#WIPpet Wednesday – June 25, 2019

Hello and welcome to WIPpet Wednesday, a blog hop wherein writers share an excerpt from their current WIP that somehow relates to the date.  To join in, simply click the blue linky up there to the right.

I’ve got something a bit different this week! Those of you who have been doing WIPpet Wednesday for a long time (I’m talking, since 2013-14) might vaguely remember back in those days, I was attempting to write  a modern retelling of The Nutcracker. It never really worked out, though it did provide me with inspiration for the plot that became Memories and Magic.

Well, fast forward to the last week. A few of the writers I do 6am writing sessions with via Twitter have decided to put together a Christmas anthology. Since our hashtag is #6amAusWriters, part of the theme is that the stories will take place in Australia at Christmas time (when it is too bloody hot to do anything other than lie under the AC with an ice pack. Weird, right?). Guess who has seemingly managed to outline this modern-day Nutcracker retelling in response to the pressure to have something written by the end of August? And has already written a fair amount? That would be me!

I feel a bit guilty about putting Facing the Music aside, but on the other hand, I think I’ve been rambling a lot on that WIP. The end is in sight, but I don’t fully know how to get there. But I also just kind of want it to be done. So maybe a break will be good. Sure, it means I won’t reach my 40k May-June goal, but as I keep reminding myself lately, word count goals are arbitrary anyway.

For this week’s WIPpet, I have 13 sentences from an early scene from Operation: Sugarplum. Clara happens to know the CEO of gaming company, Drosselmeier Industries. And she’s managed to wrangle access to the company Christmas party, where she hopes to meet the CEO’s nephew, Max, boy-genius developer who is already turning down jobs in Japan and the US at age 22. But now she’s here, she has to persuade herself to go inside.

She didn’t plan on staying too long. She’d just tell Max that she was a fan of his games and that she was looking forward to the new gaming platform he was rumoured to be building, and maybe get a selfie if he didn’t mind. Then she’d leave.

Provided she actually had the guts to walk through the door and let Josef make the introduction. Well, if nothing else, it would be air conditioned inside, and that was worth everything on a day like today. If she waited outside any longer, she’d start sweating and dark patches under her sleeves was not her ideal impression.

… not that she was trying to impress Max Drosselmeier in any way. But she didn’t want him to be unimpressed, either. At the rate she was going, it was highly likely she was going to nervously spew out some embarrassing word vomit in front of him. No need to smell bad, too.

She took another breath. All right. This was it. She was going in.

Good luck, Clara! I’m sure it will be fine and you won’t ramble and make a fool of yourself in front of your idol. At. All.

So who else can’t believe it is the last week of June? I am hoping I will have time to do a post later this week looking back on what I’ve achieved writing-wise in this first half of the year.

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