Katherine Frances's Blog, page 291
November 3, 2015
November 2, 2015
"Don’t research
Researching isn’t writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you..."
Researching isn’t writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don’t. Don’t give in and look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, the population of Rhode Island, or the distance to the Sun. That way lies distraction-an endless click-trance that will turn your 20 minutes of composing into a half-day’s idyll through the web. Instead, do what journalists do: type “TK” where the fact should go, as in “The Brooklyn Bridge all TK feet of it, sailed into the air like a kite.” “TK” appears in very few English words (The one I get tripped up on is “Atkins”) so a quick search through your document for “TK” will tell you whether you have any fact-checking to do afterwards. And your editor and copyeditor will recognize it if you miss it and bring it to your attention.”
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Use this writing technique to avoid endless click-trances. For more snazzy writing tips for the 21st and ½ century open Context to page 30.
(via bookphile)
Viscera
[vis-er-uh]
-plural noun (singular: viscus)
Anatomy, Zoology: the organs in the cavities of the body, especially those in the abdominal cavity
(Not used scientifically) the intestines; bowels“Shapes of dried blood in the stubble grass and gray coils of viscera where the slain had been field-dressed and hauled away.”
-The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy
"She was honey mixed with the last rays of a sunset. A blushing sky caressed by sugar clouds. She was..."
- freelancedreamer1 (via wnq-writers)
"You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there."
- Edwin Louis Cole
(via difficult)
November 1, 2015
The dead animals on the wall really make the place feel homey.
In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.
Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.
Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!
Kim Shimmers and the Diviner’s Curse
A Harry Potter Fanfic by me (and sequel to Kim Shimmers and the Screech Owl)
(Art not mine, couldn’t find credits. Let me know if you know them!)
This Harry Potter fanfic will be posted, if all goes well, every weekend.
Chapter 4
New Classes
Kim got her schedule the next day and was looking it over in the common room when Clemon walked up to her.
“You know what the Triwizard Tournament means, right?” she said, looking up from her schedule and plopping down on a seat beside where Kim stood.
“What?”
“There’s going to be a ball. A dance, right before the tournament starts.”
Kim swallowed, pocketing her schedule as her heart fluttered at this news. Retta had talked about school dances all the time, but Lemmonforth had never held them. From the stories that Retta had told, and the occasional movie about boring muggle teenagers she’d been forced to watch, she’d gathered that dances were centered mainly around getting a date, looking good, comparing how good you look to other teenagers, anddancing. Kim couldn’t imagine she was any good at dancing since she had pointedly avoided it so far in her life, unless you counted the occasional silliness at family reunions with cousins. But that kind of dancing included a lot of goofy hand moves and running about.
“That’s why it told us to bring a dress or dress robes this year,” Clemon continued to explain. “You did bring a dress, didn’t you?”
Kim nodded. She was decently happy with the dress she’d gotten. Her mother had taken her shopping back in America, since that was the only thing she could get her without being totally helpless in the subject, not that her mother was a dress expert. She had been given a pretty limited budget, however, so the dress wasn’t much. She hadn’t realized it would be for a dance. She’d figured it was for some formal dinner party or something of the like.
“Did you?” Kim asked, distractedly. She was still picturing herself in her dress self-consciously.
“Of course.”
Kim went down to breakfast with this troublesome thought clouding her mind. Kim was 14. Retta was only 13 and she’d already been on a date. Clemon apparently had been flirting with a boy last semester, and though she hadn’t thought to ask, she was sure they had probably already kissed by now. Most girls she knew had already managed to kiss a boy by now, except maybe Hermione. But did Hermione really even want to? She seemed all too busy to worry about all that, which was perfectly fine for her. Kim tried to be that way. She tried to seem that way at least, that it didn’t bother her in the slightest that she’d never even held hands before. But inside, her gut was twisting with the idea that this dance might be her chance. Maybe someone would ask her! But then there was the other side of that dreaded coin… maybe no one would.
At breakfast Fred and George wouldn’t shut up about their plans to undermine the age limiting system of the Triwizard Tournament, and Kim had yet to think of a way to dissuade them from it without damaging their friendship, so she kept quiet about it. She discovered that she shared a class with Ron, Harry, and Hermione, but only one. It was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but that wasn’t for another few days.
She headed off for her classes, which were rather boring that day. Divinations was awful. Trelawney, who had seemingly liked Kim at the beginning of last year now seemed to distain her. Kim couldn’t help but thinking she might be jealous because Kim was a better Diviner than she was, but she didn’t dare suggest it aloud. History of Magic was, well, History of Magic; all ancient wizards and tales and plagues. Care of Magical Creatures was no better, with their introduction to blast-ended skrewts. Kim was greatly disappointed at Hagrid’s lack of base knowledge about the skrewts, and quickly realized that she would have to do some research outside of class if she wanted to survive with all her fingers unsinged.
“Hagrid, you can’t just start a semester with so little information about a creature we’re supposed to be caring for,” Kim chastised after class. She didn’t have any more classes and it was still a few hours before sundown so she was helping him seal the creates of the blast-ended skrewts, which was turning out to be quite a challenge with them blasting out the occasional burp of fire from their backsides.
“What are these things? I’ve never heard of them.”
“Well… tha’s no surprise,” Hagrid said as if he were admitting to something, heaving one of the creates up and carrying it over to the side of his house.
“Why not?” Kim asked cautiously.
“Uh… Ther nah exactly a known species, so ta say.” Kim just looked at him with bewilderment as he came to take the crate she had just managed to seal. “I bred ‘em me self yeh see. Took a fire crab and a manticore, an’ this is wha’ I got.”
Kim looked at him with wide eyes. This would certainly explain why he had no idea how to feed the buggers and also why Kim had never in all her studies heard of such things.
“Hagrid,” she said cautiously, and then came over to where he’d just set down the second crate with a puff of fire and smoke hissing out the cracks. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You didn’t get permission to do that, did you?”
