Weekend Writing Warriors: The Anti-Cupids (Drawing Board)

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

_______________________

This is the third part of the gnome scene I started sharing two Sundays ago.

It’s not the final part of the scene, but it’s probably the last part of The Anti-Cupids I’ll be sharing during these Sundays—your feedback has been wonderful, but I don’t want to give everything away!

I’m skipping a few sentences from last week, during which Jack puts Viv on speaker and sets the phone down on Dennis’s drafting table.

You may think I’ve used creative punctuation in this to fit the sentence limit, but that would be giving me too much credit; much to my embarrassment, that fifth sentence appears exactly as it is in my MS.

Sigh . . .

 

“Hi, Dennis,” Viv said, her voice tinny, but clear. “I don’t know what’s going on, either.”

“Viv, describe the gnomes—Dennis, draw ’em.”

“I’m drawing what now?” Dennis asked.

“Caffeine Gnomes,” Jack said, “marching with drums through your tired brain, demanding tribute or they’ll fire up the bagpipes—while you’re appeasing them, please yourself at JavaNation, ” he added, frowning, “but that sucks, so stick with the images for now—and just for laughs, put ’em into the McAllister tartan.”

Dennis stared at him for a second.  Then he picked up his beloved mock ups, slung them at the nearest table, and grabbed his favorite charcoal pencil.

“Fire when ready,” he said, grinning .

_________________

The McAllister’s, if you’ll recall, are the owners of JavaNation and have, so far, been impossible to please.

I’m personally picturing a combination of this and the last panel of this. The Nac Mac Feegles may not be gnomes—they’re pictsies—but they aren’t about a noise-based protection racket (pun totally intended), and that coffee cup in Dave Kellet’s drawing is perfect.

We’ll see how the McAllister’s like it.

Advertisement

Weekend Writing Warriors: The Anti-Cupids (Autocorrect)

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

_______________________

This is a direct continuation  from last week’s eight and the perfect excuse to use this image, which was sent to me by a friend who may have mistaken the kind of story this is . . .

I changed one word to make it clear that Jack is sending the first text.

“Busy?” Jack typed.

A few seconds later, his phone pinged: “Yes—Why?”

“I need your gnomes bad.”

He waited, but instead of a ping, his phone rang.  “Hey.”

“If you’re going to sext,” Viv  said, “turn off your autocorrect.”

“I wasn’t.  Can I borrow your caffeine gnomes?”

_________________________

Gnomes!

Weekend Writing Warriors: The Anti-Cupids (Gnomes!)

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

_______________________

 Anyone remember the (fictional) McAllister family, which owns the (completely made up) JavaNation company and appears to be incapable of deciding on an ad campaign—much to the hair-tearing frustration of David, Mike, and Dennis?

No?

Well, the McAllisters just struck again and the boys struck out.  Again.

But David’s thumping headache is about to remind Jack of something . . .

 

 Jack went to his office, found the ibuprofen, and was walking back when a thought stopped him midstep. “Gnomes,” he said.

He sprinted for the art department, slowing to toss the bottle through David’s open doorway.  “Heads up!” he said, already halfway down the hall.

Dennis was staring at his Art Deco mock up, as if he could will the McAllisters to reverse their rejection of it through the power of sad puppy eyes.

“Gnomes!” Jack announced, taking out his phone.

“What?”

But Jack was already sending a text.

 _________

Wonder who’s on the other end of that message?  Hmmm . . .

 

___________________________

The image is of  the creepy clay gnomes that “lived” in the rockery at Lamport Hall, as originally published on page 211 of  The Gardeners Chronicle, 25 September 1897.

 Lamport Hall was the home of the Isham family from 1560 to 1976. Sir Charles Isham, 10th Baronet is credited with beginning the tradition of garden gnomes in the United Kingdom when he introduced a number of apparently truly creepy terracotta figures from Germany in the 1840s.  And I’m sure we all thank him for that . . .

 

Weekend Writing Warriors: The Anti-Cupids (Nosy)

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

_______________________

First:

Happy Father’s Day to anyone who identifies as male and is owned by a child of any age or species.

___________

 Here’s another bit of conversation between Jack and Viv, again from Jack’s POV.

This originally took place right after the final dress fitting,  which I’m reworking, but I’m thinking of moving it to the wedding reception, because it wouldn’t do for Jack to notice that he’s noticing Viv too soon.

So, depending on my final edit, Viv will take either a swallow of hazelnut mocha or a sip of Champagne, just as Jack comments that she doesn’t look much like her (conventionally gorgeous, waif-like) sister.

He means well . . .

 

 “Good eye,” she said, coughing a little.  “Questionable tact.”

“It wasn’t an insult, just an observation.”

She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter either way.  “Jen looks like Mom and I look like Dad, except for the hair and the nose; the hair is from Mom’s Grandma, or so she tells me. I have no idea who passed down the nose, but I’m grateful—the last thing this face needs is two pounds of Mitchell Schnozz stuck in the middle of it.”

“I like your face,” he said, but she’d turned away.

__________

Makes you wonder how he manages to snag all those marriage-minded women, doesn’t it?

Except maybe he’s comfortable enough with Viv to drop the smooth, practiced patter and be himself . . .  Yeah, that’s probably it.

Weekend Writing Warriors: The Anti-Cupids (Rockefeller)

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

_______________________

This is another bit from a different conversation Jack and Viv are having during one of their frequent coffeekvetch sessions, as they attempt to stay sane while trying to help plan their respective siblings’ idea of The Perfect Wedding.

But Viv has dreams of her own . . .

“So, what’s your dream wedding?” he asked.

“Two tickets to Vegas.”

“That’s it?”  In Jack’s experience, all women expected  at least a little special treatment on their Big Day—and by “little”, most of them meant “all of it”.

“Well,” Viv said, lifting her mug, “two first class tickets.”

“Hold on there, Rockefeller.”

“Hey, my sister dropped two thousand dollars on a dress she’s going to wear once and over seven-fifty on cake—at least the tickets would be round trip.”

“Fair enough.”

 

___________

My wedding was somewhere between Kirsten’s dream and Viv’s—with a lower budget—but when I was a kid, I never dreamed much past the cake, anyway.

That actually explains a lot . . .

__________________

Image courtesy of InSapphoWeTrust, under Creative Commons license, found via Wikimedia Commons.