I’m still in the fog a little bit. But now it’s a sewing fog instead of the ‘I just finished a book and published it on time’ fugue. My best friend from high school is getting married in March, and I’ve spent the last week working on the slip dresses for her bridesmaid dresses. Next week I get to start work on the overdress part – which will be interesting because I’ll be drafting the pattern for that from scratch. Thankfully I have a lot of ‘meh’ fabric I can use for mock ups.

I was able to get some writing done despite all the sewing. I figured out how to format the pen name project so that everything is justified. It was a major pain, but it looks so nice now. I also tinkered with some of the fanfics.

Speaking of Fanfics – that’s what I’ll be sharing for my WIPpet Wednesday post today!

Since today is the 6th (Well 7th now – I got a bit distracted by the windy weather assaulting the house) I’ll be sharing 6 paragraphs from The Broken Man. This bit takes place a line or two after the snippet I shared over here.

“I don’t know if Barstow is big enough to have any witches or wizards.” Cressida redirects the conversation back to the original subject, rather than point his weaknesses out to him. “But if it is, I’m sure Mama will get a copy of the paper. Then I can sneak it to you when she’s done. She has a couple of copies in a hatbox under the bed, but they’re all old ones, so they wouldn’t do much good.”

“I’m surprised she dares to go near other wizards.” He scratches at his jaw, his fingers grazing over the bristly scruff there before moving to rub the back of his neck.

It’s an offhand comment, one that most would assume was just a general observation based on the little he knows about them, but she can feel that there’s more to it than that. “What do you mean?”

Graves freezes. “Only that your mother has made it very clear that she doesn’t care for other wizards, and she’s spread that prejudice to you to protect you by filling your and your father’s head with foolish fears. So it’s shocking to me that she would care about what is going on in our world and would bother to check in from time to time if she is so determined to leave it behind.”

Lies. She can feel his alarm at her picking up on his slip up leaking through those cracks in his mind. It’s bordering on panic. “What else?”

He avoids the subject by stepping away from the wall and pushing the rolled up cuffs of his sleeves higher up on his arms. Once that’s done, he pulls out his wand from the pocket of his vest he had tucked it into. It’s a sleek thing, all dark wood and bright silver with a bit of mother of pearl to catch the eye. “Now we’ve covered all the basic spells plus a few others. Is there anything you’d like to review?”

To read more WIPpet Wednesday posts, go here.