NaNo Novel thus far

Current wordcount: 2332

“It stinks in here,” Ricky said.

“Smells like an old empty shack,” Simon said finally turning around to blink at its shadowy interior.

Ricky knew the smell of old buildings and had to disagree that this was the same smell.

It reminded him of the smell of animals, and of sickness.  Like the way the dog house had smelled when the puppies all caught distemper and died.

Maybe some animal had been sick in the shack.  There was a large pile of pine needles and leaves in one corner.  Something like a raccoon or an old possum might have curled up there to die.

Or maybe even something bigger, like a stray dog or even a coyote.

He thought about digging around in the pile for a skull or any bones but decided not to.  It did not smell like dead things, but he would hate to stick his hands in the pile and into something fresh dead.

“This place is neat!” Simon said.  “I bet nobody knows its here anymore.  It’d make a neat clubhouse.”

“Did you know it was here,” Ricky asked.  “Is this where you were heade3d today?”

“No.  Never seen the place before.”

“How come?  Don’t’ you come hunting out here all the time?”

Simon walked over to the pile of debris in the corner and kicked some of it around.  A moth fluttered out of the mess, but nothing dead was revealed.

“Never been this far before,” he admitted.  “I think I got turned around somewhere.  I usually come out in the Deacon’s pecan grove.”

“You mean we’re lost!”  The youner brother had yelped.  Suddenly he felt like crying and really wished he had stayed home.

Neither boy had spoken again until the rain let up and they started walking again.

Now they stopped to rest under a large tree, night was coming on and Ricky felt like crying again.

“Don’t start that,” Simon said, “Its not like we’re lost in a jungle or something.  All we’ve gotta do is keep walking and sooner or later we’re going to come out in somebodys cow pasture or soybean field.”

“But we’ve already been walking all day and haven’t come out anywhere yet!”

Ricky sat down in the wet pine straw at the base of the tree they were resting under.  His bottom lip began to tremble.  He didn’t want to cry. Only babies cried and he didn’t want Simon to call him a baby, but suddenly he just coudln’t handle it anymore.

He begain to wail.

“We’re lost and I’m wet and I’m hungry and I’m thirsty and its getting dark and I’m getting cold.  I.... want.... to.... go.... HOME!”

“Get up and quit crying like a big baby.”  Simon said.  “We’ll get home, we’re not lost forever.  Tomorrow we’ll just spend all day walking back the way we came today and we’ll be home again.  You’ll see.”

“Tomorrow?  What about tonight.”

“Its getting dark.  If we keep walking in the dark we really will get lost.  So tonight we’re going to go back and stay in that shack.”

“It stinks.”

“But its dry isn’t it?  And warmer than sleeping out here on the wet ground.”

Still sniffing and very unhappy, Ricky followed his brother back to the shack.  He curled up in a corner far from the smelly pile of leaves and fell asleep with his tummy growling for want of supper.

NaNo '09 Days 5 and 6

NaNo Update: Day 5 = 363 words Day 6=444 Total so far: 1765 I can't get any writing done because of my husband and I'm about ready to give up.

--

Of course she could not think of any reasonable reason for someone to be in her house, uninvited.  Strangers did not usually break in just to sit and rock in old rocking chairs.  Strangers broke in to steal things.

Maybe it was not a stranger at all.  Maybe someone she knew had dropped by for a visit in the middle of the night.

Sure, she thought, and maybe its Nannie herself down there, sitting alone in her rocker waiting on me to come down.  I will sit on her knee like a child and she will sing me lullabyes just like old times.

Appealing yet unlikely.

Below her the old rocking chair gave another hushed squeak, then groaned in protest.

Whoever had been sitting down there had just stood up.  Her time to flee was running out.  She tried to make her legs unfreeze so she could retreat upstairs, but they did not want to obey her.

She strained to hear footsteps, to hear if her visitor were coming closer or leaving but her carpets swallowed whatever sound might have been made.

Then she saw him.  A black silhouette at the bottom of the stairs.  A man shaped shadow standing with its arms by its sides, chin tilted up, looking towards her.

Did he see her?

She thought for a moment that the deeper shadows of the stairwell might keep her invisible if she could stay motionless.

Then he spoke.

“Why are you afraid of me?”

So much for him not seeing me, she thought.

She puffed out her chest and tried to make herself feel braver than she really was.

“Who are you?” she called down.  “Why are you in my house?”

The man shadow took a step up the stairs towards her.

“I can smell your fear.”

“I’ve already called the police.” she lied.  “They are on their way.  You better get out of here.”

The man shadow moved up another step, then another.  He could almost reach out and touch her.  Still, she stayed frozen on the stairs.

“You smell like a trapped animal.  A dainty little fox in a great big bear trap, about to chew off her own leg to escape.”

Suddenly the power was back on.  She kept a dim light by the stairs so she wouldn’t break her neck in the night, but even its slim light was almost blinding.

The man below her seemed almost to still be a shadow.  He was dressed in black pants and a shirt with long black sleeves.  His hair was black too, and his skin a dark tan.

She could not make out the features of his face.  Her eyes were drawn down to the one bright spot on his body.  Below his upturned chin a clerical collar seemed to glow bright white.

He did not advance another step upwards, but reached one hand towards her.

“Why are you afraid of me?” he asked again.

Then he faded away.

This time Molly did come awake slowly, morning light softly lifting her lids.

Odd dream, she thought briefly before tucking it away in the back of her mind.

****

The forest dripped with moisture from the recent rain.  Drops fell from leaf to leaf, causing tyhe greenery to talk to itself in wet whispers.

It was near dusk, the sun falling low, already unseen behind a curtain of clouds.  Two boys moved among the bushes, trying to stay as dry as possible.

“I can’t believe you got us lost,”the smaller of the two boys complained.  “Lost and rained on.”

“Hey!” the bigger boy defended himself, “I didn’t make it rain.  Rain just, you know, happens!”

“But you DID get us lost,” the smaller boy reminded him.

“You didn’t HAVE to come, Ricky.  I was gonna make you stay home, but then you would have just tattled on me.”

“Would not!”

Early that morning he had caught Simon headed towards the woods.  He was wearing his hunting clothes, camouflage so old it was almost all faded to grey, and he had his bow with him.

Ricky, who was doomed to a day full of monotony, saw his chance.

“Where we going,” he had asked his older brother.

“Nowhere,” Simon had mumbled.  “Just gonna shoot at some squirrels.  Go back to the house.”

“Awwwww, Simon,” Ricky had whined.  And he really had not planned to tattle, but Simon had quickly changed his mind anyway.

“Never mind, you can come.  But you’ve gotta do what I say and be quiet.”

Ricky adored his older brother and was overjoyed to be invited on the hunt.

Except Simon did not seem to really be hunting anything.  They just kept walking deeper and deeper into the woods.  The squirrels they were supposed to be hunting scampered overhead and alongside them, unmolested by Simon or his arrows.

Ricky, who had hardly ever been deep enough in the woods to lose sight of their house, was lost quickly.  Positive that his older brother knew where they were, and how to get them home again, he never worried.

Then it had started raining.

Neither boy had come prepared for a downpour, and soon both were soaked.  There was nothing they could do but trudge along.

Ricky had stayed quiet just like Simon had told him, until he saw the shack.

“There’s a house, Simon,” he had yelled and ran ahead of his brother for the first time, into the dryness offered by the old building.

They had huddled in the door way for a while, watching the rain come down.  Ricky had been the first to turn around and go deeper in the shack.

“What is this place, Simon?”  He asked, but Simon hadn’t answered.

The shack only had the door way they had come in.  There were two windows, neither with glass in them.  Rough wooden shelves had been nailed around the walls.  A bird had nested on one of them, the rest were empty.

Day 4

NANO UPDATE: Day 3 count = 0. Day 4 count = 182 Total = 928

Of course she could not think of any reasonable reason for someone to be in her house, uninvited.  Strangers did not usually break in just to sit and rock in old rocking chairs.  Strangers broke in to steal things.

Maybe it was not a stranger at all.  Maybe someone she knew had dropped by for a visit in the middle of the night.

Sure, she thought, and maybe its Nannie herself down there, sitting alone in her rocker waiting on me to come down.  I will sit on her knee like a child and she will sing me lullabyes just like old times.

Appealing yet unlikely.

Below her the old rocking chair gave another hushed squeak, then groaned in protest.

Whoever had been sitting down there had just stood up.  Her time to flee was running out.  She tried to make her legs unfreeze so she could retreat upstairs, but they did not want to obey her.

She strained to hear footsteps, to hear if her visitor were coming closer or leaving but her carpets swallowed whatever sound might have been made.

NaNo '09 - Day 2

Day 2 Word Count:354
Total Word Count: 776
I'm sooooo far behind

--

Day 2's Writing:

A soft creak, like a tread on a stair, only she was on the stairs all alone.

Only one other thing in her house creaked like that.

Downstairs, sitting in front of the same big picture window that was letting in the moon light, was a wooden rocking chair.  Old, but not old enough to be an antique, it had belonged to her grandmother.

As a child she had spent hours sitting in her Nannie’s lap while the old woman rocked and sang soft lullabies.  The songs were always accompanied by the chair, whose left rocker had a squeak.

It was a sound she would know anywhere.  She was willing to bet she could even pick it out of a room full of other squeaky rockers.

Now, in the unknown hours of the night, in her powerless house, someone was sitting in her Nannie’s rocker.  Whoever it was was not rocking, just sitting, waiting.  Only a tiny shift of their body and an old rockers squeak told her anyone was there.

Nervously she chewed her bottom lip, unsure what to do.

Her cell phone, she was sure now, was downstairs on the table beside her computer.  She could go for it, call for help.

But the old rocking chair, and whoever sat in it, would be facing the stairs.  She would not get down without being seen and would not be able to call for help in time.

She could go back upstairs as quietly as possible and barricade herself in the bedroom.  The power would be back on eventually and she could call for help from the land line then.

Unless they came up after her.  Nothing in her house was heavy enough to hold a door forever.

Neither option was very appealing.

That was all assuming whoever sat in her favorite chair downstairs meant her harm at all.

She did not know how long the power had been out.  She did not know how long the person had been sitting downstairs.  Maybe they did not even know she was here at all.  Maybe some other reason had brought them into her house.

NaNoWriMo '09 - day one

“Why are you afraid of me?”

Sleep did not leave her in slowly shed layers as it usually did.  She woke suddenly and fully, eyes flying open to a still, dark room.  Dream fragments danced away from her, shattered by her sudden waking.

She blinked at the darkness around her.  It was still night then, or early morning.  The sun was not up yet.  Dark, but too dark.  No light shine came in her windows from street lamps outside.  There was no minute red glow from her alarm clock’s face.

The power was out on her street again.  Probably the whole neighborhood.

The only reliable thing about her power company was its unrealibility.

Groaning, she reached out in the dark and groped on her bed side table for her cell phone.  She would have to call in the outage, then sit around in the dark waiting on them to fix it. 

If they ever did.

Meanwhile, by the time they restored her service it would probably be time to get up anyway.

Why did these things always happen on work nights, she wondered, then I could just sleep through it.  And where was that phone?

Probing blindly in the dark her fingers had encountered the useless alarm clock, her glass of water, and the spine of the novel she had been reading before bed.

No phone to be found.

Downstairs then.

Silently she cursed having never brought a flashlight upstairs, or even some candles.  Even a scented aroma therapy candle would be better than the darkness offered by the center of the house.

If I don’t kill myself going down, she thought, it will be a mirical.

She paused briefly at the top of the stairs.  A thin grey light filtered in from the large picture window.  Moonlight, she realized.

Something so rarely seen in the city.  Normally its white light was overshadowed by the harsher yellow lights of the street lamps and dozens of homes and businesses burning their thousands of electric bulbs.

Natures flashlight, she thought, and started down.

Halfway to the bottom she froze with one foot on a step and one foot hovering in mid air.  Her right hand gripped the railing tightly.

Something was wrong in the house.

It is just quiet, she told herself.  You are just hearing the night noises.

Still she did not move, just strained to hear what she thought she had heard.

Nothing.

She was about to start down when she heard it again, and knew what it was she was hearing.

NaNoWriMo Kickoff

Its November 1.  NaNo is officially a go.  And I semi-officially have an idea now.

I told my husband, "I know, I'll write about a priest who is actually a werewolf.  That's never been done, right?"

He said he thought it sounded familliar, and I started laughing.

See, Stephen King's "Cycle of the Werewolf" and thus the movie "Silver Bullet" was about a priest who was a werewolf.

Well, so far I know my novel will involve a priest and a werewolf and a woman, but I have no idea how they will all connect and I still don't have a title.

PS....I'm also Trying to do NaBloPoMo this month.  Call me crazy.

NaNoWriMo 2009

Here it is again. November.

Every year I look forward to November.  I look forward to NaNoWriMo.

For those who have never heard of it, NaNoWriMo is the challenge to write a 50,000 word novel, from scratch, in a month.

I've participated every year since 2004.  I've never reached the finish line, but every year I go a little further.  One year I'll make it.  Maybe.

Meanwhile, this year I'm planning on doing it again.  Despite the fact that not only is it holiday shopping season, not only is work killing me, not only do I not have any time to write, but I'm due to have a baby on Nov. 20th, which means I can pop at any point between now and then, and I'll be sleep deprived and full of new-mommy-ness.

I'm nothing if not committed.  And might end up BEING commited.

Oh, and did I mention I don't have an idea.  Not one single solitary idea.  No plot bunnies bouncing around in my head.

I don't even have a title picked out!

So.....

Anybody got a title I can borrow?

From the Sky

From the Genre Shorties prompt: It rained today but it wasn't raining drops of water.    What was it that was falling from the sky?

--

She sat in the stall farthest from the entrance, with her feet up against the door.

They hadn’t figured out doors yet.  It had only started raining that morning, and they were still becoming whatever they were going to become.

The yellow-green stuff that fell like rain, had gathered in puddles in the yard.  Before she had retreated to the bathroom she had looked out and saw some of them down on all fours, drinking from those puddles.

She could hear them as they shuffled against the sides of the building.

It was going to be a long night.



Surprises

Daily Writing Practice
Prompt: Write about a time someone surprised you.
From: "A Writer's Book of Days"

--

The world is full of places, small dark and secretive, where surprises might hide. There are deep closets with squeaky doors that wont stay closed, and dark under-beds where dust bunnies breed.

With each place of hidden surprise comes a thing to deliver that surprise. An empty pocket of a stored winter coat might hold a folded five dollar bill. The other side of the corner at the end of a long hall might just hide the little brother who wil jump out and yell "Boo!"

The most surprising of surprises however are usually not even in the small dark and secretive places of hiden surprise. The biggest surprises have often been right with you the whole time, pretenidng not to be surprises at all.

Virvinia was threated to such a surprise one morning when her cat decided to talk to her.

She ws in the bed, trying hard to stay there until her mother came to get her. She was always the first to rise on a Saturday and both parents often scolded her for waking them too early.

She was determined to avoid another such scolding this morning.

The cat was sitting on the windowsill, washing its whiskers.

It was a fluffy white cat and had a great many whiskers, which it spent much time washing. Virginia was trying to decided if it was the dirtiest or the cleanest cat in the world. As much as it washed it surely had to be one of the two.

Watching a cat wash its whiskers wasn't terribly thrilling, and she was just about to get out of bed and risk another scolding when it stopped washing long enough to say, "The barn cats say the rats want to speak with you."

"Rats can't talk," Virginia told the cat. "They are vermin."

Right then she was so surprised she had forgotten to be surprised at all.

"Most rodents are vermin," the cat agreed. "But you have rodent royalty in your barn. You really should speak with them."

With that the cat leapt down from the windowsill and padded out of the room.

"How rude," Virginia said to herself. "He didn't even say goodbye."

It wasn't until later, when her father ungraciously booted the cat out of the kitchen for meal time that she remember that she should be surprised that the cat had spoken at all.

Short Story Writing Contest: "Rain Stories"

http://www.bookrix.com

Short Story Writing Contest: "Rain Stories"

We are proud to present the 3rd writing contest for English books: September 15th 2009 to October 15th 2009


Summer is about to end? Autumn is knocking at the door? Stormy weather and rain predicted? It is time to read a book or even write one. Take advantage of the unpleasant rainy weather and enter the latest BookRix Short Story Writing Contest for free: Tell us your rain story, turn your wordsmith powers into positive cashflow and fame. Write a story that has anything to do with rain, or Mr. Rain, or a dog named Rain, whatever.

Key Facts:

  • Anyone registered at our BookRix.com website can join the contest (except citizens of Germany, Austria and Switzerland).
  • Authors and readers can enter the competition for free and win cash money.
  • Enter a book about rain that you have already written and published or write a new rain story.

Prizes for authors:

First Prize: $1000
Second Prize: $500
Third Prize: $300


Prizes for readers:

10 Amazon vouchers each worth $20 will be raffled for free among all readers taking part in the voting process.


more information

Conditions of Entry

Space Madness

The cosmonaut opened his eyes to the glowing room and whispered, “How long?”

Instead of telling him how many decades had passed in cryogenic darkness the computer said, “June is here this morning, and the sun is shining hot.

Of his worries before launch, it had never been a fear that the computer would suffer space madness before he woke.

“What year is it?” he asked, trying for a more direct approach.

A siren alarmed with orange lights.

“You’ve said the magic word!”

He decided to go back into cryo before the computer dumped green pudding over his head, or something.

----

This was a combination for this weeks Titled Sentences Challengs and Genre Shorties.

The fun part was fining a way to get it from its origional 148 words down to 100 or fewer.

Worth 1000 Weekend


Image by Hamed Saber

RULES
1. Look at the picture about.
2. Write about the picture above.
3. Post your writing to your blog or at The Written Word
4. Please only leave a link in the Mr. Linky IF YOU HAVE POSTED A RESPONSE ON YOUR BLOG.

Worth 1000 Weekend


Image by: *honest*

RULES

1. Look at the picture about.
2. Write about the picture above.
3. Post your writing to your blog or at The Written Word
*If you post to your blog, feel free to share a link

Script Frenzy?

Having never before written a script of any kind, and having never mangaed to complete one single nano novel, am I nuts for thinking about attempting Script Frenzy?

Of course I have to get an idea.

Well, I kind of HAVE an idea, which will be about the same quality as some of the B rated horror/sci-movies like "Ice Spiders" or "Snakes on a Train" or other movies you might see on the Sci-Fi channel at some point.

Of course I'm open to ideas.

PLEASE give me ideas. -grin-

Worth 1000 Weekend


Image by: Mikelo

RULES
1. Look at the picture about.
2. Write about the picture above.
3. Post your writing to your blog or at The Written Word
*If you post to your blog, feel free to share a link


By: stephcarter

RULES
1. Look at the picture about.
2. Write about the picture above.
3. Post your writing to your blog or at The Written Word
*If you post to your blog, feel free to share a link

Worth 1000 Weekend


Image by Raindog

RULES
1. Look at the picture about.
2. Write about the picture above.
3. Post your writing to your blog or at The Written Word
*If you post to your blog, feel free to share a link


Post-it

Inspired by a combination of THIS prompt from my blog, and this weeks prompt at A Thousand Words

--

It started with an albino pigeon.

Miranda had never seen an albino bird before, and she just had to take a picture of it.

Apparently the young man on the red bike had never seen an albino bird either, because he was looking at it also, instead of where he was going. He never saw her before he ran into her.

He never saw her after he ran into her either, hopping back on his red bike and pedaling away furiously fast, as the crowd started congregating around the downed woman.

She was ministered to by strangers.

“Should we call an ambulance?” One person asked. “Do you want to go to the infirmary?” another one chimed in.

She let someone help her to her feet, checked herself over. Bruised thigh, bruised ass, bruised ego, but no blood, no breaks.

She assured everyone she was okay. The crowd, having gathered at the prospect of crushed skulls and leaking brain matter, disappeared quicker than it had formed.

The albino pigeon was gone too, only one fluffy feather dancing on an unseen air current left of its oddness. “I wonder if the picture took,” she thought, following the feathers lazy dance until it landed silently beside a bit of crushed equipment that looked a lot like her.....

“That freak!” She screamed, realizing that the crushed machine she was looking at had at one time been her blackberry.

Life, as she knew it, was over.

“It’s not that bad,” Tao assured her. Tao was her best friend, her roomate, and the only anti-cell phone Miranda she had never met.

“Not that bad!” she wailed. “My whole life was in there. My photos. My datebook. My phone numbers! That guy I met that that party on Saturday? His number was in my phone! What am I going to do if I need to write down someone’s number?”

Sighing, Tao tossed a yellow cube of paper at her. “Use post-its.” she said.

And thus, through a white bird, a red bike and a good friend, her sticky yellow nightmare began.

Worth 1000 Weekend



RULES
1. Look at the picture about.
2. Write about the picture above.
3. Post your writing to your blog or at The Written Word
*If you post to your blog, feel free to share a link

Btt #1



Do you read any author’s blogs? If so, are you looking for information on their next project? On the author personally? Something else?

I've never really found a blog by my favorite authors. I've never really LOOKED for one though. I've found some author websites (Stephen King, Dean Koontz). News sections no blogs to speak of.

First Lines To Novels We Won't Ever Finish Writing

I have nothing to write. I share with you instead:

First Lines To Novels We Won't Ever Finish Writing

Or might if only we had more hours in the day...

#01

With a lilt in his step and a song in his heart, Zachary strolled onto campus eager to start his first accounting class of the semester.

#02
Timothy was a dragon-slayer at heart. He could feel his intensity boiling his blood. He glanced down at the twelve-sided die. "You have taunted me for the last time," he muttered under his breath.
("One day, one day...")

#03

James had always wanted to fly.

#04

Beth was bored with her life. She figured the only thing possibly more boring than her life would be reading a book about it.

#05

Milton had never even dreamed of being a mushroom farmer until the day a mysterious stranger arrived in his village.

#06

"Actually, no, I'd rather stay here in the nursery," Wendy said to Peter.
("Well, fine then. Here's your thimble back.")

#07

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be ready to mingle!
("Another shot of tequila, Mr. Darcy?")

#08

It was the best of times. No, seriously, the best. The best ever.
(A Tale of Two Valley Suburbs)

#09

Call me Bob.
(Ok, Bob.)

#10

Even though he was phenomenally wealthy, had a beautiful wife and two children, and had successfully cured all forms of cancer, Dr. Tucker couldn't help but feel like there was more to life.