Original fiction -- The City in the Seashell -- 3000 words, approx.

I'm posting this here so I can keep track of comments if I ever actually get any.**

( This is the rarest salt on earth---it's made from dried mermaids' tears. )

** That is a not-very-subtle hint. Pimpage is nice, too

Original fiction -- The City in the Seashell -- 3000 words, approx.

I'm posting this here so I can keep track of comments if I ever actually get any.**

( This is the rarest salt on earth---it's made from dried mermaids' tears. )

** That is a not-very-subtle hint. Pimpage is nice, too

*squee* The best compliment I think I've ever received

Upon checking my thingsunwritten story this morning, it acquired a couple of comments overnight, which makes me happy. I'm made even happier by the fact that the recipient adored it, and was brought to full-fledged squee-and-flail by her comment: "It feels like a cross between a Neil Gaiman short story and sea yarn and Baum's Oz."

Compared to Gaiman? OMG, let me flail some more. Because as much as I admire the lyric exactitude of his writing style, I've always felt like a poseur trying to emulate it. Here I must've done something right! (Not that I was trying to copy it---the prompt grabbed me and threw me into a vat of ideas and I started writing....) And this story was so vivid in my mind that I wanted to animate it, or maybe fill it out a little more and turn it into a children's book.

The sea yarn...well, I've long had a thing for Errol Flynn movies and dabbled in the Pirates of the Caribbean fandom, so the part of the prompt where she asked for swashbuckling wasn't too much of a stretch.

And Oz? Well, I confess, I've never read the book(s), but looking at it, I can see a similarity between my narrator's voice and that of Professor Marvel, or a number of other fictitious con men. Presenting the punch bowl to the queen, "liberating" those emeralds...he makes it all sound so reasonable!

Come on, aren't you curious? Wouldn't you like to read it...?

http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/313740.html

*squee* The best compliment I think I've ever received

Upon checking my thingsunwritten story this morning, it acquired a couple of comments overnight, which makes me happy. I'm made even happier by the fact that the recipient adored it, and was brought to full-fledged squee-and-flail by her comment: "It feels like a cross between a Neil Gaiman short story and sea yarn and Baum's Oz."

Compared to Gaiman? OMG, let me flail some more. Because as much as I admire the lyric exactitude of his writing style, I've always felt like a poseur trying to emulate it. Here I must've done something right! (Not that I was trying to copy it---the prompt grabbed me and threw me into a vat of ideas and I started writing....) And this story was so vivid in my mind that I wanted to animate it, or maybe fill it out a little more and turn it into a children's book.

The sea yarn...well, I've long had a thing for Errol Flynn movies and dabbled in the Pirates of the Caribbean fandom, so the part of the prompt where she asked for swashbuckling wasn't too much of a stretch.

And Oz? Well, I confess, I've never read the book(s), but looking at it, I can see a similarity between my narrator's voice and that of Professor Marvel, or a number of other fictitious con men. Presenting the punch bowl to the queen, "liberating" those emeralds...he makes it all sound so reasonable!

Come on, aren't you curious? Wouldn't you like to read it...?

http://vanillafluffy.livejournal.com/313740.html