Nanowrimo 2009 begins! Day 1...

The rain fell hard on the heathen plains. It was a cold rain, fat and heavy, soaking everything with doom and sorrow. The surrounding lands had given nothing but blisters and dust for over a month, and when the horns of battle finally rang out, the heavens shrouded themselves within a thick, grey shield and assaulted the earth with its icy weapons.

The ambiance of battle, once built of wave upon wave of challenges and shouting, the melody of swords against steel, and the percussion of rocks against stone, had at first dimmed into a foggy buzz in the back of the head, and now the rain had completely masked all sound. War had always been a fleshy sensation. The smells and sounds and sights were always the first casualties of mass conflict.

Pre-nano

Deborah was all hair and glasses and bracelets and perfume. Her mane was all curly frills, which defied gravity as if charged by a Tesla coil and which seemed to shimmer in color from an auburn brown to a lemon yellow. Her glasses were stylistic to a fault, with dark rims that were almost as thick as the lenses they held. A myriad of cheap plastic clattered from her elbows to her wrist as she stepped out of the bathroom door and reached down to zip up her pants. The stinging aroma of antiseptic flora followed her, and I knew from experience that this scent came from her armpits rather than the restroom interior.

"Practicing your aim?" I quipped, annoyed to find her exiting the mens' side of the unisex bathrooms.

"Go fuck yourself, Dilbert," she casually replied.

"Why don't you use the stalls in the other bathroom? They are so much nicer in the other room." I tried to sound casual, but the stress of the morning had me wound pretty tight.

"Go fuck yourself," she said again, then turned down the hall, leaving me standing there like an idiot.

I am waiting for Hot Bread to Cool.

I am up way way way too late.  There is bread in a bread machine that is done, but way way way too hot to touch.  I can prove that to you by showing you the red line across the tips of three of my fingers on my right hand:  it is the melted line of skin that shows the bread is Too Hot To Touch.

But those fingers will heal, and life goes on.  Bread goes on.  Skin goes on.  And you can let that life knock you down, or you can put your dukes up and fight it till the bitter, wonderful end.

Life is like bread, you know.  It's chock full of recipe-book crap, and grows until it's baked.  And then it's eaten, and all you are left with is crumbs.  Wait, wait.

Life is like crumbs I mean.  No, scratch that.  Life is like yeast, and as long as it's kept in a warm, safe place, it will continue to grow and rise and make things.  But the second you expose it to too much ultra-violet light, that yeast is up shit's creek.

Ah, screw it.  I am not a baker.

Blogs are dead (dying?) dead.

I am a selfish person.  I am not as good as a friend to all my friends as they are to me.  I do not visit them as I should.  I make big situations for myself that really aren't that big, and therefore always have an excuse not to go do something.  I am the stranger of a friend whom I always don't give much thought or time to.

I miss all my friends.  They are all terrific people, and I was lucky to be able to have dinners with them and phone conversations with them and play games with them and kill zombies with them and make music with them and do projects with them.

I have no point to this.  I'm just sayin.

Every. Single. Time.

Every Time the phone rings.  Every Time I see a (1) in my inbox.  Every Time I think This Time it's going to be the lucky company that has choosen me to be their next star employee.

So far, I've been wrong Every Time.

But my chin is still up!!!

Nanowrimo 3pm: 43000 words

    "The children are slaughtered!" the priest screamed at her.

    "Ha-ha!  Revenge is mine!" she screamed back to him.

    "Your brother's lifeless head is hung from a spear in front of the gates of hell!" he cried.

    "I will drink his blood and roar my rage and feast on the hearts of my vanquished enemies!" she screamed, her voice cracking and raw.

    "Good," the priest said.  "This ends our first day of training.  Rest a few hours and we will begin the second."

Last day of Nanowrimo!!!

Okay.  I am 10,000 words behind on the last day of Nanowrimo.  I have a little under 14 hours to go.  But I am not giving up.  No.  I have full support to spend this day trying to hit the 50k word mark.  I will not cheat, will not type 'a' 10,000 times.  If I fail, then I have failed and I'll try again next year.

But I am going for gold!  !!!

Nanowrimo Day 25: 30k+

My horrible, horrible line for the day:

"Ninjas are like amoebas: before you can kill one, they've already split into two."

Right now I'm playing super-catch-up.  I wrote 8000 words last night, and if I can achieve even 75% of that today then I should be in okay shape to finish this thing.

Nanowrimo Day 19: ~20.5k

She came into a dream of underwater beauty.  Deep underneath a lake or sea or ocean, where the sunlight barely reached and cast little curvy illuminated designs all along the sandy floor, Dawn swam like a dolphin.  The water was warm and comforting and rushed smoothly across her face and over her body.  Here in the deepest depths of water, the shadows danced and played in every direction, making the ocean world a mysterious theater of silent movement.  The shadows darted and sprang all around her.  The only sounds to be heard were the quick swishes of some darting object past her ears.  She would hear a swoosh, turn her head, but be too late to see what creature had made it.  Another swoosh, another head turn, again, seeing nothing but the dancing shadows.  Somewhere a million miles away, she hears the cry of a humpbacked whale: "myyyy armmmm... theeeey cuuuuut offffffff myyyyy arrrrrrrm!"

Nanowrimo Day 18: ~18k

Dawn asked Peter as he started dishing some corn and beans onto a plate, "Is this your father?", pointing to one of the photographs on the wall.

"Oh no," said Peter, "That's just another son of a bitch.  Our mother is kind of a murderous whore.  None of our fathers are alive.  Or the same."  He gave her a smile without taking his eyes off the task of loading his plate with food.  "You should eat something before it all disappears.  And before we head to the train station.  Have you ever been on a train before?"

Nanowrimo Day 17: ~17k

A girl with dark bangs covering her eyes spoke up, "Do you live with the nuns?  Your dress is absolutely sinful."

    The boy with the freckles said, "Is that blood on your dress?  Have you been eating wild animals?"

    "Please, I am in danger," Dawn said to no one in particular.  She walked along the group in a crouched, hunched way.  The kids began to circle her as they moved along, slowly absorbing her into their center.  "Where are you all going, may I ask?"

    "We are going to school," said the freckled boy, "where they teach us not to be slobs and sleep in the woods and eat wild animals."

    "Do you bite off their heads and drink their blood?" inquired a short girl with silky brown curls and thin-rimmed glasses.

    "I bet she eats off their penises!" said the tall strawberry blond girl.

    "She eats their doody!" laughed the small, mousy boy, and a few around him giggled and gasped.

    "I do not eat animals," said Dawn defiantly.  "I came from the mission up the road."

Nanowrimo Day 14: ~14.2k

    As the motorcycle drew parallel to the spot where Dawn hid, she noticed that there was a nun piloting the bike, and she noticed that the bike had a sidecar carrying a second nun.  Both riders were wearing large goggles, and the nun in the sidecar looked like she was carrying a complex blanket in her arms.  No, not a blanket, but a net.

    The motorcycle drove on, continuing its wild back and forth pattern, into the village.  A dog barked unconvincingly in the distance.  Dawn reached into her tote and pulled out an old woolen shall and placed it over her head and immediately fell asleep.

Nanowrimo Day 13: ~13.5k

They pulled her halfway up, and Dawn was able to position her feet under her bottom.  She offered a little more resistance against the nun's pull, forcing them to grunt and lean back to compensate for the added weight...and then she sprung forward, pushing off with her feet as hard as she could.  The nun's flew backwards, releasing their grips on Dawn and pinwheeling their arms to try to lessen their inevitable impact with the ground.  There was a sickening snapping noise coming from one of the nuns as she slammed into the ground.   The second nun landed on her side at an awkward angle, her head slamming into the earth with a thick slap.  Dawn didn't pause to check on them.  She had flung herself past the two nuns and broke out into a sprint back down the path that headed through the woods and back toward the missionary chapel and bunk house.  Her legs drummed like pistons, her thighs and calves and knees and back and shoulders and chest on fire, but she did not slow down.

Dawn only had a few minutes head start, and had to make the most of it.

Nanowrimo Day 10: ~10k words

Minutes faded into hours, and hours faded into days.  Dawn's black dress sucked up the ground's moisture, the air's moistures, until it was saturated through and through.  Dawn's knees began chilled, then grew sore, then painful, sharp, jabbing spikes of fire shot through her legs, until they became numb.  Dawn's back, straight as a pine tree, strained under the stress of remaining upright. Her lower back ached and throbbed until it became a soft white noise of pain and enveloped her like a blanket.  Dawn's arms shook, her muscles fatigued and nearing their breaking point, but her palms remained ever clasped, and her fingers never wavered from their direction toward God.  Dawn's mind was relentless, cycling through every prayer she could remember, asking the heaven's for an answer to the Blood Amulet until her request became a mantra.  She prayed the rosary after each round of asking for help, her voice speaking out to the empty, black room while her mind visualized and moved the beads.  She prayed so long that even the mental beads gained a mass and weighed heavily upon her body.  The physical representation of her limbs and breath and blood were lost to the comforting aura of extreme fatigue.  The stillness of the air in the small sanctuary aided her, for if even the smallest trace of breeze had invaded the room and moved against Dawn's body, she would have crumpled to the ground in a heap of flesh and bones.  As it was, only faith held her together.

Nanowrimo Day 6: ~6900 words

Dawn looks up at the Sisters with respect and reverence.  "Hello Sister Witchhaven, I hope you are having a blessed day."

"Explain yourself!" says Sister Witchhaven.  Sister Sprites remains on her hammock chair, sucking and puffing away at her pipe, her eyes fixed on the young girl.

"Well," Dawn begins, "There appears to have been a problem at the bunk house last night."

"There will be a problem here if you do not explain yourself this instant!" Sister Witchhaven cries.  Dawn is slightly taken aback, and doesn't understand where the nun's hostility is coming from.

"Well, there appears to have been a tad bit of killing, and an ounce of kidnapping."

Sister Witchhaven's caterpillar brows pull together so tightly they look as if they are kissing.

Dawn continues, unabashed: "It's a terrible mess.  Everything is sticky, and bugs are starting to show up."

Nanowrimo Day 5: ~5100 words

"The bunk house is transformed into a frenzied den of chaos.  A small boy across the bunk-room takes one step out of bed and is immediately snared in a rope sling and sprung up toward the ceiling where sharpened spikes have been fastened.  A red haired girl tries to run only to find her feet have been pinned to the floor by a pair of ninja sais.  A pair of children fall from their bunks after a green powder is blown in their face, their little fingers clawing at their eyes and mucus pouring out of their mouths and noses.  A lanky child is screaming under his blankets as he is swarmed by dozens of black scorpions.  A flaming arrow whistles across the room and buries into the spine of a running girl, catching her blouse on fire and crumpling her into an ignited pile on the floor.  A toddler walking on all fours is clubbed by a nun chuck and sent sailing through a glass window and out into the darkness beyond.  

The shadows in the dark are as relentless as they are efficient."

Nanowrimo Day 3: ~3600 words

Another gust of wind rolls through the mission courtyard, causing the two nuns to reach up to their crosses and lean forward against the stiff breeze.  From a distance the two appear wraithish and predatory, like spectral vultures perched above their prey.  A fly lands on Sister Witchhaven's cheek, flaps its wings and walks a jerky figure-eight there before a hand slaps down upon it and crushes its body.  Sister Witchhaven takes the mangled fly and rolls it back and forth between her index finger and thumb, unconsciously destroying the thing while she keeps her focus on the children.

"Tonight will be very exciting then, don't you think?" she says.  A corner of her mouth twitches slightly, her mouth's best representation of a nun's smile.

"Tonight will suck shit." says Sister Bachova.  "But I'll be glad to be done with the whole thing."

Nanowrimo Day 2: ~2000 words

"Inside the chapel the temperature seems to drop ten degrees, and the bright sunlight is dampened through the dark reds and blues of stained glass windows.  The chapel here in Croatia is smaller than most of the other chapels Dawn has visited, but it feels as welcoming as any.  A large bronze Jesus attached to a darkly stained cross is suspended by thick strands of rope above the small alter at the back of the chapel.  The two rows of pews that fill the floor are split evenly down the middle.  Warbling coos echo down from the rafters to mix with the clips and claps of Dawn's shoes as she skips her way to the front row of pews.  These sounds assemble to form a techno soundtrack for God."

Nanowrimo Day 1: ~1000 words

"A chime sounds, chirping like a tiny, metallic bird, and the delivery chute opens up.  A baby wrapped in a sky-blue blanket spirals down the conveyor belt and into a padded tray near Benny's lap.  The baby appears to be very young, its eyes pinched shut, flabby baby-fat reaching out at all the corners of its face.  A thin tuft of black hair circles its crown.  It remains completely unmoving for a moment, probably dazed by the recent decent, and then the mouth opens up and the razor screams begin.  Chinese babies sound like American babies sound like Russian babies sound like Vietnamese babies.  At Baby Dump Depot, all the babies speak the same language."

Nanowrimo 2008

Well, I am still unemployed and looking for work (and things to kill my time that aren't TV or Video Games), so I am looking forward to November to attempt Nanowrimo once again.  This will be my fifth time trying it, I think, and every year I get a little bit further.  I've never cracked 10,000 words though.

Anyway, we'll see if I last 2 days or 2 weeks or actually finish this time.  I'll post a snippet of my story every day if I keep up with it.  This year I think I am going to try to write a Christian Adventure-Romance story.  I'm only now starting to get a horribly vague sliver of a plot.  Who knows what will happen!