chris McMullen http://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/
He has some really good helpful articles on the subject. You can also write to him and he will post on topics of interest.
September 25th, 2013 at 10:33 am
I do. I should look through his older posts for that stuff. Thanks!
September 25th, 2013 at 6:34 pm
Heh. 🙂 I like the jab at vampire romance novels. 😀
September 25th, 2013 at 6:41 pm
I couldn’t help myself. It had to be done. 🙂
September 26th, 2013 at 1:12 am
Snorfle. Vampire groupies! Love it! All these romantic vampires must drive the real ones crazy.
September 26th, 2013 at 10:19 am
They can be useful, if they keep people thinking that it’s all fiction… (as Shivva points out in a later scene, actually) ^.^
But yeah, foolish groupies.
September 26th, 2013 at 3:14 pm
I understood the font and the spacing part – but that totally lost me after the widow control. What the heck is widow control?
Great snippet. I loved the part about caffeine and doughnuts. I know, traditionally, that vampires are only supposed to be able to survive on blood and can’t have anything else – but I always wondered how they handled going to dinner parties and what not. I mean you can’t sit there and not eat. People would get suspicious after awhile. And there is some amazingly delicious food out there. It would suck not to be able to enjoy any of it. I really like that your vampires are able to do so 🙂
Also the line about vampire romances made me smile as well.
September 30th, 2013 at 9:43 am
Just FYI…it’s orphan and widow control and has to do with the last line on the document. If widow control is on, there will not just be one line of the paragraph on the previous page. It’ll move down with the next page. With widow control off, that one line will remain on the previous page.
October 2nd, 2013 at 9:11 am
I thought it was something to do with lonely little words at the top/bottom of a page, but darned if I could figure out how to work it. Turns out that “control off” is the default setting. Whew! 🙂
September 29th, 2013 at 4:07 pm
I love this. Definitely worth pursuing. Please, jab away at sparkly vampires and the silly romances they have. *shudder*
Did you get your formatting woes figured out?
September 30th, 2013 at 9:44 am
I love looking at old pieces and seeing that they’re not total crap! yay! I have nothing to add to everyone else’s comments. Yay for jab at vampire romances and yay for real vampires and caffeine.