325: I don't even

This is the sort of thing that happens when you spend too much time thinking about what would happen if the Doctor met characters from your other favorite shows.

The body was fresh. At least, that was Lanie’s best guess. “Drained dry,” she told Beckett. “As far as I can tell, your victim’s got no blood.” An officer pointed out a man among the looky-loos and said he’d asked to speak to the lead detective. Beckett followed the uni to the tape line and gave the guy a once-over. Tall, white, thirties. Unruly hair. Brown pin-striped suit, long trench coat. Sneakers. Interesting.

“You’re in charge here?” he asked as she approached. He had a London accent.

“Detective Kate Beckett. Who are you?”

"I’m the Doctor,” he replied, as though it meant something. “Tell me, Detective Kate Beckett, do you have a bloodless murder victim in that alleyway back there?”

Beckett narrowed her eyes. “How did you know that?”

“Because somewhere in this city, there’s a Plasmavore hiding in plain sight, just waiting to drain someone else dry. You’ll never find him with fingerprints or forensics, and if you don’t find him soon, the Judoon will sweep in, and believe me, you do not want them scanning first and asking questions later. You need an expert, Detective. You need me.”

Beckett laughed. “In this job, Doctor, I can believe a lot of things, but that line of bull you just fed me? Not one of them.”

The stranger looked grave for a long moment. Suddenly, a wide grin lit his face. “Oh, we’ll see about that, Kate.”

250: Firenze

I've been doing research today, looking at Italy in the early-20th-century Edwardian era.  Happily, the Oregon State University Archives have a whole host of early photographs, circa 1915, on The Commons on Flickr.  When I'm looking for old photographs for writerly reference, I usually swing by The Commons early in my search, just for instant gratification.  Sometimes you stumble across truly cool photos. So: fun place to hang out, electronically, and nice source for people who need quick reference photos.

Enjoy some Edwardian Florence, Italy (all photos via Flickr):

152: [insert caption]

I'm in the middle of trying to cobble together the scribbled phrases and Notes-app entries I made over the past few weeks, so I'll just leave this here for us all to giggle about in our own time:

The Obamas at a dinner at the U.S. Ambassador's home in London.
(via We Heart It)

111: My kingdom for a desk

See, I need one of these.
That's totally the problem.
(via We Heart It)

In my never-ending quest to explain away my procrastination and utter lack of productivity, I've decided the latest problem that keeps me from getting more writing done is that I don't have a proper place to sit down and hack away at it.  It's hard to get stuff done when you have to sit on the floor, right?  I don't even have a chair in my bedroom!  How could I possibly work in there?  And I'd never be undisturbed in the communal spaces.

Lately, I've resorted to squinting at the screen of my iPod during my two fifteen-minute breaks at work and frantically tapping out dialogue in the Notes app while walking around the building (and then going back and correcting the typos in every other word, because it looks like I was typing with my toes).  It's not the most productive of habits.  Theoretically, I'm supposed to have something done for my designated taskmaster, my friend Sasha, by Sunday, but I'm not optimistic.

But if I had a proper workspace, man, I'd have the Great American Novel finished by next week.  Totally.

...Right?

NaNoWhyMo

I apparently decided to do NaNoWriMo this year, though WHY, I have no idea. It's already a disaster. In order to reach 50,000 words by the end of November, I'd have to write around 1,666 words per day, and I've been averaging about -18. I'm ill-prepared, doing more researching than writing because I am ill-prepared, and I tried writing in past tense after writing nothing but present-tense narratives for over a year and IT WAS AWFUL, and I think I hate my protagonist already? SUCH A CATASTROPHE. I don't know what kind of state I'll be in by the end of the month, or if I'll have anything more than a series of vignettes and a long list of bullet points filling in the blanks.

On the bright side, I did complete the 50 Book Challenge this year, so there's that. Also, I'm finally getting time to read The Painter from Shanghai, which I won in a Goodreads contest earlier this year, and it's wonderful. Three-quarters of the way through, I absolutely love it. But more on that some other time.