It was raining when I went to
bed. It had rained all day, and I loved watching the drops skitter and bounce
over the waves. The silence woke me sometime in the night, and I hoped we’d
have clear skies in the morning. I was restless after a day cooped inside.
I’m not a morning person. It
takes me awhile to wake up, and I prefer silence and coffee to blaring news or
music. I always get the coffee started before anything else. So I set up the
coffeemaker and held the pot under the tap – and nothing came out. Crap. There
must be a busted pipe or something. I hoped it was on the city line and not my
property. I pulled a bottle from the fridge and set the maker in motion.
Since I figured there was no
running water in the house, I didn’t try a shower or anything else. I usually
took one after I biked across the island to the office, anyway. So it wasn’t
until I had suited up and walked my bike out of the hallway that I bumped into
the first drops.
I did a double take and stared,
trying to wrap my brain around what my eyes were seeing. Drops of water were
hanging in the air. Just hanging there, like they were frozen in place. I
looked around, and they filled the air as far as I could see in every
direction.
I touched one of the drops, and
it fell into my hand. It wasn’t cold, like ice. It just sat there, like a
stone. Picking it up between two fingers, I squeezed it, and it felt like a
cool marble – solid, but not like frozen ice. I tipped my hand over and it fell
to the ground. It didn’t shatter, or splash. It just lay on the ground in front
of me.
Why weren’t the others falling? I
took a step forward, and as I brushed solid drops, they fell around me, as if
my forward momentum was knocking them back into motion.
There was a puddle in front of
me, and I touched it with my toe. My shoe slid over it like glass…
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Dogs in house:
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Houdini, Eggs
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Time writing:
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~20 minutes
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April word count:
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9,841
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Writing and Eastercon report:
ReplyDeleteManaged only one night writing at Eastercon, and slightly over one panel a day, around active toddler. Met up with friends from previous years, and got to know some better, especially those with toddlers or babies too. Also got positive feedback on the novel's plot and my decision to concentrate on this part of the story, plus some practice in verbally pitching the plot -- I need a lot more of that! Now I'm all fired up to get the novel done, I just need the time... I will see people again at Worldcon in August, so should get another jumpstart in a few months.
Novel editing tonight: spot edits Ch24, through about 40% of the worst of Ch28. Feeling pretty good about managing to turn a massive info-dump into actual scenes, and I hope to push it through for the rest of Ch28.
Time writing: ~40min Eastercon, ~50min tonight
No question going with a little one changes the con experience! Glad you got some good "pitch" practice! I need more of that myself. Great work on the editing!
DeleteThanks! :)
DeleteNifty! It is reminding me vaguely of a short story where air freezes, which I think is reasonably famous (I have a terrible memory!). I believe that is science fiction. But yes, I think fantasy (or maybe some kind of premonition) would be much easier to follow on from what you've got there so far.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I think you might mean "A Pail of Air" by Fritz Leiber - I haven't read it, but will look it up now.
Delete