abracanabra | Entries tagged with unkindness of ravens

The Unkindness of Crows

12,809 / 20,000
(64.0%)

Writing Log
Words yesterday: 3,649
Total words: 12,809
Reason for length: Really need to finish this. Did nothing but write from the time I woke up (still hungover) to about ten o'clock, when I burned out.
Overused word: feast
Gratuitous word: ignominiously
Type of scene: How the forsaken came to be that way, the effects of the war, and gods have deadlines, too.
Challenge(s): Describing many individuals and keeping it in order.
Which line is it anyways?He knows that offending the forsaken might mean that suddenly, when the inn is at its fullest, the nightsoil stops getting carted away.
Notes: May need to go back and doublecheck all the Family vs. House vs. whatever stuff.

I have a nice, shiny new scanner that has negative-scanning capabilities! Yippee!

I am not allowed to play with it until I've finished writing "The Unkindness of Ravens." Boo!

The candle I'm burning smells like grape bubblegum. Mrgh?

Justus and Armery are both stupid names for people. Any suggestions for a good source of medieval English names? Argh....

Must run. Have to beat up my main character now. Hee hee hee.

Oog. I've been writing since I woke up (hungover, no less). I am now what is known as "burnt out." Have written around 3,600 words on "The Unkindness of Ravens." Story not done yet. Bastard story. Must finish tomorrow. Not tonight, no. Was hoping to be able to stick it out for another hour, but...no. Must finish tomorrow. Story very long (as per guidelines). Am terrified of editing, especially as will still be on deadline for edit.

Worries for another time.

However, I'm pretty happy with what I've written, with the plot shenanigans and the character development, and the worldbuilding I've done.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: King of Terror - Ikon

The Unkindness of Ravens

9,160 / 20,000
(45.8%)

Writing Log
Words yesterday: 2,576
Total words: 9,160
Reason for length: Not very inspired, but I did a good job of forcing myself to plod onward.
Overused word: forsaken
Gratuitous word: lollygagging
Type of scene: Poor princeling just doesn't understand what it means to be in the untouchable caste.
Challenge(s): Writing through the necessary scenes.
Which prop is it anyways?The captain held out his hand. Something black dangled from it. "I had a crewman once who'd lost his eye in a bar fight. When I kicked him off the ship, he left this behind."

The captain tossed it to Armery, who tried to catch it but misjudged the distance. It bounced off Armery's chest and landed in his lap. He picked it up. It was an eyepatch. It was made of low-quality cotton and smelt faintly of sour wine, but it was the best gift he'd ever gotten.

Notes: Must...write...faster! Also, am now getting worried about that whole "one space after a period" thing. Damn it, I learned to type on a manual typewriter!

The Unkindness of Ravens

4,138 / 7,000
(59.1%)

Words yesterday: 1,276
Total words: 4,138
Reason for length: Lost the urge to write.
Overused word: eye
Gratuitous word: aplomb
Type of scene: Escape from a battlefield, followed by fever dreams.
Challenge(s): Again with the working in of background information.
Which line is it anyways? "Danger Three," she said, as softly as if she was a priest instructing him, "beware trusting the raven, for he will strike without mercy to destroy his opponent, even unto pecking out the eyes of fledglings."
Other writingy stuff: Heard that Serenade of Blood & Silver was rejected.
Notes: Got the form letter rejection in the mail today. It's interesting, knowing what went into the rejection process and seeing the extremely impersonal form-letter result.

2,862 / 7,000
(40.9%)

Words yesterday: 421 words on The Unkindness of Ravens, formerly known as Battlefield Crows
Total words: 2,862
Reason for length: Really needed to get working on getting critiques in to Critters to try and get an MPC (basically, a coupon that lets me skip waiting in line for my story to be critiqued).
Overused word: corpses
Gratuitous phrase: putrefaction and rot
Type of scene: He figures out that the priests are coming, and they'll find his hiding place under a pile of corpses.
Challenge(s): Integrating worldbuilding background and some things that will be important later without losing the urgency of the moment.
Which line is it anyways? He could have wept from frustration, but he feared what fresh hell tears might bring.
Notes: I'm writing this story to (hopefully) enter in an anthology containing fantasy stories themed to religion and war in a medieaval setting. Unfortunately, that deadline is coming up really soon, so I'm going to pound it out and get it through Critters if I have the time before it has to be sent. This is also the first high fantasy story I've ever written. Ever. But I had a good idea for one over at

penthius, and it seemed to fit well with the anthology guidelines. Now all I have to do is keep it from turning into a novel. Well, that and get a seven to twelve thousand word story written and reasonably polished in a couple of weeks.
Other writingy stuff: Critiqued and sent critiques of six short stories that had varying values for the qualities "Competent" and "Good."
Other creative stuff: Shot four rolls of film doing a two-hour Christmas photoshoot.

For instance, crows of many species learn to drop nuts and other hard food items like clams from just the right height over just the right hard substrate to break them open. But carrion crows living near a driving school in Japan learned to use cars to do the work for them. These crows wait for traffic to stop at an intersection, fly down and place the nuts in front of the tires of the stopped vehicles, then retrieve the nutmeats from the nuts cracked open when the cars ran over them. Over the last 20 years, this behavior gradually spread beyond the immediate vicinity of the school—and people have begun to help the crows by deliberately running over the nuts on the road!

At different times and in different places, crows have been revered, respected, feared, and reviled. In 15th- and 16th-century England, crows were appreciated and protected because their catholic tastes in food, which include putrid meat and other spoiled food, helped keep the streets clean. Later, however, when crows in numbers feasted on the corpses of Londoners killed in the great fire of 1666, they were viewed with revulsion and bounties were placed on their heads.

- Review of In the Company of Crows and Ravens. John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell by Susan Lumpkin

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

Being the journal of an all-too-human writer, reader, and eater of deliciousness

The Unkindness of Deadlines

Small Things

Brain Melty

I Should Write More Characters With Eyepatches.

Never Trust a Raven--or a Fever Dream

The Unkindness of Ravens

Crows, Now & Then

Profile

April 2025

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags