Thursday Thoughts

So I've had some delay in working on my editing for Scylla and Charybdis ... because I've had workmen in and out ... and I'm on the "read out loud" editing pass. I do not want to entertain / horrify them and embarrass / embarrass / mortally embarrass myself.

What I've just finished doing, too, is reading through all my worldbuilding and character notes for the still-unnamed fantasy / mystery novel. I've tweaked some points, either due to inadvertent contradiction or better ideas left dangling that I forgot about. I am trying to imprint enough of this in my brain that I don't miss any of the cool things I've created. Well. Most of them. If the whole book were this cool, you'd have to chip the ice off it.

Yes, I'm being facetious.

About to start a short story based on a writing exercise. Here's the original snippet, yet to be revised - for instance, I'm changing the name, since I appropriated Lina for something else, and some of the descriptiveness needs work:

Turgid artic waters rushed about the isle, swept by low currents towards the icelands and eventually, the base of the world. From here, Lina could see the dim shadow of the immense column that anchored them in the field of stars, but that was not her destination.

She clutched her cloak tighter to her, a speck of brown in the small boat, a figure no smaller than a child, though girlish amber curls had been given the hatchet job before she applied. One of the first healers to do so; accepted when three months of waiting turned up only two other volunteers, none quite so qualified.

The ferryman conducted her without glance or sound, but his apprentice kept peeking under his elbow at her. "Why are you doing this, miss?" he asked finally.

The voice did not match the woman, resonant, midnight-deep. "Someone has to."