Progress report:

Last time looked at: 8/17/17

Last actual wordage added: 8/17/17

Pages added, 8/17/17: 1

Current page count: 3

Estimated final page count: 300? I don’t really have any idea.

Deadline: None. Purely speculative.

Comments: On Twitter, Kurt Busiek talked about seeing the book Flora of Middle Earth and thinking it looked like a Tolkienian cozy murder mystery. He and several of his followers expressed interest in reading such a book, so I offered to write one.

That’s now Elfshot, though the title may change. It’s not set in Middle Earth, since I can’t get the rights, so I’ve had to create my own world for it — yes, yet another. The Folk are small humanoids, about two-thirds human size, who live in a place called the Vale and have as little contact as possible with humans, elves, delvers, or the not-yet-definitely-named forest spirits who live in the surrounding areas. Hyacinth Undercliff is one of the Folk — the town librarian and historian — who lives with her ill grandfather, and she winds up trying to figure out who killed a young scavenger named Mulberry Thicket.

In this first three pages, Mulberry’s girlfriend Lily has discovered the body and led Hyacinth to it.

I had originally opened the story differently, so today’s work also involved major rewrite of the first two pages.