NaNoWriMo 2006

In the strict sense, yes:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

But let's face, nobody's looking over your shoulder. Everything I've done for it was totally from scratch, but the ideas had been kicking around one way or another.

Good luck to all of you guys, though.

I really should register.

Those who have read it will only have the impression of something missing. Something unnatural. Something unwholesome.

Also, I should add that my husband is also trying it again this year. He beat me last year and that is so not going to happen this time. (Grudge match!)

Suddenly I am all nervous! What if my novel is a pile of poo! What if, on top of the 15,000 words a week I already write for my job, I am unable to write another 12,500 words a week?

Yarblon!

Watch the metaphors, too, they'll get you into some tricky corners.

Actually I suspect this year time will actually start going BACKWARDS when Ned puts fingers to keyboard. Faster computer this year, right?

God help me, this is going to suck big donky balls.

I am definitely in, happily. Need to restart the account.

I'm already having dire feelings about my success with this. But my number one reason for participating is to motivate myself to write more, so anything will be good.

Ah, spam.

I prefer to let the writing lead me to the title.

I just added you, perhaps I did it wrong.

now all can larf at my writing.

I am having tremendous difficulty making use of any of the mindmap/snowflake/outline writing tools that Mister Monkey kindly downloaded off the Internet for me to use. Instead I resorted to pen and paper, so now all my prep work is in the form of scribbles.

However, I do have a film producer called Sanford Bowers, and another called Sarxan Ibrahimov, so that has to be good news, right?

In the 'oh I am smug' category I've also just donated, which I do every year. It's only fair.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/userinfo.php?uid=134774

Completely bereft of info at the moment because I have a (HAHA) dial-up connection at work.

Which, it should be noted, is my own damn fault.

Apparently People At Work are so amazed that I would even attempt such a thing that they are going to sponsor me! Now I really have to finish.

We'll see.

I think it's great if you're doing something that is meant to be serious, though, Sam.

Sam, I don't think you're missing the spirit of it; I think the sample of people posting on this thread about what they are writing might be non-representative.

You have to go with the idea you have. My husband got quite a bit further with his idea last year than I did, and his wasn't funny at all (well, unless you count how he got his idea, which was when our daughter asked him who the guy playing the piano in a department store was... and he decided to make this stranger into a central character of his story).

This is precisely the problem. I have a beginning in mind, and the ending as well, but there's about 45,000 words of Just Not Sure in the middle there.

But if you're obsessed with a particular thing, it is probably worth taking advantage of that while it lasts. I know this from long experience with giant projects; get as far as you can quickly. I knitted most of a sweater in 2000, was very excited about it and it's almost done. (I hate the finishing work). Most of the work on it was done in a month.

Never fear. I was firm on that point. No-one reads it.

I keep having these amusing conversations with Mister Monkey that go like this:

Me: So, he goes to Paris to learn to look like he's playing piano from this amazing teacher, and she coincidentally also happens to be coaching the people from the other film, so that's how they know that there are two films happening.

Mister Monkey: You don't think that's a bit of a coincidence?

Me: Hi dere! I'm writing a whole book in one month! Don't have time for worry about plot!

BAM!

Cannonball run 3000: Attack of the Asteroid Pirates!*

*With monkeys!

My housemate was suggesting I should write the book in real time, with a day's writing being a day's action. I think it's kind of a fun idea, especially since, even if I'm in the middle of something really exciting happening, I would have to find a way to make everyone go to sleep. It would be like Batman!

No wait, that's something else.

I'm not scared; I'm too fatalistic for that. My husband still claims to not have an idea! He's just "going to start writing." I can't figure out if he's serious or if he's just trying to psyche me out.

Found, in which a crew of obsessive writers crashes a plane into a Minnesota lake in winter and are menaced by unseen bass fishermen.

First chapter down. And I'd love to show you it if the Nanowrimo site wasn't being currently plagued by the bandwidth-choking of death.

Did I mention that mine is going to be a rambling swamp of suck? Completely unrelated.

Ned, you frighten me. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

I think there's a critical mass being achieved with NaNoWriMo, I've seen more random mentions of it elsewhere in the world than ever before this year, and the site bods are saying it's definitely the busiest they've ever seen it.

But yeah, a few people have actually seemed to know what I was talking about when I mentioned it to them this year. That must mean something!

xpost: Yeah maybe that was a silly thing to say, I don't know. Just everyone going "oh yeah I'm gonna write a NOVEL!" and not really trying? I dont think I thought that through very well.

xpost I want to take a week off! My kids refuse to leave, though, and school refuses to let me take time off, too. DARN!

So Trayce, are you taking time off this year?

I just remembered we have a public holiday next week (that crazy horse race we get a day off for, go figure). So I can get time in then. Good o.

Doubt it. The following Friday, though...

I think that Rambling Swamp of Suck would be a great name for a band.

I'm also ahead of word count, but filled with trepidation as I've suddenly realised that my thin plot is not going to last as far as 50,000 words and I have, as usual, developed a story which might make a nice ten-page short story, but as a novel is going to be stretched thinner than Stretch Armstrong when kids try to see if they can break him.

Note: I am stupid, and require assistance.

(Also, seriously consider getting DSL line for your store. Because you'll be so much happier. Nag nag.)

Anyone who's behind: you have a weekend coming up. You'd be surprised how quickly you can write 8K if you get on a tear, so don't scold yourself yet.

Currently at 1751 words. Should be studying! Or at least putting the dishes in the dishwasher. (I note that my husband got paper plates out this morning...)

Up to 4000 words, keeping to my gentle pace. Added three new and wholly unexpected characters, which works for me.

I wish everyone lived on my street so that we could all order pizza and eat it at 2 am, when I'm likely to get hungry and giggly. (Also because I'm not that fond of my neighbors.)

My novel still sucks dog balls, by the way.

Yeah, 50k is more novella length I think. but who's counting?

Other books in that range: Cat's Cradle, Animal Farm, The Great Gatsby, Foundation if you think of it as a novel, all of which are either short in plot or sparse on descriptive passages.

Like I already told Trayce: you can do this thing while writing only on weekends. 12.5K a weekend, call it 6.5K a day with some wiggle room. 6500 words is not a lot to write in a day if you just stop fretting about it and type (he said, looking at the clock...), especially when you have five days in between shifts to idly think about plot points. Just pace the fucker. Four weekends, eight writing days? Pick eight things that need to happen. If you're halfway through your day's count and you're almost at the thing that needs to happen, write longer sentences.

My husband is ahead of me again, damn his eyes.

JUST KEEP GOING.

but OMG IVE STARTED NOW. And now what happens: some cnut downstairs is hammer-drilling the effing brickwork ;(

“Awake, mirror! I need your advice.” Mary stood in front of it and rapped an edge sharply with her staff.
The face yawned and blearily opened its eyes, moving into an upright position. It blinked and then focused on Mary.
“Oh GAWD. You and your damned cat.” The mirror’s voice was strangely fey, not quite male or female, but immediately contemptuous, which its curious drawl seemed to accentuate. “I THAWT I was going to be able to relax for another few days but NOOO.”
Grimalkin wanted to roll his eyes and yowl in frustration, but even he knew that only humans could do that properly. “Just punch the stupid thing. Hell, throw it out of the window. You’ve got to get a better one on insurance.”
“Nothing quite so easy as that, my cat, but silence now! And you–” She turned back to the mirror and shook a finger at it. “—enough with your pretenses. I know you’re always happy to help your other clients when they call on you, so stop pretending to be so ungrateful!”
“UnGRATEful?” The mirror’s whine was if anything even more irritating to the cat than its regular voice. “I’M the one stuck here in this thing, and the only other places I EVER get to see is when I’m called to help your fellow witches in THEIR miserable rooms. I’m only happy to see THEM just for the variety’s sake.”
“Your lies wouldn’t even convince the lowliest devil. I heard at the last national gathering that everytime that Belinda trollop calls you up for one of her useless love potions, all you do is spend your time saying how beautiful she is and how you will make her the most beautiful woman ever! Something you have never told ONCE to me!”
“YOU have never asked! And if you did I would not lie to you, and I would say you have the hump of a camel, the HAIR of a corpse and the NOSE of an elephant!”
“Bah!” Mary was less angered than annoyed by this comment and grabbed a small mirror from the side table to hold up front of the big one. The face screamed in pain as Grimalkin patiently licked his front legs for a bit, content in the knowledge that mirrors hated looking at other ones, for they would always be consumed with uncontrollable jealousy.
“ARRRRRGH. It’s PRETTIER than me, it’s SMALLER, it can MOVE AROUND.”
“Yes yes yes, and I’ll keep holding it here until you shut up.”

If you're halfway through your day's count and you're almost at the thing that needs to happen, write longer sentences.

I keep having to tell myself this. On top of being a short story writer, I had tutors in my creative writing dip that were on a real Hemmingway trip and bashed brevity into my head. Cut that bit out! Say that in less words! Don't be so desctiptive! I now feel indulgent and a poor writer if I ramble on in a Proustian manner. Grrarg.

buuttt, how fast can you knit a hat?

And Sam, you can totally do this.

There should be a training wheels Nanowrimo where you're given the first 5K and just need to keep pedaling.

Ned, did you know that my husband is all "I must catch up with Ned!" now? This is some solace to me for the fact that he's ahead of me by about 1500 words right now.

writing. . .uh. . .I've been thinking about it alot. :)

Good, good...

I predict that I will finish the scarf for my mother before the end of the year. But only because all I need to do is wind the ends in.

I keep having random ideas for things I want to add into my horrible story, but am panicking about tests and am slammed with social obligations. (There are a LOT of birthdays in November. I believe this to be in some way connected with Valentine's Day. Ahem.)

Ned - the trouble is that I can't keep up if you keep him motivated!

http://www.memorygongs.com/thewater.html

And comment if you like :) Its not much, but its something.

http://accentmonkey.blogspot.com

It is turning out to be cheesy fun.

Bill was happy to take the opportunity to get Zoltan away from the hotel for a bit – as it was, he was supposed to be doing some research himself, and perhaps this was a way to go about it. Suddenly, something that had been quietly nagging at him the whole morning leapt out at him and he turned back to the children.
“Wait, before you take him, I have a question for all of you – I’ve seen groups of you around town all day.”
“Yeah,” said the boy who had spoken earlier.
“Well, I’ve never seen any of your parents around. Are they busy?”
The children looked at each other a bit doubtfully. The young girl spoke up to say, “Well, my mommies said I could play as much as I wanted to.”
Bill was actually impressed – if he was in a town that was so advanced in its acceptance of relationships that a child could say that openly, that was a good feeling. “Well that’s nice of them, but when do you have to be back by.”
“Midnight.”
Bill’s eyes widened. “Midnight?”
“Well, all four of them won’t be back by midnight.”
Four? Bill found himself temporarily speechless. Zoltan seemed to be focusing on a distant bird in a tree and was providing no help at all. Another girl broke the silence.
“Don’t listen to her, mister. She only has three mommies, I have five.”
“You do not!” screamed the younger girl.
“Do too!”
“You do not, you just say you do so you can get more cinnamon rolls!”

Actually I think most of what I write is description.

But my protagonist is AWESOME.

Trayce, arses about the comment. Maybe you are supposed to moderate them, I don't know, it didn't say anything to me about that.

I'm 8,100 words into the novel (on pace for 50K) and so far my protagonist has not left the parking lot we found him in at the beginning of the story.

My first chapter is going to be 15,000 words long! With about fifteen to twenty chapters in the story, it looks like I may be writing a 150,000 word novel. What am I doing? This is stupifying. HAHAHAHAHAHA. I am insane!

FB, your progress floors me. You ARE insane. I adore your insanity.

I got to 4,200 words yesterday despite studying (must study more today) and two parties over the weekend. My husband is ahead of me. But I have to say that neither of us got this far in a whole month last year, and I think it's because no one else we knew was doing it. So thanks!

{ / Crispin Glover }

Ned, if I'm going to get weird, the least I could hope for would be an awesome role like the cousin from Wild at Heart.

ROFFLES! "If."

I should be obsessing about the choroid plexus right now. I hate time.

Wait...

But yeah, your book doesn't have to make sense. That is not one of the rules!

From what she could see in her position, which conveniently covered more of the rear of the house instead of the front, it looked like a door had suddenly swung open flat against the back wall. For a moment, nothing happened.
A cat, or what seemed like one, suddenly darted out from the door, followed by a flung wooden item of some sort. An old woman, shrouded in black, emerged, shaking her fist at the cat and apparently shouting some form of insult. She paused, leaning on a stick she carried with her, and then turned back and beckoned towards someone inside. To Dara’s complete astonishment, several small skeletons appeared, carrying what looked like a dresser about a hundred years old.
At the old woman’s direction, the skeletons hauled the dresser over to a large pile of junk that looked like it had been there for decades – as Dara observed it more closely, she thought she saw several bedframes and at least one grandfather clock sticking out of it. The skeletons heaved the dresser on top of the pile, after which they stood around, seemingly disinclined to do anything further. The woman came over, gestured at them a bit, and then cracked them on top of their skulls with the staff. They ran about a bit waving their hands in the air, then turned on the smallest of the skeletons and removed its head, which they proceeded to kick about like a soccer ball. The woman, apparently laughing greatly, then retreated into the house, followed by the skeletons, still kicking the head around while the body blindly ran after them, hitting the wall a couple of times before finding the doorway. The door then slammed shut.
Dara had seen some unusual sights over time, but this was a new one on her. She was surprised even more to realize that rather than questioning reality or if she was going nuts, she was perfectly fine with the idea of reanimated skeletons running around doing what surely was a witch’s bidding. In fact, she was jealous.
Damn. I want one of those. No, maybe a few. They can do my moving for me.

His full name was Alexander Horsemmackerel. Mack was the obvious choice for a certain variety of people. Zander was short for Alexander. Zander was also a fish, so it was stuck.

Alexander's great grandfather, Oivin Taggmakrell, was born on the island of Taggmakrell, in the Norwegian sea, north of the main body of Lofoten islands. Taggmakrell was small and rocky. It had one tree and scattered mosses and lichens. It shrank to about half it's size at high tide and was surrounded by the world's largest cold-water coral reef. It was cold. It was desolate. It was uninhabitable. The Taggmakrell family had lived there for generations. The island, like the family, was named after the Horsemackrel, which was the common name for several species of fish that were very big, like horses. These were fishermen, not scientists.

This area of the Norwegian Sea, between the coral reef and the mainland, was a great place for fishermen to catch really really big fish. That's how the island got it's name. It was also called Seafarer's Bane, The Fisherman's Graveyard, and the Frozen Isle of Doom, due to the number of fishing boats that crashed into the reef. Zander's last name could have been much more interesting.

Oivin's family built their house, the fish-drying shack (a misnomer because everything was always wet), and most of the out-buildings on the island out of the wreckage that washed ashore. The family also found a few valuable objects in the wreckage, which kept them alive during the leaner times, which was most of the time.

Every generation had at least one brave soul, one young fool, who tried to swim the reefs, exploring the wreckage, hunting for treasure. Fortunately there wasn't much to do other than fish, so the clan managed to reproduce at a healthy clip.

Zander's great grandfather, Oivin, was a terrible fisherman, so Oivin's father, Thor, sent him to the largest island to work for a potato farmer. Oivin sent home a modest sum every quarter, but his real source of income came from the rotten, bruised potatoes that he stole from the farmer and brewed into aquavit. The ripe potatoes, covered in sea salt and lichen, nearly indistinguishable from the rocky landscape, made for a very distinct form of aquavit that grew in popularity with the fishermen of the Lofoten islands. Pretty soon Oivin was making a decent sum of money, most of which he sent home, but a small part of which he spent on a young girl his mother eventually came to refer to as "that no-good potato digging whore".

So, the Taggmakrell's prospered, and Oivin was courting a hard-working young lady with strong calves and a nearly full set of teeth. Life was looking up for the Taggmakrells, but Oivin had one big problem, he had never asked the farmer for permission to use his discarded potatoes. Oivin kept a low profile and never spoke a word of his good fortune to anybody but his family and the potato farmer's toothsome daughter. And thus, Anonymous's Unusual Aquavit was christened.

One day, a rumor spread around the island that the Norwegian government was going to outlaw aquavit and other forms of hard liquor. On that same day, The potato farmer's daughter let slip that she was seeing Oivin. The farmer was rather happy to hand her off; she was getting a little long in the tooth, and most of the men on the island tended not to notice her finer qualities, like her strong calves and her nearly absent mustache. The father walked down to Oivin's shack, to give his permission and propose a hasty marriage. He could probably get away with a very modest dowry.

Oivin, having been forewarned of the farmer's imminent arrival, fled the country, imagining his entire business and perhaps his very life was about to be forfeit. Oivin fled the island and sent a letter to his father, detailing his plans to leave for America. He wrote the location of his distillery and the recipe for Anonymous's Unusual Aquavit, just in case. He was very sorry to leave the family and their island home, and he was horrorstruck at the idea that he might have brought ruin down on his family. Thor, for his part was rather glad to be rid of his strange son, and to have the recipe for the most popular brand of aquavit off the coast of Norway.

When Oivin arrived at Ellis Island, he was distressed to discover that many Norwegians were Americanizing their names. Oivin was fiercely proud of his heritage, and he refused to become an Anderson or an Olson or, god forbid, another goddamn Peterson, so by the time Oivin got to the counter he had a plan: He would just translate his name to English. Maybe that would satisfy the lazy bureaucratic bastards.

"What name should we put on the green card," asked the American clerk.

"Horsemackrel," said Oivin, head held high.

"I think we need a translator," shouted the clerk.

As for the family Oivin left behind, his father dug up the money Oivin had sent home (it's easy to save when you live on a small island above the Arctic Circle, surrounded by a treacherous reef), bought the potato farm, and started brewing aquavit. He moved the whole Taggmakrel clan to the farm, burned everything on Taggmakrel island including the tree, and adopted for his surname the name of their new farm: Anonymous Potato.

These are the real names of a family close to my own. I could not have made up better names.

I'm caving to group pressure here and posting a bit of trash.

This is how I found myself half out of my sage green horror of a dress on Carter’s black leather couch, with his mouth on my neck and his hand on my left breast. I’m pretty sure my hands were busy trying to undo some part of his clothing, but my memory is a bit hazy here for two reasons. For one thing, I could feel a pleasant warmth spreading through my lower abdomen, and I remember thinking to myself, “yeah, this could work.” This thinking was quickly destroyed by the second reason my memory blanks a bit: Carter whispering, “I want to make love to you,” in my ear.
That phrase is like a splash of ice water to me. It sounds like you’re going to do something sinister involving Hummel figurines and a copper bottomed pot. I don’t want to be involved in that kind of voodoo. I knew there was no way I was going to bed with Carter tonight or any other night.
“Um… gotta run to the bathroom,” I muttered, disentangling myself from him. My mind was racing wildly, wondering how on earth I was going to pull my head together enough to break it off with Carter at what I thought (at the time) was the most awkward possible moment. I grabbed my shoes, which I had kicked off moments before, and headed straight for the nearest bathroom. “Back in a minute!” I called gaily, trying to think of some way to not completely hurt his feelings.
A few minutes in the bathroom convinced me that possibly the only thing to do was to fake a sudden illness and then break up with him later. I’d have an excuse to go back to my apartment and spend a few days letting any emotion drain away. Probably Carter wouldn’t be that upset; plenty of women are looking for good-looking, wealthy men who aren’t stupid or cruel.

ANCIENT GODDAMN HISTORY

It’s hard to tell the story of a place, and anyone who tells you that it is is just fucking with you. It seems clear in the abstract, but when you start to spell it out, it just turns into a sequence of unconnected stories that bore all the idiots stuck listening to you ramble. So let’s just start with the fact that it all begins on a shit fucking house on a shit fucking street that all of the honorable and honest citizens of this city wouldn’t touch with their neighbor’s ten foot pole. It’s the sort of place you live when you don’t have any money or any contacts, and you’re stuck settling for anyone who’ll take you. The initial meeting with the landlord is largely based on giving you the information that he doesn’t care about you or the house, so don’t break anything you can’t fix yourself and don’t call him. Ever. Mail your check to this address, and don’t fuck up anything too badly. This comfortably places me in my demographic, a broke-ass aging punk rock kid with no prospects and no ambition. The reason I was the one signing the lease was that everyone else I knew was more of a fuck up than I was, and I didn’t want to scare the bastard off by bringing along my moron ne’er do well friends. Also, these guys were all showy assholes, mouth-breathing yammering cunts that just oozed inexplicable house fire conditions. I, unfortunately, cleaned up well enough to just look like the toilet breaking lose your entire damage deposit type, which is the universal dream of slumlords across this great country of ours.
So this is how I inherited a lease that would tie me to a vast assortment of drunken lunatics for the better part of five years. The funny thing about having vaguely adequate credit (which equates to gloriously fucking yourself with student loans and back breaking credit card debt) is that you buy into the bullshit. You actually start worrying about your credit, which is a laugh, because you don’t have the money to buy anything anyway. Still, you get all bent out of shape about how much your interest rate will be on that house you’ll NEVER FUCKING BE ABLE TO BUY will be. Stupid, but here I am, living proof. So things like bailing on an awful living situation are impossible to conceive because what will you do years down the road when you don’t pre-qualify for that loan at the BMW dealership. Which is to say, you’re a sap that will put up with whatever shit your roommates throw at you, because somehow you have to make it work. One year becomes two, two becomes three, and then you’re so deep in the hole of misery that it doesn’t matter anymore. Five years of living with strangers that don’t give two shits about you? Sign me up.
I don’t even remember some of the people that lived there, just names and faces. I have a better recollection, for example, of the way one guys incense made the house smell like a Koala shit in your mouth than which room he lived in. At times, we had seven people sleeping in a four bedroom house, none of whom ever seemed to do anything other than play video games and drink my beer. The house, of course, was old, decrepit, and rotting from the inside out. After the first rainfall, several of the outside walls started to develop creepy tumor-like growths, bulging from the effort of holding the mold back. I should have moved in some goth kids, they would have loved it. The oven never worked, which of course didn’t much matter to a bunch of people that obtained their sustenance from plastic wrapped gas station food. Hot water? Occassional at best. Heat? Obtained from an ancient octopus bolier that should have been used to scare the neighborhood kids instead of pretending to be an appliance. To add insult to injury, we once observed that the ceiling above the boiler was charred and bubbled, proof of it’s intent to kill us all. We just hoped that it only became hungry for human souls every decade or so. The “hardwood” floors looked like they’d been gathered from several different flophouses and tacked into place by some blind, insane carpenter without access to a level or modern tools. If you dropped something round on the floor, the pattern it would take when it rolled was like a spirograph, tracing the lines of the failing support beams. At one desperate point, I took to habitually jumping up and down in the weakest spots of the floor (eerily trampoline-like, by the way) in the hopes that I would fall through and be injured enough to sue my way out of the shithole. Grand dreams of forward advancement have always been my specialty.
On the plus side, we did manage to throw grand parties of epic proportions, as long as your taste in soirees runs to malt liquor and cheap drugs hoovered off the back of a CD case after crushing some psychos pharmecuticals up with a rusty martini shaker. I provided the booze, and my roommates provided the creepy slutty girls with too much eyeliner and their hair-trigger nut job boyfriends. Even in a neighborhood where subwoofers and maniac prowling packs of children were par for the course, this enabled us to become the equivalent of a flea market bargain bin for ticket quota hungry cops. Arrests, detox visits, drug busts, public indecency, we had it all, and we had it in spades. After one night of too much debauchery even for my liquor addled wetbrain, I remember sitting on the stoop, playing the “Yes sir. No sir. Of course sir.” dog and pony show with Officer Fat Fuck with a Grudge, I decided I needed out of all this. Two of my roommates where having their moving day “Lets fuck shit up as much as possible” hoorah, so dutiful ole me was in desperate need of fresh blood. I needed to find people that weren’t obtained by asking everyone at the bar if they had any recently evicted friends. I needed little drones with checking accounts and jobs that didn’t involve powders or pills. I didn’t need to like them, or know them, I just needed slabs of meat that could pony up some rent money. The problem being that anyone with the slightest amount of sense wouldn’t throw themselves into a situation like this with a gun at their temple. So I needed the unthinkable: responsible people in desperate housing situations that were so unworldly and ignorant that I could sell them on the cool factor of urban living in a house with no redeeming factors whatsoever.
I needed fucking college kids.

LIKE MAGIC.

Please to note:

stuff you want italicized

Now, remove the spaces in between the brackets, and behold.

http://vps.arachnoid.com/lutusp/html_tutor.html#tag

Why is everyone a better and faster writer than me? Doesn't matter: must learn about the spinal column. I still worship the quicksand you all walk on.

Get 'im!

I found that adding dialogue made writing go a lot faster. Of course this may be a function of the fact that I like to argue and I was writing about people bickering.

So far, I'm about half and half, volume-wise. Dialogue has been a lot easier to write so far. I don't know about quality, but speed? Dialogue.

Dear Jennifer,

How are you? All is well here. I have been studying the nerves and ganglia this afternoon and it is giving me a terrible headache. I do feel pleased that I can remember the six types of neuroglia (oligodendrocytes, astrocytes, ependymal cells, microglia, Schwann cells and satellite cells), as well as what they do, but now I realize that with all the detail I'm losing sight of what the nervous system even does. Please say hello to your family and I beg you, send chocolate, Love, Barbara

No description or dialogue!

John Justen as Michael Gira in The Headache.

Watch out! P3rry is a lot more imposing than he used to be, Dan. Maybe it is the alcohol. But I do think he'd be easier to distract than the kids. I wouldn't hesitate to put P3rry in front of the tv with some booze for a while. Or many hours.

John, I cannot read yours at the moment, I am too tired and it is too much of a mad dash of prose.

xpost - Frankenstein?! Ha ha ha, well, I know what to do now when I can't make my intended plot make sense. Teach anatomy! (Thanks for kind comments, accentmonkey...)

(Actually, excellent job, now you are so far ahead of me I'll never catch up. Dammit, can we dress you up as me on Friday and make you take my test? I'm TIRED and way behind pace on writing here...)

and he refused to become an Anderson or an Olson or, god forbid, another goddamn Peterson,

FB, thank you for that. Hilarity!

John, I love I needed fucking college kids. So did you write any dialogue yet?

And here's the part where I embarass myself with an excerpt of my poor prose:

“How are you doing in there?” Elliott called from the other room between sniffs. “I want your hot ass out here on top of me, right fucking now.”
My head immediately filled with rage and my fist shot out towards the mirror in front of my face, but I managed to pull it just short and fought back the tears desperately waiting to fall. There was no use blaming him for this, I knew exactly what I was doing when I called him back from that Starbucks booth. I used to come over here naively thinking that we’d finally have a real, meaningful conversation and we’d fall madly in love with each other, but we always ended up fucking fifteen minutes later and I’d be in the cab on my way home within two hours, bawling my eyes out. It wasn’t exactly the type of romance that inspires love songs and greeting cards, but I thought it was better to be wanted for half an hour than not at all. I nearly laughed out loud at the realization of how big a walking cliché I’d become, but I suppressed it with another hit and pulled my underwear off before walking out into his bedroom.
This was always the hardest part for me, making the slow walk from the bathroom to his bed as he devoured me with his eyes. It used to turn me on to know that it was my body that he was lusting after and to know that I was going to be the one to satisfy him, but all I could do now was to tremble and it certainly wasn’t from fucking desire. He was reclining on the bed, completely naked, with his semi-erect penis flopped over to his smooth thigh. Years of habitual coke use had all but destroyed his ability to get even a semi-impressive hard-on, I was amazed that the guy could still even reach orgasm. I tried to hold his gaze, hoping that something would inspire me to become even slightly aroused before I made it to the bed, but all I could see in his eyes was a stoned glaze that didn’t care who I was. I could feel the bile building in the back of my throat as I leaned down and pressed my lips to his, reaching between his legs and hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible.

"You know, Wendy," he said, leaning close to her ear as his hand crept inside her thigh towards her stylish red lace panties, "If I can help you out so much like this, there's things you can do to help me out."

His other arm was draped around her shoulder as he caressed her breast. In spite of all her nerves and worries, Wendy couldn't help but be turned on a little by the touch of this athletic, powerful man. Jason would never have felt any feelings of attraction towards a man, but for Wendy it just felt right to have just a little bit of a crush on a powerful man in authority like her principal. By now, if he didn't know her little secret he would do soon. Wendy's hands rested demurely in her lap, serving the dual purpose of making her sit in a ladylike way and covering up her growing arousal. However she felt a shiver of both thrill and fear as Principal Stanton's hand on her thigh crept inside her skirt and came closer to her panties.

"You do know what you could help me out with, don't you?" he smiled, now unmistakably lecherously.

As he said this, he laid his hand on one of hers and picked it up and placed it on the crotch of his tweed pants, through which Wendy could feel a firm, strong erection. Principal Stanton moved her hand up and down his crotch, jerking his cock off through the material of his pants in time with caressing her breasts. Wendy could feel herself unwittingly really turned on by now, and her own cock was pretty firm and uncovered by her hand on Principal Stanton's crotch. As Principal Stanton stood up he looked down at the bulge in her blue and green plaid skirt and grinned:

"Felicity was right, you certainly are a very special girl," he said as he stood before her and unbuttoned his pants.

Principal Stanton allowed his pants to drop to the floor, releasing hid thick, hard cock, all eight inches of it, towards Wendy's face. Wendy knew exactly what was expected of her, and came to realise what her mother's "understanding" with Principal Stanton was. Just a month earlier, Wendy would have been disgusted at what she was about to do, but now her cock straining against her panties and skirt told her how much she wanted this.

But formatting in Blogger is giving me the shits. If I cut n paste from Word I get all this weirdy Word formatting I dont want.

So I may ditch the website posts and just do LJ ones. We'll see.

Almost at 3000 words now. Not great but that was all today so huzzah.

it's all about building good writing habits for me, which is hard.

The skull would have danced about if it could, but Mary maintained a firm grip on the lower jaw, so it could only speak by through its head back. “You’re mean and this is horrible! I want to leave!”
“You can’t, everyone would laugh at you.”
“I don’t care!”
“Also I’ll destroy your soul.”
“I still don’t care.”
Mary snorted. “Then there is also THAT.” She snapped her right fingers and a secret panel on the wall opened. She approached it, the old skeleton following her with a grave sort of respect. She held the skull up so it could clearly see the small clear bags of white powder stacked up inside.
The skull unwisely decided to sass back. “So? What’s that anyway?”
“That,” said Mary, “is what happened to all the skeletons who caused me problems or otherwise failed in their duties over the years.” She held the skull up to her face and stared deep into its eye sockets. “I ground them to DUST. And I leave them here as reminders for anyone who joins my helpers who doesn’t appreciate the virtue of doing what I tell them too.”
“Aaaaaaah!” The skull sounded a little less sure of itself now.
“Also, they’re not dead in there either.” She opened up one of the bags. “Are you still there, Jane?”
A small, quiet voice emerged from the powder. “Yeeeeesssssss...cannnnn I be puuuuuut baaaaaaack together pleasssse?”
“You’ll stay in there until I tell you!” Mary closed the bag and shut the panel with another snap of her fingers.

Surviving? I crossed 11.5K last night, wrote a little more and realized that my brain was so spongy that I was losing all ability for rational thought.

Is it possible to have a writing hangover? Because that's how I feel today. TOO STOOPID TO TALK.

Took yesterday off -- was tired and just wanted to plow through all the post-election stuff. Today, I'll be back on track.

(Seriously, awesome job!)

Zoltan remembered nothing else for a bit except that when he woke up, it seemed like it was very dark all around, even from behind the blindfold, and that it seemed very cold. The chatter of children was all around him, as well as some clanking sounds and the grind of gears.
“Um...uh...”
“Hey, he’s awake!” This was followed by gleeful laughter and a feeling like he was being picked up by many hands. There was a counting down from five, and he was suddenly pitched into a metal container of some sort.
After that things got even more confused, though Zoltan insisted that among other things huge green stallions appeared before his eyes, the world turned into something the consistency of porridge, aliens danced on his skull, the universe’s largest blueberry ate him, and finally a teddy bear came before his eyes and said “Dude, you’re, like, so old.”
“I am not, dude!”
“Dude, don’t lie.” The teddy bear then came and took him to the highest peak in the galaxy, drop kicked him across a starfield, and ran after him going “OLD MAN OLD MAN OLD MAN,” giggling crazily and booting him in the ass every chance he got, until Zoltan was finally impaled on a crystal spire hanging from a black hole, covered in blood. Then there was a huge endless sucking sound, and the next thing he remembered he found himself in front of the hotel, with the desk attendant asking him if he was okay.
“And, uh, yeah, dude, I, um, came up here. Yeah.”
In the silence that followed, Ayushi busied herself with a bit more typing while Bill pondered how best to dig a shallow grave.
Ayushi spoke first. “You are so high.”

Posted a new excerpt, that may or may not include my description of the perils of futon sex.

I'm going to a show before my brain turns to jelly.

Is there one? Any other ILXors doing NaSoAlMo this year?

I could never do NaNoWriMo I don't think, but I'm fairly certain I'm going to pull of NaSoAlMo even though my little project has turned out to be more ambitious than I even thought. If anyone cares, I'm totally documenting every day on my blog. I'm also simultaneously still working on the 4913 haiku project, but luckily I've written so many of those that I'm just publishing backlog in the interim for the most part.

So yeah, um, hey everybody who remembers me. Hi. And "hi" to everyone else as well. I'm Martin M. I used to live around here.

Just crested 13K.

Posted a new excerpt, that may or may not include my description of the perils of futon sex.

I'm going to a show before my brain turns to jelly.

John, awesome word count, but I have to say that if nothing else you've done since, say, 1986, has turned your brain to jelly, I don't think you have much to worry about now. Also, if you ever get married, I predict a slew of secondhand futons as wedding gifts.

Well, duh.

So, here's a scene largely inspired by a picture frequently posted on ilx:

The old man turned left into an archway near the base of a staircase. Zander followed him into a large sitting room with a vaulted ceiling.

"Come," said the old man, "Meet Charlie."

"Okay," said Zander.

The old man stood next to a narrow, round, black-lacquered table. Upon which, stood a tall, emaciated hairless cat on it's hind legs, one paw raised with extended, needle-sharp claws. It had grey, elephantine skin that was ragged in places, creased and torn. One eye socket was empty and it's teeth were chipped and broken. It's lower jaw, set like a marionette’s, opened and closed, clicking.

Zander screamed.

The old man laughed.

"Nutcracker," he said, smiling. He winked at Zander.

"Come, put your hand here," said the old man, placing Zander's hand on the tail of the cat. The skin was loose, sliding over what felt like a metal bar. Zander lifted the tail and the jaw lowered. He pumped the tail up and down making the hairless cat's palate click together.

"Mrrrrrooooooowwwowwwwowwwowrrr," said the old man scratching the cat behind the ears.

The room was as crowded as the hallway, filled with taxidermy. A large brown bear stood snarling in the round portico in the corner, obscuring much of the window. Where a Christmas tree would go, thought Zander. A series of squirrels were set up at varying levels, forming an arch on the built-in book case lining the eastern wall, each one posed in such away as to give the effect of multiple snapshots of a squirrel leaping through the air, exposed onto one slide of film. There were foxes and deer heads, great cats and mice, there were muskrats and fish and a wolf and some bats, hanging upside down from an elaborately carved wooden stand.

Some of the animals had mixed-up parts. There was a winged pig, a jackelope, and a muskrat with the head of a fish. There were eight-legged herons, a robin with fins, and a two-headed bull moose with one ram horn on each head.

An artiste, thought Zander, leaning over, hands behind his back, observing a pig with what appeared to be human teeth. "Ah, my dentures," said the old man, plucking them out of the pigs lips and sliding them into his own. "How about some tea," he said.

"Okay, said Zander. The old man gestured to a pair of wing-backed stuffed chairs on either side of the table, atop which rested the stand of bats. When Zander sat down, he noticed that the stand doubled as a pipe rack. Two of the bats held identical corncob pipes in their mouths. The third one was empty. Ingenious, thought Zander.

Zander patted his legs rhythmically and looked around the room, humming. He imagined living with the old man. The old man with his eccentricities. Zander with his zany antics. One liked to keep the kitchen clean. The other left his socks on the plate of Braunschweiger balanced precariously on the stationary exercise bicycle. He imagined the two of them becoming serial killer buddies, like a slasher movie odd-couple. Zander lured 'em into the basement and playfully hacked them to death, splattering blood in a devil-may-care fashion. The old man would come down the stairs, put his hands on his head and yell, "Zan-der!" The old man would point to the bodies and criticize Zander's clumsy technique. Another skull ruined! Then the old man would rearrange the bodies on hooks, by height, before removing their organs. Zander would run his finger through the rivulets of steaming blood running down the wall, and lick it. "Oh, disgusting," the old man would shout. "Five-second rule," Zander would reply, sucking on his finger and rolling his eyes. "Zan-der!"

"Ha ha," said Zander, staring into the empty fireplace.

Allyzay - just start! Can't hurt, right?

NaSoAlMo 2006

“I’m telling you, it was a cat, that talked.”
“Hmm, that is pretty interesting.”
“Pretty interesting?!”
“Yeah, that’s kinda cute! A talking cat, that’s sweet. Do you think the children would like playing with it?”
“You’re not listening to me – I just got back from dealing with a talking cat.”
“Well, even if it does talk, it has to be a nice looking cat or else the children wouldn’t care about it much.”
“Are you getting anything I’m saying?”
“Well, it’s a cat, I got that much.”
“I. Just. Dealt. With. A. Cat. That. Talked. Talked. To. Me. In. Particular.”
“Did you get any photos?”
Dara slammed the door behind her as she retreated to her separate room in the apartment and held her head in her hands. Was Rob completely insane or had she just missed something? Was she insane because Rob didn’t seem surprised by this at all? Had she entered bizarroworld without asking or being asked, even for some kind of a mental passport?
There was a knock at the door. “Yes,” she said wearily.
Rob came in. “Well, hold on, you said the cat talked?”

This is supposedly fun, right? Huh.

Everyone can take solace in the fact that their characters aren't cardboard cutouts. Everyone but me, that is.

Ned, I want your cat to talk and drive. Nothing less will keep me happy.

(Seriously, has anyone but me been to N. Dakota? My MOTHER is from there.)

And trust me, most of the white girls there would find Ned too intriguingly foreign for sex.

Where was Ned's Toonces slash on 9/11? Where was Ned's Toonces slash in response to hurricane Katrina?

HE MUST BE STOPPED. OR STARTED. WHATEVER.

(Your answer must be in the form of Toonces slash.)

My poor sense of European geography could see me come unstuck yet. I don't even know if you can drive straight from France to Germany without having to stop at all.

Nothing written yet today as I've been hanging around with many friends all day (among other things trying a new restaurant) but I plan on making that up tonight after a triple birthday party, during which I may or may not get soused.

Have fun tonight, Ned. And pervertalism or not, you know what you have to do.

The ball turned red and seemed to shake with anger in response to this message. Mary laughed and waited, whatever messages were being conveyed through the board being heard only by herself.
“I expected this kind of ill-treatment from yourselves, I will freely admit. But no matter, for if you wish that mere poltroon to be returned to you, then you will do as I say. On the fourth Thursday of this month is a certain pagan rite in this strange country. We will all celebrate it together with a mass gathering here at my house, with as many of the brethren that can be summoned at that time. You must not worry, oh no, it will be a meal of especial interest.” She laughed as the crystal ball turned red again, steam now rising off it it. “Your spells will be of no use through the ball, know that much. Now, do you agree?”
There was a short pause, during which Porter looked around him more carefully, noticing the cat and instantly deducing what it must be. “Hsst. Hey, you!”
Grimalkin looked up from grooming. “Yes?”
“I am without a familiar here and I’m feeling very down. Would you mind being mine for a while? I promise you more good cat food than she can provide.”
Grimalkin stretched. “My mistress among other things conjures up for me fresh salmon everyday, lightly roasted and marinated in a white wine sauce. Exactly what would you offer in turn?”
“Erm…” Porter paused. “Fancy Feast catfood in Waterford crystal?”
“Don’t waste my time.” Grimalkin returned back to grooming.

Seriously, Ned, over 20K, WOW. I bow to you, sir.

(Making zero progress here this weekend due to kids, family, and friends. I love them, but why won't they go away?)

The board member fumed and tried to kick at the cat, but his leg was stopped short and planted firmly on the ground. The cat yawned. Bill had to laugh – he liked the spirit of this creature, if nothing else.
“Anyway, we’re wasting time.” The cat stood up and flicked its tail, looking keenly back towards the alleyway. Bill turned his sighter back towards it, wondering what was supposed to be coming out next. What he saw was so surprising that he nearly dropped the sighter.
“Look out!” hissed Ayushi, seeing the heavy equipment starting to slip.
“Sorry, sorry,” mumbled Bill, refocusing as quickly as he could on the complement of figures now emerging, following in line behind the cat. “Um...huh.”
Ayushi paused and looked up at Bill. “What?”
“Uh, can you make a note in your record that there are now fifty persons in this group down below?”
“Fifty!” Ayushi clearly would have screamed if she could. “Nothing is showing on the organic readout.”
“Believe me, there’s a reason for that.”

I envy your fictional cat and your NaNoWriMo-ing prowess.

24,000 now.

On a whim, she crossed the street, Rob in tow, and approached one of the pile of children. They were all huddled together for warmth and almost looked pitiable in the soft moonlight. Rob clearly thought so, and started muttering something about how sad it was that the town had never created a building or orphanage for them.
“They tried that once,” said Dara after a pause.
“Oh?”
“Yes, back in 1950. It was very fancy, well laid out, and they’d hired some of the best caretakers in the state. Within a week the building was half burned down, various yellow stains had appeared on the wall, and the caretakers were removed to an asylum. Apparently all they were able to say was ‘So many of them!’ over and over again. So no need to be sympathetic to them – as I keep telling you.”
Rob looked strained. “I just wish I knew why they all seem to be about the same age.”
“Because we like to be.”
“What?” Dara looked down and realized that one of the children in the heap had its eyes partially open and was looking at her keenly.
“I said, we like to be.”
Dara thought rapidly. “So you mean like Peter Pan?”
“No,” the child said calmly. “It’s just more fun doing things to people when you’re small. Good night.” With that the boy closed its eyes and was soon rapidly snoring contentedly. Dara wished there was a dead branch around that she could use to hit the boy over the head with.

What else are fists for, if not to do duty as blunt weapons?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sure. I used to do it in college too, when I wrote essays, in the era before the electric word machines the kids are so fond of now.
-- accentmonkey (tris...), November 12th, 2006 5:47 PM. (accentmonkey) (link)

I used to estimate based on average word-count per line. (number of words on ten lines)/10*(number of lines per page)*(number of pages)

Now, who is going to help me decipher my own crappy handwriting?

Luckily I was able to salvage my files, but without a working computer its going to be really tough to get this thing done. I work much, much more quickly typing at my PC than I do writing by hand.

Well sure, if you want to go to your grave never really knowing.

“ZOLTAN GET DOWN!”
Some part of him that had been trained enough reacted and Grimalkin saw him collapse even as the screaming figure leaped over him and charged towards a skeleton, popping off a skull with an expert snick. The figure turned and immediately did the same for two more, and then prepared to do the same for the rest.
Meanwhile, another figure had leapt forward, grabbing at Zoltan and dragging him to his feet, gun in his hand. “Get behind me!”
“Uh...”
Grimalkin, figuring this would be a battle of wits with a clear loser already, turned back towards the other group, only to see that things had somewhat changed even in a few seconds. Porter was now frowning, Mary was suddenly grinning and the mysterious masked figure was turning around in astonishment. All this because the heads of the skeleton had fallen into the outstretched hands of their owners, who had immediately reattached them and were shrugging at each other.
“I don’t know, that didn’t seem to threatening,” said one.
“Yeah, what’s the big deal?” responded another.
All three looked at the figure with the sword, who jerked her head back towards her companions, who had also now paused themselves.
“This...this is new,” said the figure with the sword.

Hmmmm, maybe this metaphor needs some work.

He is rolling a Katamari through the pages of a dictionary, no?

Also, look, like I know this isn't NaSoAlMo, but I can't keep those threads alive, so I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm starting to worry. I am not known for keeping my personal projects easy to manage, but oy this one is catching up with me. Wish me continued luck.

I have passed 21,000 words but am kind of running out of plot. However, the discipline of writing in a notebook is brilliant, because it is impoosible to go back and change stuff so I, like some kind of shark, must keep moving forward. The downside is that my shoulder kind of hurts and I can't make a fist. Oh well.

Seriously, just keep going, it is the only way.

I passed 9K last night (I know, nothing compared to the rest of the writers on the thread). So far I've realized that I've created minor logical problems no less than 3 times. Sigh. But I'm doing as someone else suggested and italicizing them so that I don't have to go backwards.

Last night I discovered about myself a behavioral trait that I was previously unaware of. When the words start flowing, I jump up and pace back and forth or make a quick circle around my room, clapping my hands together and otherwise fidgeting, and then I sit down again and type like mad until I get too excited and jump up again. I have been almost completely unaware of this habit, and once I noticed it I observed that the urge to jump up came every couple of minutes (on more than one occasion, I was already out of my chair before I realized it).

I need seat belt on my office chair. I would get so much more done.

My problem is that I will do anything to avoid actual writing. Sleeping, fixing a snack, cleaning for god's sake; and then when I mean to start, I slouch in front of the computer for an hour or so, finding other stuff to do (ILX! Epinions! Shopping! Youtube!). Once started, I'm mostly fine. Hmmmm, maybe I need Ritalin.

The pace has picked up in part because I've now hit the halfway mark -- hurrah for psychological milestones! At this point I've got more behind me than in front of me, so it'll all get easier -- and also, the plot has gelled to the point where I want to see what the end of the story is.

Ned... All I can say is WOW.

Well, probably not by now, since you've probably crested 40K and are planning out your second novel for the month, but it was fun to pretend for a moment.

Ned... what can I say, if I were a different person I'd be making a voodoo doll of you right now. ;)

Plus I adore you for being behind me right now. (If we had to go into quality vs. quantity, however, I know our positions would be reversed).

Mary then turned to the passel of children crowding the area near the door. “So, which one of you would like to be the first to play with the turkey?”
There was a chorus of voices, and from them Mary picked out a sweet and innocent looking girl. Mary put her features into a smile after trying to remember how that was done. “So you’d like to see the little turkey?”
“Yeah!”
“Okay then!” She picked up the girl with, to Porter, surprising strength and set her next to where the turkey was pecking about. The girl smiled at the turkey, who stopped and looked at her briefly. There was a slight silence.
Grimalkin could never describe what exactly came next, but there was a sudden flurry, a whirlwind of activity involving the girl and bird. Fists appeared to fly and the noise the turkey was making was indescribable. Cries and screams emerged from the blur in turn, each increasingly somewhat more annoyed than the previous one.
Then, suddenly, it was over. The turkey, mysteriously seeming to have grown in size, stood among the girl’s clothes, coughing and looking out of sorts. The girl herself was nowhere to be found.
The kids all laughed at the sight. “Where did our friend go?” one asked Mary, with a grin.
Mary chuckled and said nothing.
The turkey suddenly made a hacking noise or two, and then, to Grimalkin’s astonishment, spit out a child-sized skeleton – how, he wasn’t sure. The physics would not seem to allow it, but then again, he reflected, living with a witch made some expectations change.
Mary snapped her fingers and after a second the skeleton stood up.
“Boy that was fun!” said the skeleton. “Can I do that again?”

http://philogynist.64k.ca/Images/CatDRIVING.jpg

Help a brother out.

OMG

THANK U ESOJ

Sadly, my story really can't compare.

In other news, there is not enough Toonces on youtube.

Also, I barely wrote anything last night (unless you count emails). I will hit 10K this week though. Or die trying!

Dan, can I suggest that you take John's word-count inflating method of using tons of profanity? Also, I read Chris Baty's book once, and you can also give your characters two words names (Marie Therese, John Paul, etc.). And give them a stutter or make someone hard of hearing so that your characters have to repeat things!

Also, is today the day of the kitchen analogy?

As for "pain in the ass," I have realized that I will do anything to avoid writing actual words of my novel down. But I'm proctoring exams at Carleton this weekend, so hoping that somehow I'll be inspired there. (Also, only taking along a laptop that has Word on it and stuff to study. I will be forced into virtue.)

The boy rolled his eyes. “EVERYONE knows we come from the field, and when people want to play with us, we take them to the field and we have fun. We took your stupid friend with us the other day and we had a great time – he was whining, though, so we got tired of him. We don’t like dorks.”
Smart kids. “I have problems with them too but sometimes I can’t escape them.”
“ANYWAY,” said the girl, “we come from the field and that’s home, and that’s where more of us come too.”
“More?”
The girl jabbed a thumb behind her. Bill looked up and noted with astonishment that what seemed like thirty children were ambling down the road to the park from the field. Some adults walking nearby saw them approaching and were shaking their heads. Two passing by near where Bill stood saw and one said to another, “Well, I knew THAT was too good to last. But we can kick them at Starbucks some more later.”
“Yeah but what if they try and break into our houses again?”
“Hey, I’ve got the shotgun.”
“Oh right – how good’s your target practice?”

Dan, don't give up. I predict that by the end of this weekend you will reach either 30,000 words or 1,300.

accentmonkey - always listen to FB, he's usually right.

FB - Go! You're doing great!

Dan - honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if you somehow got to 50K this weekend, just to mess with the rest of us. (Oh, was that a challenge?)

Get to it, slacker.

OMG OMG OMG

1. NANANANA
2. Show w/friends.

HOW DO I SHOT CHOOSE?

going to show.

Whatever had occurred in the seventies was still not fully understood, but apparently there’d been a revolt in the witch and magic world, with a dissident group of witches claiming they had been locked out of board decisions and that their candidates for the board were not being taken seriously. The resultant infighting had turned into a battle royale that was finally settled via various magical duels in Arizona.
“That was the problem, though – they finally couldn’t escape wider attention. They put on a rock festival as a means of disguising all the pyrotechnics, then proceeded to try and destroy each other while all the amplifiers were going off along with the light show.”
“That’s weird,” said Dara. “But did it work?”
“Well, there were a few deaths and everyone was beaten up pretty bad. The only problem was that they did this next to an Air Force base for some reason. Word seeped along that something bizarre had happened and needed to be investigated. That’s where we stepped in.”

"No, I didn't do anything. Nothing for months on end. I lived off my portion of the money we split up and wandered around mostly, trying to get a feel of the country I'd left behind so many years ago. It was 1969, the summer of love, and it looked like my father's worst fears had come to pass. The communists were continuing to expand, and Castro was still in power in Cuba. By his reckoning, American society should have been evolving into a classless anarchist technocracy, which was just the first stage of an evolutionary cycle that didn't make much sense to anybody other than my father, and honestly, I don't think he was entirely clear on the matter himself. But instead we were stuck with Nixon and the hippies and a small hand-full of increasingly militant revolutionary groups. Well, I felt like a total outsider. There I was a shepherd without sheep, no occupation and no direction. I bummed around getting high and I milled around a few happenings and protests, generally enjoying the finer aspects of the youth culture, namely lots and lots of free sex.

"Well there I was aimless and unmoored, on acid, and taking part in an orgy in the back of a semi-trailer with about two dozen college students and drop-outs from the University of Florida, driving through the southern leg of the 'Screw America Tour', when I literally bump into one of my old crew-mates. It was Malik Malika, the son of Malika Malik, a radical lesbian Pakistani poet, most famous for her letters to Alec Douglas-Home comparing Nevile Chamberlain to a potted plant. Malik was one of the few lads who joined the crew of the Black Sea Otter voluntarily, looking for something different from the years he spent cloistered at the divinity school in St. Andrews, where he went to study the British by way of their theology.

"'Malik,' I says, 'Get your hand off my hairy ass, you scurvy bastard. It's old Billy from the Otter.'

"Up snaps Malik's head from between the thigh's of a curvaceous blond Gator. 'Billy,' he says, 'You salty dog, I've been looking for you for months. Your trail went cold at the protest in Gainesville.'

"I pulled my arm out from beneath the breasts of a bucking young filly from Georgia, and propped myself up so I could see properly over the shoulder of a brunette who had just met my acquaintance, though we had yet to meet face to face, if you know what I mean," Billy winked at Zander, who's mouth was hanging open.

"'Well, that's where I hooked up with a troop of self-styled roving prophets,' I says to Malik, 'Called themselves "Cassandra's Crotch"--some sort of free expression collective that went around preaching peace from their nether regions.'

"'Ah,' says Malik, 'sounds like your kind of outfit, indeed.'

"'Aye, I was sated for a while,' I says, 'before I ran into a Pot-o-Gold gathering in the Ozarks.'

"'A Pot-o-Gold gathering. What's that,' says Malik.

"'Well 'tis a group of Irish descendants that started up a commune near Possum lake, on an old Gator Farm.'

"'Never heard of 'em,' says Malik.

"'Well,' I says, 'They weren't very open to other ethnic groups. Tried to keep their peace and love amongst a relatively narrow group of Irish clans from the Old South. They kicked me out when they realized my last name was Schafer and that my Bristol accent wasn't an Irish lilt.'

Nearing the end of a four-thousand word story that was sparked by the question, "How did you come to be a taxidermist?" We are nearing the end of Billy's career as a pirate, which came long after his youthful success as a shepherd in Scotland.

FB, by posting that you saved yourself a naggy Sunday afternoon phone call from me. Also, the parts of your novel that you have posted make perfect sense to me. I'm not sure what that means.

I wrote longhand last night while proctoring, but I think A. has fixed it so that I have a laptop for tonight.

You should see him open a stuck-shut pickle jar!

34,000:

The evening itself was a jolly enough one, for all the strained sentiments at work. The meals prepared by the skeleton chefs were quite delicious and won much praise, especially the various fatted roast children hams, which had been smoked for some decades before being used for this occasion.
“You can’t get children like this any more.” This was from current board leader Gwillim LaFleur, known as a gourmand when it came to his meals, especially ones involving young human flesh. “I think it had to be something to do with all those awful preservatives people eat these days, I think everyone tastes a little like plastic now.”
“To be sure, board leader, to be sure.” Leticia Wesking had spoken, a young go-getter over sorts that Mary was convinced assisted Gwillim in a variety of ways, not all magical. “It’s so wonderful to be able to enjoy the work of someone who truly cares about their meals.”
“Thank you,” said Mary, feeling a bit cool about them both – understandably, since they’d had an argument via crystal ball earlier that day. However, all was publicly calm in the face of nearly all the brethren – the room was packed and conversations and meals spilled out into various side rooms and corridors. Some skeletons were giving guided tours throughout the house, though Mary had forbidden anything to do with the lower levels to be shown yet – as she had told Grimalkin, “That will be a surprise for them all yet.”
Porter could have said something but Mary had cast a clever compulsion spell on him that rendered any attempt by him to explain what was forthcoming into a request for pie. As a result, the captured wizard sat miserably at a side table with fifty pieces of lemon meringue surrounding him. He waved off offers of help while trying to press the pie onto anybody passing by, so he could at least slump facefirst down on the table.

A+ for efficiency, in all areas, apparently. However, I hope you don't mind if I decline offers of pickles from you in the future.

Reading your excerpt makes me want to know what is in the lower levels! Well, and now I want some pie, too.

Perhaps finishing this will justify all the crazy taking up residence in my head since I started this.

Has anyone else noticed a spooky inability to relate to people after writing for a few hours, or is it just me?

(More serious answer: "after writing for a few hours," is where I can't relate. Because, unlike the rest of you, I am a bad, lazy person.)

Still, word had at least generally leaked out that the strangers in town had had something to do with the temporary kid reduction on the one day, and he’d already received any number of backslaps and thanks for ‘giving hope to this town again,’ as one old-timer had put it.
“You’d never had hope before?” asked Bill at the time.
The old-timer had spit and said, “Listen, young man, there was a time when there was life and merriment and music all around me, a time of celebration. It was this morning, when a bunch of those young hoodlums came and egged my house while playing some awful music. If you told me that you had found a way to bury them in a swamp all at once, I’d give you my first daughter AND my first son. I wouldn’t want to sound like a bigot, you see.”
Bill had reflected briefly on the generosity of the offer but concluded that he’d probably violate some internal policy he was unaware of if he accepted.

I, on the other hand, have fallen completely behind. A mere 26,000. Woe is me. Still battlin' though.

I'm still hopelessly far behind, at around 12,700 words. But look, I have immortalized some classic Hastings high-jinks (and a bit of its geography) into my bad, bad book:

I drove through down the main highway through town, which passed through the Clear Point’s only business district. My father’s first store, currently being run by one of his ubercompetent young managers, was dark and empty. Seeing it reminded me of my father and the whole horrible thing again. Grief is funny like that; you think it’s gone, you think you’re over it, and yet it comes back again and again to surprise you when you least expect it. I suppose that is to be expected in the first days after a loved one’s death – shock and regret and pain – but I’ve also found that even years later it can come out of nowhere and hit you again with unexpected for ce.
Driving on a bit further, I had almost passed the Dairy Queen when I noticed the sign outside of it, which advertised, “Double Oral Delight: Only $.69.� I was pretty sure that this was not what the very conservative owners of the local Dairy Queen had meant to have up on their ad board, and I starting laughing and half-turned to Carter to ask if he had seen it.

They peered from behind the tree. Ahead of them was the open area in front of the house, full of modified brooms and related vehicles in a huge jumble of parking that might have been organized at one point, but wasn’t as much any more. Some skeleton staffers, outfitted in garish versions of uniforms, wandered among the brooms, apparently acting as both security guards and vague parking attendants, idly polishing things as they chose.
They were spending most of their time chasing after the familiars, however, who seemed to want to swarm the brooms as a protest against not being allowed into the house. Cats ran around, bats flapped and awkwardly hopped from ledge to ledge, and snakes slithered about, wrapping themselves around the skeletons as they chose, even though it had no effect on them, as they pointed out regularly. One such combination was near where the two women crouched.
“Look, you can strangle me around the neck as much as you want, nothing will happen! I don’t have any larynx you can crush!”
A hissing voice responded. “Well I can at least snap your head off!”
“Like nobody’s ever done that to me before. That’s basic stuff! If you’re going to scare me you’re going to have to work harder! Now get out of here, I’m busy chasing a cat.”

“So, Grimalkin, what think you of my plans for tonight?”
The cat opened up an eye carefully. He was sitting on his preferred shelf in Mary’s chamber of spells and research, and he had thought he was asleep. Except he was reacting immediately to her words, so clearly he wasn’t. I really need to work on that, he thought, stretching and pulling himself upward a bit.
“I think your plans are as good as you want them to be. I’m just a familiar, after all – whatever happens is beyond my control.”
“Yes, yes, but I have you around for a reason, not least of which is because you are the only other intelligent being I can have a conversation with.”
“There’s always the mirror.”
“I said intelligent, not self-pitying.”
“The two need not be mutually exclusive.”

Nanowrimo is a microcosm of my life.

"Hhhhhheeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyy..."

Also, FB is apparently too shy to post that he has gotten past 24,000 words. Which is fabulous!

Not the "real" Fonz? I'm heartbroken! (Actually, I am chuckling at the Edina references.)