cricket-and-merry

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Lissy Laricchia - The End of Alice

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melodies for plants

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 2007 | dir. David Yates

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There was an old gramophone in the house which never stopped playing.

It was a decrepit thing, ugly and ungainly, corroded and crackly. The burnished filigree around the horn was weathered and pockmarked, its wooden base holding a dusty, warped turntable. It was set atop a small, ornamental stool that hardly looked sturdy enough to support it. And always, always, the same record spun from dawn till dusk, unending.

Harry was in two minds about it: On one hand, the persistent sound was better than abject silence, but on the other… The damn thing had a habit of roaming about the house. It moved like clockwork: First thing in the morning, it was nestled down in the elbow of the basement stairwell; then, at midday, it was in the ground floor library, tucked between a bookcase and a sitting room door; and finally, in the afternoon, it would settle upstairs in the western dead-end corridor. In every alcove it sat, it stood sentry beside a closed door. The music followed Harry everywhere, echoing over dusty banisters and into every hollow nook of the empty mansion. The songs were all oldies; some were crooning and sappy, with weepy strings or jazzy piano -- the sort Aunt Petunia might listen to on Sunday mornings -- while others were harsh and energetic, the guitars and vocals pitched loud amid a driving tempo. There were fifteen tracks in total. Harry had taken the time to count them, to memorize their sequence, because he had absolutely nothing better to do. It was driving him a bit mad.

Makes the Wind: A Prince Before His Castle | Chapter 1: Norwich

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The explosions were deafening.

A cloud of dust and debris clogged the air.

Harry was groaning. The dark tile beneath his head was cracked, dented where his arm and shoulder had viciously made impact.

A sharp, ringing drone left him dizzy and stunned.

Then, a terrible thought pulled the breath right out of him:

I was too late.

Makes the Wind: A Lamb Before the Slaughter | Chapter 20: Apocalypse

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whew. it’s cricket.

after what feels like forever and a day of editing, chapter 20 is completely finished. book 2, chapter 1 is halfway edited. we’re going to finish tomorrow, which means we’ll either be seeing a late evening release of both tomorrow, or a morning release on tuesday.

i am tired, relieved, proud, terrified, and excited lol.

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) Dir: David Yates

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Yo my dudes it's Merry.

I finally managed to finish the last section.

Tomorrow we start the edit.

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Lot of progress on chapter one today.

Merry really cranked out some major writing on a few sections. Getting closer and closer to publishing.

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Saorsie Ronan by Mackenzie Stroh

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Chapter 20 is complete.

We are now (as I type this) working on the final section of Book 2, Chapter 1 so that the two can be edited and then published simultaneously.

not even remotely going to put a deadline on that because I have no idea how long it’s actually going to take, lol. But sooner rather than later.

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HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE ϟ

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We are still writing.

Like, we’re on brand -- the whole, “we take too damn long to write,” thing -- but we’re dealing with a lot of real life interferences that only allow us to write three times a week during like a couple hour window when we’re both available. All I can say is that we’re still going, we’re still trucking on through. This is going to get written. We chip away at it every time we having a writing session with each other. We’re just sorry it’s taking such a god awful amount of time, lol.

We ain’t quitters, though. Has never been a thing with Merry and I. When we commit to something, we commit.

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hey, cricket here.

I’m not sure when the last update was? (And also I’m too lazy to look). I’d guess maybe a few weeks? Feels like longer. Either way, we’re reaching the end of finishing chapter twenty. Which really isn’t the end of the trek; it’s going to require a lot of editing and filling in portions we bracketed for the sake of our sanity. The important thing is that everything that needs to be down is basically 95% done.

The thing, though -- chapter twenty′s arrival is not going to defend how long it took to even write. There were lots of factors that went into that, but either way this kind of led us into making the ultimate decision that we will only release chapter twenty when we finish chapter one of book two. Thankfully, that chapter has basically been mostly written and won’t take up a massive chunk of time to finish (knock on wood). Either way, we’d feel more comfortable publishing like this, I think.

We do feel bad for how long it’s taken; but we’ve been open about the fact we’re very slow writers, lol.

We’re motivated to finish ASAP. We’re trying. The past week we’ve basically been writing every day. So here’s to hoping this’ll come in rapid succession.

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Tottenham Cemetery, London; 16.2.2019

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