"if your child ain't all he should be now / this girl can put him right"

I thought I would post the first page of what I started today -- it's theoretically another novel about our favorite half-fey, all panicky bastard, Derik. I did around 1200 words today; this is just the first 230.

Floren's streets, wavering drunkards of city planning that they were, had filled to the curbs with people, citizens and visitors alike. This made a perfect venue for what Derik liked to call “sidewalk shopping,” and what was, in effect, his habit of running his fingers and hands into the pockets of other people.

Winter was dead, said the crazy old man on the corner, Slim Jackal Sandy, and everyone agreed, even while they burrowed through the crowds to avoid his special fragrance. Slim wasn't one to bathe, and his beard – patchy rough in some places and dangly grown in others – tended to put people off their meals. What he meant, though, was that the sky had finally slipped its grey-shod weeds and bought some blue finery. The air still had some hints of winter; the wind could crack as well as caress, and the slightly stale, dead scent of hibernation still clung to bough and borough alike.

The citizens of Floren took this as a promising sign, and had burst from their doors that morning, ready to begin a day of cheerful shopping, taxation, trading, mugging, assassination, plotting, brawling, and dandification. This contrasted with the winter days only in that during the colder months, citizens tended to sidle from their doors on their way to these activities, clutching at their coats and cloaks with gloved hands, and cursing the weather before their brethren, rather than after.