Snakey

“I’ll help.” Jo curled after her, like a snake grasping through tree branches.  “Patrick?”

“I’m all yours,” he said.

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Remember the post On Writing: Descriptions?  I've been working on describing characters by their gestures, and one of the descriptions I came up with for that post was:

"She was a curled woman, everything about her sinuous and unwinding.  Standing near her you always felt a little as though she might wrap around you, like a vine or a constricting snake..."

It's good to continue to free write even when you're working on a larger piece.  I didn't do this when I was writing Astra.  Wish I had!  Since it hasn't been formally released yet, I'll have a chance to do another pass over it for Stu after finishing up the initial draft of this novel.   

Anyway, a little more on Jo, a member of the cabal that befriends Mary: 

"...a slight woman with fluffy dark hair.  The woman had a sympathetic, fading prettiness.  Her nose was a perfectly burnished fin between large, spaniel-like eyes that had just begun to droop with age, and her harmless face, now puffy from wine, was pale as a bee sting."  

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I haven't been posting lately because the work lately has too explicit to share here.  Suffice to say- dude, I am packing some heat into this little ol' Southern Gothic.  


The writing's still going pretty well, although more slowly than I'd like, at least these past couple days.  It's interesting how that works- one or two weeks 'on', and then one or two weeks 'off'.  I was on a long walk this evening, looking for new cubbies to write in around town. Tomorrow morning I'll shake things up and see what that does for the day's work.


Meanwhile.  Here's a pretty thing. 

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A gorgeous little guy by Clare Elsaesser