Arrant Nonsense

Yeah. Have some Cowboy!Sleeping Beauty.

I fired again, more steady this time, and a splash of crimson exploded from his chest. The fire guttered out, and he slumped in his saddle, his lips moving. I couldn't quite hear what he said, but he fell to the ground in a boneless heap, and his compadres left on the run. Jock tail-wagged back to me, well-pleased with his day's work.

I jumped out of my saddle and trotted over to the rustler. Bright blood stained his lips, and his expression was unbelieving. "You..." he rasped. He was dying. Can't say I was either surprised or upset.

"Told you. We don't take kindly to rustlers in these parts."

"Sleep...forever. And may all your dreams...be terrifying." He exhaled one last time, and I thought something insubstantial and shrieking rose from his body and flew away.

"Well, what the hell," I muttered.

"Sam! Sam!" A tiny winged form hovered in front of my nose. Daneen. "We have to get you home. Right now!"

"Why? What's the matter?"

"That was a death curse! You must get home before the sun goes down. I might be able to--" She stopped and gulped. "But not out here. I'm a house fairy--my powers outdoors are weak."

"A death...what?" Events were catching up with me, and the shakes suddenly gripped me like an ague. The rustler had shot fire at me with his bare hands. Daneen was one thing; I was used to her. This was quite different.

The good news is that it's entirely possible that my Writing Buddy gave me something to hang my hat on last night. The bad news is that I'm not sure I can do the idea justice. I guess we'll see. I cracked a thousand words on it yesterday.

And, with abject apologies to John Denver:

Rejections...in my email...make me eat worms
Rejections...in my inbox...make me sigh
Rejections...almost always...look so ugly
Rejections...almost always...make me cry.

I know, I know. Cry moar, grow a thicker skin, yadda yadda. Is okay. Really. I flipped it to a (new) place that pays more. We shall see.

Send booze.

Seriously, I have no idea where this thing is going. I finished the flashback scene and am back in the present day, but I don't think my Time Bomb works and I don't know what else to do with it.

*headdesks repeatedly*

SO MUCH HATE. THIS IS WHY WRITERS DRINK.

Why did I decide to do this again?

That's what I saw when I logged onto Yahoo!Answers this morning. Hee.

In other news, I scribbled another 400 words or so in cowboy!sleeping beauty last night and moved my plot forward. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know yet.

I'm getting a vague plot bunny of a supernatural "Survivor" type story where the stakes are death, except Carrie Vaughn and Suzanne Collins have pretty much done that already and I'm not sure I have anything new to bring to that table.

Maybe I just want to tie Ben up and torture him some more. I'm a horrible person.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I got to skip=150 and bailed. Sorry, I'm a terrible friend. If anything interesting has happened to you this week, let me know. I've been way out of it, even when I've been home--I think today's been the first time I've actually checked LJ in a week. :-/

I think I may have something to hang my hat on vis a vis the cowboy!sleeping beauty story. Dave Farland's Daily Kick in the Pants had a thing today on Time Bombs. So, if I set the story up so he has to, I dunno, get married or something, within a proscribed time period, or he goes to sleep for good... that might work. We shall see. It will require a revision, but that's okay; I'm only 280 words in.

Yeah, wow, we've had nothing interesting going on at all. I've got four fic docs open right now and hate them all. Sigh.

And thus started new "Sleeping Beauty" story in which Sleeping Beauty is male. And fell asleep in the old west. And was awakened by a ghost. Because it was a ghost town.

Yeah, I don't even. I'd say "upload booze" but I don't need any more. Whee.