I was tagged by @iwt-v – thanks, Laura!
Share the first sentence (or paragraph) of your current wip. (OR TEN, if you’re unable to stop at just one.)
I’m… kind of working on a lot of things right now, so have something from the ones that are most likely to be finished soon.
1. This is from a thing I’m working on for @penflicks
“The take is officially fucking miserable.”
A bag of coin thunks down on the table in front of him, and Hal Gates looks up from the ledger he is currently perusing. Oliver Lawrence looks down at him, and for one instant – and only one – Gates feels sorry for him.
“The men’ve checked the captain’s cabin?” he asks, and Lawrence shakes his head.
“They’ve barricaded the damn door from within,” he answers. “It’ll take an hour or more to get past it.”
“An hour that we don’t have,” Gates observes sourly. “The wind’s about to change, and when it does -”
“There’s no need to lecture me on it,” Lawrence snaps, and Gates feels the already small well of pity evaporate. He gives the captain a stare, and feels his contempt increase when the man actually shies away a bit, taking a step backward. Christ, Gates thinks – he’s met children just out of the cradle with more backbone than this – and better luck, too.
2. The last chapter of Cup of Their Deserving (I think. Probably.)
They come to Nassau to sign the treaty.
James remembers the last time he came to this place in Madi’s company. She does too – he can see it in her eyes as they stand at the rail. They are both thinking of it – it would be nearly impossible for them not to, and yet here they stand, and there is no shouting. No gunfire. There are no ships scuttled in the harbor, and James privately wonders who they have found to clear several tonnes of wood, iron, and rigging in the months since his last arrival here.
3. The last chapter of Full of Grace:
They make landfall in Nassau two months later.
Hennessey, James thinks, has hidden depths to him, and those depths, apparently, include worming his way into the captain’s confidence such that the blasted fool actually begins to take his advice on sailing the ship. It’s just as well – the man James calls father had spent the first two weeks of this voyage variously glaring at the rigging, muttering about the sailing master, and generally stalking about the ship as if it were his own, hands behind his back, restless as hell and grouchy with it. James might have teased him about it – except that he has spent at least part of the trip doing the same thing himself, much to Thomas’ and Miranda’s amusement.
Meg's Mumbles 