#wip: don't pay the ferryman

[halfbakedspuds]

Thanks so much to @illarian-rambling for the tag.

WIP playlist tag

Rules: Choose 10 songs that remind you of your WIP or which overall fit the story's plot, aesthetic, or vibe

I think I'll do this for the new one I have cooking- 11 Past Midnight- 'cause why not.

The first few limes of the story are probably really easy to forget, but while writing them I could not stop hearing Burgundian Lullaby by Crystal Order, and now whenever I picture the more quiet stretches of the story when they (Artur especially) have time to reflect on the state of the world, I also hear this play.

Other than that, I got nothing. However, there are some songs that remind me of the scenes where Kat is just driving. She found a USB one time with a bunch of pre-war music on it, and took advantage of it given that like 90% of her life revolves around being on the road or trying to get back onto the road, having music for the long stretches of fuckall helps. These songs are what I would outright say she has on her playlist if it weren't for ✨copyright laws✨, but as it stands they serve as just another reminder of the story:

Painkiller by Judas Priest

Blue Heavens by Fingers T

Road Rage by Miracle of Sound

Land of Confusion by Genesis

Energia by Russkaja

Don't Pay the Ferryman by Chris de Burgh

Lucky One by Celldweller (couldn't find the version I wanted on Spotify so YouTube it is)

The Man Who Sold The World as covered by Midge Ure

Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode

No pressure tag for @orion-lacroix, @honeybewrites and anyone else who wants in

[gretchensinister]

FIX the baby !

This one is an MCU fanfic! I hated Avengers: Infinity War and everything I heard about Avengers: Endgame so much that I started writing a 'verse that fixed the Thanos Snap by making it so that it never happened because the way the MCU did the snap and then restored people had so many worldbuilding consequences!!! That were never addressed!!! And FUCK Tony Stark's post-snap baby, you just have to deal with that baby never existing.

I don't remember what the plot idea I had was now, but I think it was mostly about Stark undoing the snap so that it never happened and dealing with the surreal angst of being the only one who remembered it.

And then after 3.5 pages I was like, "No. Making the MCU good was someone else's job. I won't do it for them." So this is a WIP I can actually say is dead because the MCU Thanos shit was SO BAD.

***

Tony woke up in the stall of a public bathroom. Since his last thought was that he was dying, this was unexpected. He hadn’t even been dying in a public bathroom. He was wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt and a comfortable old pair of jeans, which he also hadn’t been dying in. He had an absolutely massive headache, and the anchor point for his current suit ached on his chest, but other than that he felt physically fine. 

He didn’t have his suit with him. Not the nano suit, not any of them. Okay. Fine. You can’t take it with you, as they said. Though he was pretty sure he wasn’t dead, if only for the fact that he was in too much pain for this to be heaven, too comfortable otherwise for it to be hell, and he’d eat the Mark 1 if Valhalla or whatever had plastic walled toilet stalls as part of the welcome.

He checked his pockets and found that they were completely empty. He hadn’t really expected anything else.

At least he had shoes on. 

Tony shrugged and took a careful breath. He’d woken up in worse situations and worse equipped. At least now—he glanced at the toilet. It had instructions on how to use a water-saving flush in English and Spanish. So he was probably in the United States. Or maybe Mexico.

But how? He had been dying. He had wielded the Infinity Gauntlet, and—

His headache, which had been fading, as it turned out, returned with full force. He gagged, and pressed his head against the wall. Right. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t going to find the answer in a public toilet. He left the stall, keeping his head down to avoid the fluorescent lights as much as he could. The bathroom turned out to be a large one, and now that he was out of the stall he felt just connected enough to reality to start noticing things again, like the fact that most of the men passing through the bathroom had suitcases with them.

An airport? He was in an airport? Why? Again, why? His head pounded. Maybe this was some kind of afterlife. Maybe he’d go buy a ticket and it would tell him to go to terminal C, Hades departures. Except he didn’t even have two cents to pay the ferryman, much less enough to buy a plane ticket.

Unproductive thoughts. He was alive. He’d start there. He went to the sinks and washed his hands, then splashed some water on his face, because it seemed like the done thing. He stifled a laugh that he was sure wouldn’t sound sane. Sure. And get the smelling salts, too.

Fuck, but this bathroom was busy. A convention of piss, held in an airport. His reflection told him that someone was bound to recognize him soon, and he didn’t want that to happen in a bathroom when he had literally no clue what was going on.

He hurried outside, looking down again, his shoulders hunched up by his ears.

As soon as he was out in the hallway, though, he raised his head. And stared. The airport was busy. Not relatively busy. Busy-busy.

Crowded.

[finn-m-corvex]

HI FINN! TRICK OR TREAT

TRICK OR TREAT KEY!!! Since I don't really want to find a whole bunch of images and I'm only handing out treats, anyone who sends in an ask gets a small tidbit of my WIPS!

You win: Prime Empire rewrite ch5!

Talon cleared his throat. “You’re talking about the Ferryman.”

Silence rang through the room as the younger team members looked around, confused. Talon and Scott both looked slightly annoyed at their befuddlement, and Scott was quick to say, “none of you have heard of the Ferryman?”

“No?” Grayson said, Beta and Dee nodding with him. Jay could only chuckle sheepishly when Scott turned his gaze to the blue ninja.

“The Ferryman,” Talon said quietly, so much so that Jay had to strain his hearing to make out what the man was saying, “is said to guard the river of Terra Karana. People think that he lives close to the riverbank, and that anyone who crosses without paying the toll will suffer the consenquences at some point during the journey to the Maze. No one who has ever seen his face has made it out.”

[parttimeghost]

c a m p n a n o w r i m o w r a p u p ; don't pay the ferryman

so, my goal for nanowrimo last month was 10,000 words. and yeah, i managed to achieve that, by writing literally everything except my camp wip. oops. so here's a quick summary and excerpt from what i did manage to write for 'don't pay the ferryman'.

s u m m a r y

don't pay the ferryman was my camp nano wip for july. it's a 'the good place' inspired story that follows thea, a ferryman in the Afterlife. the Afterlife is an amalgamation of various afterlife concepts, the way it presents itself to the deceased is catered to the individual. in the case of cerys, thea's new fare, Afterlife presents itself in the form of a long taxi drive home.

thea has been working the Afterlife for as long as she can remember. she had been human, once. she had died and entered the Afterlife, armed only with the silver coins in her hand. it was there she had met her guide and made a fatal mistake. she handed him the coins. she paid him before the journey was done. in doing so, thea swapped places with him, becoming one of the ferryman.

now, presented with the opportunity, thea must make a choice. does she trick cerys into paying her, thereby securing her freedom? does she condemn the girl to a seemingly endless torment?

t r a n s c r i p t

So, to reiterate. Philosophy is derived from the ancient Greek word meaning love of knowledge. The study of Philosophy seeks to make meaning of a seemingly random existence whilst attempting to find the answers to questions there are no real answers to. The Trolley Problem could be avoided with adequate occupational health and safety standards and Phillipa Foot would have made for the world’s worst taxi driver. Or maybe the best, depending on your point of view.

[parttimeghost]

Hiya Taylor, name's Midnight and nice to meet you!! Please, tell me more about both of your WIPs!

Hi Midnight, it's so nice to meet you! <3

I know you're probably referring to the two WIPs I have in my pinned post so I'll talk about those first. But I've also got a couple of other WIPs that I'm currently working on/thinking about and I just haven't gotten around to updating my pinned post so I'll chuck a little bit about them on the end as well for a bit of fun!

WIP AN ODE TO THE DESTINED (Arthurian WIP)

An Ode to the Destined is my main WIP at the moment; I just started rewrites for the second draft which I'm super excited about! It's an Arthurian-inspired fantasy told from the perspective of Morgan of Avalon, the twin sister of Prince Arthur of Camelot. The story follows Morgan as she attempts to stop King Uther's purge and prevent the veil between the worlds from unravelling, whilst also dealing with the prophecies of Taliesin (who believes she is destined to fall to darkness) and her own seer dreams, the lines between reality and vision blurring as the events of her visions draw nearer.

The magic system of AOTTD has to be one of my favourite things that I've ever come up with! The basic concept is that reality is set out like a weaver's loom, right? The warp is everything that provides the structure to reality, things that cannot be changed (like the rising of the sun, the phases of the moon, and the seasons of the year). Whilst the weft is everything else, everything human. It helps to explain the way Seer visions work in AOTTD, where the future is possibilities (the different ways in which you can weave), whilst the past cannot be changed (as it is already woven).

I'm definitely going to be posting about this story over the next couple of months: here's an excerpt from the opening that I posted for HU7U!

WIP THE SUBTLE ART OF COUNTING CROWS (Superhero WIP)

This is probably the WIP that I've been working on for the longest. I started writing about these characters in 2020 for my HSC English Extension Two major work (basically I elected to take a course for my final year that meant that I got to submit a major work, which in my case was a short story) (they didn't like it very much lol).

It follows the lives of Bran Wren, Clancy Culpa, and Melissa Kennedy (though it's mostly told from Bran's point of view) as they navigate life as newly initiated superhero-vigilantes in the city of Wrenwood.

It's very much a slice-of-life superhero story; it's told in a non-linear fashion where each chapter of the collection is based on that counting crows nursery rhyme (One for Sorrow, One for Mirth, etc.). And I'm thinking about adding a couple of 'bonus stories' in the second draft (shorter stories based on alternate versions of the nursery rhyme, maybe told from Clancy and Melissa's point of view?). It's just really fun to write and the characters are so dear to me. Here's an excerpt from one of my favourite chapters so far.

I'm currently working on the second (?) draft so I'll post some more excerpts as I get into that (and when I finally stop procrastinating).

WIP VIGNETTES OF A LIFE I NEVER LIVED VOL. ONE (Short Story Collection)

I haven't actually posted a lot about this WIP so far so I'll give a brief overview. Vignettes of a Life I Never Lived Vol. One is a collection of short stories I wrote in early 2021/22 about being unsatisfied with the direction my life was heading but being uncertain about where exactly I wanted it to go. It's a work in progress and I'm adding little vignettes every so often when I think about different lives I could've led (some of them are realistic, others less so). I'm currently writing the story in a kind of weird possible-future-tense (I'm not sure how to explain it) but it makes for a really interesting structure and reading experience.

It's more of a love letter to all the people I could have been than anything else; a way to mourn them and say goodbye. I might have to finally get around to writing up a WIP intro for this soon...

WIP DON'T PAY THE FERRYMAN (Afterlife WIP)

Don't Pay the Ferryman is my most recent WIP. I started it for Camp NaNoWriMo back in July, but uni kicked my ass that month, so I only managed to write a little bit. It's about Thea, an Afterlife guide, who ferries unmarked souls (those without religious belief) through the afterlife and is looking for a way to escape, to find her own peace in an afterlife (any afterlife really). The only way for a Ferryman to retire, and that is to get an unmarked soul to take their place by paying them before the journey is over (based on that Chris de Burgh song of the same name). So when Thea receives her first charge, she believes herself willing to do anything to reach retirement. That's when she meets Adriana. So it's a road trip romance novel but with a fantasy (and philosophy) bent.

Thank you for the ask! Have a lovely day (and lmk if you want to know anything more about any WIP in particular)! <3

[parttimeghost]

WIP Title Tag Game

thanks @hymnonlips for the tag!

Rules: post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous they are. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it. Then tag as many people as you have wips (or don't). (you can make your own post or reblog this one!)

Titles and tags below the cut!

AN ODE TO THE DESTINED

[AOTTD] taliesin's prophecies [AOTTD] the graveyard [AOTTD] an ode to the destined [AOTTD] ygraine lives au [AOTTD] untitled no. four

THE SUBTLE ART OF COUNTING CROWS

[TSAOCC] for sorrow [TSAOCC] for mirth [TSAOCC] for a wedding [TSAOCC] for a (re)birth [TSAOCC] for silver [TSAOCC] for gold [TSAOCC] for a secret never to be told

OTHER MISCELLANEOUS WIPS IN VARIOUS STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

[SSC] vignettes of a life i never lived vol. one [ARCH] untitled no. two [POEM] ancient dreams vol. one [POEM] i love you and other fun catchphrases: on writing a birthday card [ARCH] bazaar of broken dreams [ARCH] there’s frost on the windowpane (and in my heart) [ARCH] fall of an empress [ARCH] museum musings [ARCH] a walking study (in demonology)

tagging: @friendlyneighborhood-writer @approximately20eggs @marrowwife

[parttimeghost]

hello!! what's the most valuable piece of advice you've been given/discovered about writing and/or what advice would you give to help others create plotlines?

hi! i think the most valuable piece of writing advice i've ever received is that writing is basically this post with a little addendum. write. write and keep writing. but don't be afraid to admit when things aren't working.

it's okay to take a break from a wip; it's okay to take a break from a particular writing form if you need a break as well. after completing my final english exams in year twelve, the idea of sitting down to write another short story exhausted me. so i wrote everything except short stories:, i wrote poetry, spec scripts, and started working on my arthurian retelling wip. i got back into writing short stories eventually, but even if i hadn't, it would have been okay, because, at its core, my love of writing was still there and still being nurtured.

as for creating plotlines, i don't actually have a super concrete method. my plot doc look a little bit (okay a lot a bit) like those conspiracy boards, and my actual draft is like the world's most chaotic opening night (actors and props missing, people improvising lines where they probably shouldn't, an audience member has wandered on stage and decided to insert themselves into the script).

my shorter projects tend to be focused on a vibe or on evoking a particular feeling. for my larger projects (like 'an ode to the destined' and 'don't pay the ferryman') i typically have a beginning, an end, and a couple of really strong characters. my first draft is about figuring out how to get my characters from point a to point b. sometimes i make it to point b, sometimes i don't, and the ending is completely different to what i planned. the most important thing (for me at least) is that the plot is flexible, and i can make changes as I'm writing. because as a writer i'm always growing, so why shouldn't my wip plots?

thank you so much for the ask,

taylor <3