A thousand twinkling bulbs spelled out its name in letters twelve feet high: Toronto 24-Hour Belt Emporium.

Word count: 10,205, and my goal for tomorrow, is 14,205.

Today I took a page out of all of your books (literally!) and decided that I needed to write ridiculous silliness. I have given up on this book being serious. It might turn out to have some 'message' but only by accident. It's so much easier to write 4,000 words in 3 hours if you are determined to only write about stupid things.

As you can see by my title, at the end of today's session, Seth and Laura arrived at the Toronto 24-Hour Belt Emporium. Things will really start to heat up when she meets Fernando/Duchess there. Her outfit is currently dove-grey slacks, turquoise shirt, white tie, and a mis-matched brown belt. She is looking for something to complete her outfit... what could it be???

I would love to share more about my writing from today because I feel like I really got into the swing of things. I think I"ll share two snippets, with characters you may recognize.

First:

“Scrap, dear, she’s fine. Her suits are quaint. They remind me of when I was a girl, in Yorkshire. Julia used to wear them,” she said wistfully. Her eyes rested on Seth’s boyish outfit, but didn’t see Seth. She saw Julia, her beautiful bride-to-be of 1916. Just ten years ago she had been a reluctant bride. She hadn’t thought that she and Julia needed the sanction of the church, but in a weak moment, she had agreed to Julia’s proposal. Shockingly, Julia’s mother, who had always hated Guinevere (this was, indeed, Miss Pettigrew’s little known first name) had reserved the town concert hall for the nuptials and celebration, and had paid in advance. With just a few weeks to plan the event, Julia had been called away to nurse some wounded soldiers and had died of dysentery. Miss P had fled England and landed in Toronto, where her small inheritance from Julia had allowed her to buy the house on Greenwood Ave and set it up as a boarding house. She stayed in the house, darning, cooking, and looking after her girls, and had never been back to the Yorkshire of her youth. Had never looked at another woman the same way since.

Second (long):

The porch was filled with people, all dressed improbably glamorously for the early evening hour. The sun had not yet set, although there was a gleam to the west indicating that dusk was not far. The sun was low enough in the sky that sunbeams streamed almost horizontally over the sequins, feathers, and bejeweled eyelids of the throng assembled on the front porch.

The one dowdy figure among them was Miss Pettigrew, who was clucking and fussing over the ash that was falling freely from the many lit cigarettes clutched in sophisticated hands. “Filthy habit,” she murmured sorrowfully, as she set out a phalanx of ashtrays at strategic points. Despite her fuss and anxiety, she did not seem terribly surprised by the crowd on her front porch. Possibly this happened regularly here at the boarding house?

Seeing Seth stand, Miss Pettigrew came over and took her arm.

“Poor dear, let’s get you inside for a sandwich and some tea.” She began leading Seth through the gossiping showgirls but before they could get far, several other hands began to pull on Seth’s shoulders, elbows, even hips. Seth smiled nervously, anxious to seem at ease despite her bewilderment. She leaned close to Miss P’s ear so as not to be heard.


“Miss Pettigrew, who are these people? And why are they… touching me?”

Miss Pettigrew’s eyes widened in surprise before she chuckled fondly. “Seth, you’ve never seen the Suns of Ipswich? Even I, though I rarely leave this house, have heard of them and seen their photos in the society pages of the Star!” She turned away from Seth and continued to push her way through the crowd. “Ladies, let the young gentlemen, er, sorry Seth, let us through. This poor little thing needs a sandwich before you take her out to that awful place again. Don’t you know it’s rude to interrupt someone who’s sleeping?”

The ladies nearest Seth obediently stepped back a few paces but this only resulted in them trampling someone else’s long silk train. They jostled back and forth for a moment before surging forward again. One young lady was pushed directly into Seth, who held out her arms to prevent a fall, which would surely have resulted in a domino effect that would have been disastrous. As a general rule, showgirls falling off the porch is to be avoided.

The young lady in Seth’s arms was dressed rather strangely but no one could deny how beautiful she was. She was wearing a sailor’s navy pea coat, and a long dress that appeared to be made out of some finer version of the denim pants that workers wore in the Gold Rush. Somehow, they still looked good on her. Her dress had a daring, diamond-shaped cutout that revealed her very well-formed abdominal muscles. Seth rushed to push the lady to her feet, despite her tendency to cling and nestle into the crook of Seth’s arm. Miss P watched all this sternly, then shook her head and went into the house, leaving Seth deserted on the porch with the Suns of Ipswich.

“I really need. A sandwich. Some tea,” Seth gulped, and the women nearest Seth smiled encouragingly.

“We can get you a sandwich at the club, dear,” said a brown-eyed vixen who was tugging on Seth’s elbow. She had shoulder-length, light brown hair, and seemed to be sans pants. She had on a shocking amount of clothing: pill box hat, black uniform jacket with red trim and gold buttons, matching skirt, gloves, but her bottom half only wore a pair of satin dance trunks, and some silk stockings with the seam up the back. The pantless woman took in Seth’s shell-shocked eyes and laughed right in her face. “Never seen a cigarette girl before, darling? Oh, this will be fun!” she exclaimed to the woman next to her.

This young woman was pushing on Seth’s hips from behind, seemingly trying to get Seth to get moving again. Where to was anyone’s guess. She was blonde, had an impish grin, and probably had a problem with authority. She had that look.

“It would be fun, if we could get her out of here. Come on!” said the final showgirl, stamping her feet for emphasis. She was dressed very similarly to the cigarette girl, but with much added flair. Somehow she had added sequins and feathers to the black uniform jacket while still maintaining its military air. Her dance trunks were perhaps even tinier, and she had added what looked like a silk bustle to the ass of her tiny skirt, with the long silk train that had been stepped on earlier. The train was certainly looking the worse for wear.

Seth looked around the group. She was surprised that there were only four Suns, because her impression upon waking had been of an immovable, impossibly large crowd. This may have been the result of their clothing; tiny though it was in terms of coverage, all those bustles, headdresses, jewels and trains took up quite a bit of space in the small porch.

Seth halfheartedly moved towards the front door, but two Suns blocked her way. They linked arms with Seth and began ushering her towards the steps down from the porch. A gleaming black car stood idling on the street, a black-capped chauffeur lady at the wheel.

“We’ve been searching for the fifth Sun of Ipswich for centuries now!” exclaimed the abs lady. Seth raised an eyebrow. They certainly didn’t look centuries old. Cigarette girl poked abs in the back, and abs smiled brightly while correcting herself, “I mean, we’ve been searching for the fifth Sun for, er, a year. We saw you at Jackie’s Place last night. The Duchess chose you.” Abs lady moved closer and ran her hand slowly down Seth’s nubby lapel. “But we need you more, Seth. Don’t go with The Duchess. Come with us!” She raised her other hand to Seth’s lapel and pulled Seth close enough to see the variegated greens and greys of her irises. Seth looked into her eyes for a moment, then flicked her gaze around to the other three women surrounding her on the porch. Slowly, they were all moving towards the car on the street. Surprised, Seth looked down to see that she, too, was oozing forward almost imperceptibly.