Fuck April.
Nov. 24th, 2008 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayhapEverything always happens to me in November.
I did bring my laptop with me to work today and wrote almost 2,000 words during breaks, so theoretically I can still win this thing. I have grown strangely fond of my novel, daft and poorly-researched as it is.
Here, if anyone is interested, is the excerpt that I posted on my NaNo profile:
“So tell me about yourself,” I said, already tired of my own life. “What’s your story? What’s your name, anyway?”
“Superman Garcia,” he said with a little bow, truncated because he was sitting crosslegged on the ground across from me. “My friends call me Manny.”
I snorted. “What friends?” I said, which was pretty rude, if I had concluded that he was not actually a vision, which I had, because a vision wouldn’t have brought me water, at least, not water that was so very wet. Still, I doubted that this weird, crazy loner had ever had many friends.
“As for my story, it is the merest prologue to what I intend to accomplish,” Superman began, self-importantly. “I come from a proud line of archaeologists, working the mines of debris a few days from here. Most of it is unusable junk, of course, suitable only to be broken down and returned to its component parts, but there are a few gems. My mother was particularly noted for her priceless finds.”
“So what are you doing here?” I interrupted. Mining was good work, dependable work. Sometimes they hired migrant workers to process some of the slag, like jerking wires out of plastic wiring and stripping the plastic coating off of it, but mostly the big mines were worked by people who knew what they were looking for, and the rest of us fought over whatever scraps we could find.
“Weren’t you listening to me? I have grander plans than picking through garbage for the rest of my life.”
“Oh, of course. How could I forget?” I took the rag bag and some other bits of bedding and made myself comfortable, reclining against the solidity of the stone wall that had been incorporated into this little alcove. “Tell me more about these plans.”
“Don’t you ever look at the ruins all around us and wonder about the people who built them?” he said. The look on his face was intense, like he was trying to see into that Before world that had collapsed all around us. “Don’t you wonder how they were able to build all of these things?”
“It was different,” I said, waving one hand helplessly. “They had some kind of magic back then, or something. You know, like in the stories. People could fly, they could move things with their minds, they could do all kinds of things. We can’t do anything like that.”
“Sure, that’s what they’d like you to think,” Superman said. “It’s not that simple.”
ETA:
Chapter One: In Which Things Happen, Decisions are Made, and Needles are Put to Unusual Uses and in Unexpected Places
Chapter Two: In Which Arguments are Had, Stories are Told, and Mysterious Portents are Observed, but not Understood
Chapter Three: In Which there are New Outfits, New Haircuts, New Worlds, New Employments, and Old Languages
Chapter Four: In Which Bread and Rules are Broken
Chapter Five: In Which Some Things are Taught and Other Things are Learned
| |
20,072 / 50,000 (40.1%) |
I did bring my laptop with me to work today and wrote almost 2,000 words during breaks, so theoretically I can still win this thing. I have grown strangely fond of my novel, daft and poorly-researched as it is.
Here, if anyone is interested, is the excerpt that I posted on my NaNo profile:
“So tell me about yourself,” I said, already tired of my own life. “What’s your story? What’s your name, anyway?”
“Superman Garcia,” he said with a little bow, truncated because he was sitting crosslegged on the ground across from me. “My friends call me Manny.”
I snorted. “What friends?” I said, which was pretty rude, if I had concluded that he was not actually a vision, which I had, because a vision wouldn’t have brought me water, at least, not water that was so very wet. Still, I doubted that this weird, crazy loner had ever had many friends.
“As for my story, it is the merest prologue to what I intend to accomplish,” Superman began, self-importantly. “I come from a proud line of archaeologists, working the mines of debris a few days from here. Most of it is unusable junk, of course, suitable only to be broken down and returned to its component parts, but there are a few gems. My mother was particularly noted for her priceless finds.”
“So what are you doing here?” I interrupted. Mining was good work, dependable work. Sometimes they hired migrant workers to process some of the slag, like jerking wires out of plastic wiring and stripping the plastic coating off of it, but mostly the big mines were worked by people who knew what they were looking for, and the rest of us fought over whatever scraps we could find.
“Weren’t you listening to me? I have grander plans than picking through garbage for the rest of my life.”
“Oh, of course. How could I forget?” I took the rag bag and some other bits of bedding and made myself comfortable, reclining against the solidity of the stone wall that had been incorporated into this little alcove. “Tell me more about these plans.”
“Don’t you ever look at the ruins all around us and wonder about the people who built them?” he said. The look on his face was intense, like he was trying to see into that Before world that had collapsed all around us. “Don’t you wonder how they were able to build all of these things?”
“It was different,” I said, waving one hand helplessly. “They had some kind of magic back then, or something. You know, like in the stories. People could fly, they could move things with their minds, they could do all kinds of things. We can’t do anything like that.”
“Sure, that’s what they’d like you to think,” Superman said. “It’s not that simple.”
ETA:
Chapter One: In Which Things Happen, Decisions are Made, and Needles are Put to Unusual Uses and in Unexpected Places
Chapter Two: In Which Arguments are Had, Stories are Told, and Mysterious Portents are Observed, but not Understood
Chapter Three: In Which there are New Outfits, New Haircuts, New Worlds, New Employments, and Old Languages
Chapter Four: In Which Bread and Rules are Broken
Chapter Five: In Which Some Things are Taught and Other Things are Learned
