NaNoWriHos

"Damn it to all hell! I fucking hate when fucking people fucking do that!"
"Yes. I know, John. You've said so about a hundred freaking times. Chill out, it's just a movie."
"It's not 'just a movie!' It's a whole big thing. It's not just about the god damn movie! I knew the guy was dead. It wasn't really all that surprising since I had seen the damn trailers, but still. People should have better manners. People shouldn't just go around giving away plots when I spent nine bucks to figure it out for myself."
"Oh god. Here we go," said sotto voice so as not to attract the wrath of a man whose movie-going experience has, he feels, been ruined.
"You know I can fucking hear you, Claire."
"...Are you hungry? I'm hungry."
"Yes, I'm hungry."
"Thank god for small favors. Less yelling, more eating, I say."
"Shut up."


At a small restaraunt near the theater, spaghetti will soothe the troubled soul of a man whose movie was ruined by the asshole in the front. The couple at the table next to him were at the same showing. They sat in the front. The man is nearing middle age. He has the look of someone who always gets his way. Not the look of someone who gets his way because he is right, and not the look of someone who gets his way because he is bigger and stronger and meaner. He has the look of someone who always gets his way because that is the only way to shut him up. The waitress is going to have to figure this out pretty quickly if she doesn't want a pocketful of wet change for a tip and a complaint to the manager on her record.
But, this waitress is not of the usual wait-staff breed. She does not care about tips (though she needs them, desperately) she does not care about her "permanent" record (though it affects raises and she needs one, desperately).
No, this waitress has been on her feet for eleven hours and she has made only sixty dollars in tips and before she can go home she has to put up chairs and sweep floors. This waitress has had her ass pinched eleven times today. This waitress has burned her hand no less than four times because the only people who order fajitas are the people too stupid to understand that "this plate is hot." This waitress reached the end of her tether roughly an hour ago and her patience is only hanging by a faint thread. And when she goes home, she will sit on the closed toilet seat and turn on the hot water tap in the bathtub. She will pour epson salt into the tub and she will soak her feet while she reads three chapters of astronomy and a third of the Illiad for classes tomorrow.
In short, this waitress is not a waitress the asshole in front is prepared to deal with, but this waitress is more than ready to deal with the asshole in front.

I'm only up to about 3,000 words so far. None of it is anything that will ever be a novel, probably, because I'm just writing about whatever comes into my head.

BUT I have written something every single day so far, which is what I was aiming for. Go me.

It is so dark. So silent. Almost eerie how so many people can be so still and so quiet all at once. Everyone is cringing in anticipation. Everyone is waiting... waiting.
An excruciatingly slow crescendo starting at the very lowest end of the hearing register. Slow movements followed by hundreds of eyes. Hearts are pounding, hands are shaking. Hands grip arms, legs, chairs, seatbacks. Everyone is so tense, so tense.
And then. Then...
"God this sucks! I hate when they just let everything build up and build up. We all KNOW he's already dead. Just get on with it already!"
The moment is over. Tension is gone, but without any real release. Breathing resumes. Gripped armrests are released. Hundreds of chairs squeak as people sit back. Popcorn is eaten, spilled. Only one speaks.
"Shut the fuck up, asshole in the front." This in a stage whisper. A few people snicker nervously. A few people mutter darkly. One person rises to the challenge.
"So kill me then, if you don't like me talking." So original. So witty.
You know, sometimes being a lucky wit can be a bit dangerous.

Help please!

Ok, I know I'm waaaaaaay behind on this nano thing. I kinda doubt I'll actually finish it or anything, but whatever. It's not like you have to pass it in at the end of the month to some prof.

I still want to write it, though, because I was really happy with the way the little blurb thing came out.

( and now I need some help with the plot, if you're all not to busy...Collapse )

I forgot to mention that I did actually start my novel on the 1st, and got maaaaaybe 150 words written before my Women In Politics presentation came along and clocked me with a shovel. I'll be all done with that on Thursday, though, so I ought to have a bit more free time soon. Bah.

This is the story of a man whose life was irrevocably
changed by a baked good. This is the story of Ted.

No, not that Ted. No. No, now you're thinking of TAD.
Ted. Ted. Ted from ACCOUNTING. Yes.

That Ted.

But first, we have to get through the bit with the mongoose.

I got back from being out of town for the weekend just a couple of hours ago. I've only written 500 words, but hey, I've written 500 words! If I do that one hundred times, I'll have 50,000 words. I'm going to eat some dinner and then write another 500. It's already rather interesting to see which plotlines buzzing in my head my fingers seem to choose.

So, there was a time long ago in history, when people were not concerned with outward appearances. Feelings were hurt with nary a care, toes trod upon without a second thought, voices raised, tantrums let fly, and no one even realized they were living in such a time. This new behavoir was so widespread that it had become the norm. This was how people behaved and no one, save a rare few, knew there was any other way. I know it may sound strange, but there are history books you don't read in school, and they tell a far stranger story than just war and peace, feast and famine.
From what scholars can surmise, the few people left in the world who had been raised in the old ways were finally able to come together. From all over the world they came, mostly women, but a few men. It has never been proven, even by the most diligent scholars, but it is believed that they came together not out of a desire to better the world, but out of a much more carnal desire indeed. Many say, though never above a whisper, that the savoirs of our race were women dedicated to some pagan god. Their god was kind and beautiful. But, he disappointed them. He never came to the rituals they celebrated in his honor. So, eventually they moved on to other things. They still loved and worshipped their god, but not with the same ardor. They began to love each other more, and it is said that this pleased the god, for though he knew himself well worthy of their attentions, he was a very kind god, and wanted nothing more than their happiness.
So, time went by. The women came together more and more often, though less and less of the celebration was dedicated to the god. In not so very many years, he became a fond remembrance, a reason for their first meeting, but little more.
Finally, one of the women spoke up. She was brave and beautiful, but very much afraid. She worried about the state of humanity. She felt that it was slowly falling to ruins around her, while she was powerless to help. Her sisters (for that is what they called themselves) were in agreement.

Uh, yeah. So, I have no idea what I'm doing here.

I've always wanted to write a book, and this seemed like a good enough way to try and do it.

BUT I NEED HELP GODDAMMIT!

All I know is this: it needs to be about a pie-making contest, and the main character is a guy named Ted From Accounting. Well, that's not his actual last name, but I think most of you have heard me blather on about the archetype of Ted From Accounting. He's as unlikely a pie-making contestant as I could come up with.

Also, for some reason I think there should be a really frenchy guy, who's obnoxious and wears really shiny shirts and (as per Sweet's suggestion) has a pet mongoose that performs pie-related sabotage on his behalf.

I guess it's pretty obvious that I want to make this a comedy.

My first major question is this: how the hell does Ted end up in a pie-making contest? I kinda wanted him to have never even tried to make a pie before, and just turn out to be naturally really really talented at it.

Help me, smarter-than-me people!

Okay. I've told myself I will write SOMETHING every single day, but I'm already looking to not have time today. I have to work till twelve thirty, and then I MUST go to the library and write my Tale of Two Cities paper. So, instead of actually writing today, which I may still have time to do, I'm just going to sorta try to get my self going.
So, I ask you, my friends, What the Hell Should I Write?
I have two good ideas. Pick one:

1. the story that's been in my head forever but that I don't know how to approach about a total social revolution coming about because this people start getting killed in movie theaters because they are rude. The social revolution isn't so much political as it will be that everyone starts to fear these cells of people who are murdering rude people (it spreads from just theaters) so they start behaving much better in public. Public manners will go back to almost Victorian obsession with appearance and good form and the world will be a better place. I can't decide if I should harp on the hypocrisy of only behaving properly because you're afraid you're going to die or if I should just assume people can figure that out themselves. *Note*: I think the voice of the book will not be any one character, and not a personal narrator, but as opinionless and impersonal as I can get it. There also won't be any real *main* characters. I'm not sure how that's going to play out. Also not sure if I should go for a textbook style history-retelling type or what. Maybe I should tell from the point of view of many years after it happens? blah. needs work.

2. I had an idea for a book written entirely from a woman's pov of herself. It'll almost be like a journal. She'll be obsessed with her weight and constantly worried about what she's eating and how she looks and what people think of her. I plan not to tell the reader if she's really overweight or if she's anorexic. If it comes out right, I expect it to show up the American/Western woman's obsession with weight and how that can totally fuck you over. Since it'll be all her voice with no narrator and no nothing, it'll be up to the reader to decide if she's right, why she thinks that way if she's wrong, and what might cause someone to be so totally obsessed in the first place. If I am as good a writer as I damn well am going to have to be do get this done, it'll be great. So I think it's going to suck.