NaNoWriMo 2021 (Day 11: 4,605/50,000)

It’s been a few days, hasn’t it? I’m afraid that’s my fault. My sleep schedule has been blown wildly off course the last few days, including that one night I fell asleep at 6pm and woke up around midnight. I’ve still been writing, I just haven’t been updating the blog here. Which is going to cause me some issues in a few minutes while I try and remember where I was at.

Not surprisingly, I ran out of ideas for who should get the pen next, so I had to switch to my “B” roll. This is a re-do of a story that a friend of mine asked for and that I wrote part of, if I remember right. The strange thing is, neither of us has any part of that story. And I’ve looked through a mountain of old USB keys, external hard drives, and internal hard drives, not to mention scouring old, old emails.

So, let’s see where we got for that adventurous pen.

Norm wiggled his beer bottle. “You want another?”

“Naw,” said Lenny. “I got to get back home and I’ll end up missing the last train if I don’t head out.”

“All right, buddy. See you tomorrow.”

Lenny hauled himself out of the booth and out the bar door onto the city street. It was fully night but lights from the shops and street lamps kept things bright. It was a little chilly and Lenny breathed the night air in. Maybe his job was in jeopardy, maybe it wasn’t, but right now he was glad he was where he was. He always felt the city got a little more magical the cooler the weather turned. 

He took a seat and watched out the window as people moved about doing their things. It seemed odd to him, right at the moment, that there were millions of people, all living their own lives even if he knew nothing about them. It almost seemed easier to believe that they stopped existing once they left his field of view. Lenny wondered, then, if that was some sort of mental illness and if there was a psychiatric term for it. There probably was. 

The train next to his started to move out and he could see more of the station. There was a coffee shop there that he hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t very crowded right now, but there were a couple of people sitting at a counter. The place wasn’t very big and that was about all that could fit in there, but there were some tables and chairs set outside of it. An outdoor cafe in an indoor train station. Lenny decided that he would have to stop there, at least once. Maybe the next time his train was late, which happened fairly often.

A man came through the train door and dropped a briefcase, a newspaper, and a candy bar on the seat in front of Lenny. Then he sat down opposite of him. Then he stood up again and took off his London Fog trenchcoat and placed it over his things. He sat down again. For a moment, he looked like he was thinking of standing up again but decided he didn’t need to. He was situated, as they say.

Reaching under his coat, he pulled out the briefcase and placed it on top of the coat. He flipped the two latches and opened it, pulling out some papers and a pen. Then he closed the briefcase and put it on his lap and used it as a desk, reading through the papers and marking things down with his pen.

To Lenny, he seemed a bit disorganized and flustered, as if that was his normal state of being. The train started to pull out of the station and he looked out the window again, watching the coffee shop disappear beyond his sight. Leaving the station, the buildings of the city could be seen again, towers of light reaching the heights of darkness. Eventually, they, too, would be left behind and the train would move through darkness.

Lenny stared out the window for the most part, aside from handing his ticket to the conductor. The trip was mostly dark, but every once in a while it passed through some town or another and lights could be seen. The train slowed down a bit during these crossings and Lenny was able to see some of the houses or shops, if it passed right through the town. He thought that he should get in the car one day and drive to these towns and check out the shops or restaurants, just to do something different. He wouldn’t, though. It was one of those things he’d think about, but never do. He wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t like he had a family chaining him down to his apartment. He was free to come and go as he chose. Not having a family also meant being able to afford jaunts like that. He sighed heavily. One day. Before he died.

He noticed, then, that his seat mate was writing on a form and then shaking his pen vigorously and looking at it as if it offended him. Then he’d try writing again and do the shaking routine. Finally, he opened the case part way and tossed the pen in there and then shuffled things around, probably looking for another pen. He looked up at Lenny.

“Say,” he said, “could I borrow your pen?”

“I don’t have a –“, he started. Then he patted his shirt pocket and remembered the pen from the bar. “Oh, yeah. Sure.” He handed the pen over to the mousey man.

The man took it and looked at the chain curiously.

“You have a thing against banks?”

“Uh, no, why?”

“Looks like this was taken from a bank. From one of those little tables they’re usually chained to.”

“Oh. I don’t know, I picked it up at a bar.”

“Well, someone liberated this fellow. His compadres are probably jealous of this guy’s freedom, wondering what he’s been up to and what he’s doing.”

Lenny looked at him and wondered if the guy was a few floors short of a skyscaper or just overly imaginative. “No doubt,” he said. “That pen probably can’t believe its luck, having seen things very few bank pens get to see.”

“It must have been very excited; it peed in your pocket.”

Lenny looked down at his shirt pocket and saw a black blob of ink at the bottom of his pocket. “Son of a…”

“Don’t blame the pen. He probably couldn’t contain himself. And it still writes, so that’s good luck.”

“Good luck, yeah,” said Lenny, not really seeing any good luck.

His seat mate went back to writing on forms. Every once in a while he’d stop and think about something, and twirl the pen around causing the short chain to whirl around like a helicopter blade. Lenny went back to staring out the window and wonder what he was doing with his life.

Soon enough, the familiar sights of his home started appearing. His stop would be up soon. He put his satchel in his lap and waited for the train to start slowing down.

The fellow across from his noticed this.

“Do you want your pen back?” he asked.

“No,” said Lenny. “You should keep it. If it comes with me, its days of adventuring will be over and it’ll be stuck in a drawer.”

The man laughed. “I’ll try and keep the legacy going, then. Have a good night.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Clem stepped down off the train car. It was late, it was dark, there was a slight chill in the air, and there weren’t a lot of other people around. The parking was well lit, though, so that was good. He walked over to his car

Bill lay on the cot and listened. It was mostly silent. He thought it was weird because he knew that, not far away, massive machinery was in motion. He should be hearing loud groans, squeeks, and screeches. Instead, he only heard the the hissing and gasping of his air supply. He knew why he couldn’t hear his ship re-configuring itself for mining duty: there was no air outside of his habitat. 

“Habitat” was a generous word for what he was sleeping in. It was barely more than a tent, although it was supposed to be a lot tougher, to withstand things micometeorites and whatever else could go flying through the vacuum of space. It had the fold-down cot, which he was now laying on, and a kitchenette of sorts. 

There was no concept of ‘day’ or ‘night’ here, with ‘here’ being an asteroid that he hoped would have a decent run of precious metals.

And there it was: he way laying on a cot in a tent on an asteroid. In space. That was something he never even considered a few years ago. During all those job interviews, he never once answered that, in five years, he’d be trying to sleep on a small dead rock in the middle of nothing. Well, not really nothing; he was in an asteroid field, so there were lots of other asteroids about. They weren’t very close, though. It’s not like he could walk out his habitat and wave at a neighbor passing by on their own asteroid. That would be pretty cool, though.

He picked up his PEA and brought up the timer. There were still several hours to go before the ship finished the configuration change. A red banner across the top of the screen informed him that he still did not have a connection to the sub-space communications net. He wouldn’t be able to watch anything or talk to anyone. He didn’t have anyone to talk to, so that wasn’t a big deal. There were people he missed back home, but he wasn’t sure they missed him. 

It was obvious he wasn’t going to be able to sleep right now, so Bill got up and looked out of the plastic window facing the ship. It didn’t look like much, just a mostly square lump. Most of the changes were happening on the inside. Ever once in a while, steam would vent out and disapate. Flood lights illuminated the area around it, but it was just flat grey landscape. Bill was glad the computers handled the landing because he was sure he wouldn’t have been able to land the massive craft on the small circular area by himself. 

“You want to do what?” asked Fred, incredulously.

“I want to mine. An asteroid,” said Bill.

They were having lunch at a bistro in the station. Bright white tables and chairs on a bright white floor, with bright white lights everywhere. Fred was wearing a jumpsuit of the style that was so popular recently. Everyone was wearing the purple grayish things these days. Bill had no idea why, but he figured they were easy to print out and, since there was nothing endearing about them, easy to toss in the recyclers at the end of the day.

“Have you lost your mind? Why?”

Bill pushed his lunch around with his general purpose utensil. He wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe noodles? Maybe dumplings? 

“It’s different,” he said.

“Different, all right. You can get killed doing that. Do you know how many miners get ejected into space when something goes wrong?”

“No. How many?” Bill asked, curiously.

“Well, I don’t know. A lot. Probably. You should look that up, maybe it’ll change your mind.”

“Don’t you ever get bored? All the white around here. Every day it’s the same thing.”

“White means clean,” said Fred. “And being the same means nothing unexpected. Nothing dangerous. Like, you’re not going to be blown out into space because something exploded when it shouldn’t have.”

“Sure, but nothing else is going to change, either. I’ll be doing the same job with no chance of doing something else or making more money.”

Fred dropped his utensil on his white plastic plate. “Oh, so you think you’re going to get rich? You think you’re going to strike a vein of, what, gold? Platinum?”

“Maybe. It could happen,” said Bill. “I’ve got a better chance of finding platinum out there than I do here.”

“How are yo going to get a ship? Mining equipment? It can’t be cheap to get all that stuff.”

“I’ve got savings. It’s not like there’s a lot of stuff around here to spend it on.”

“You should find a woman, Bill. That’s something to spend your money on.”

“Women don’t want anything from me,” said Bill. “I’ve had lots of time to prove that.”

And that’s where I’m at. With, you know, hopefully more tonight. We’ll see how that goes. Providing I don’t fall asleep at my desk at 6pm or something stupid like that.

NaNoWriMo 2021 (Day 04: 2,523/50,000)

Tough day at work, but good day for writing. I still haven’t written 1,666 words in one day, but I liked what I wrote and it was fun, so that make everything better. When writing isn’t fun, it’s really not fun. When it is fun, words just keep flowing and you don’t really want to stop.

Today’s writing was done while listening to Evol Walks.

Lenny watched the couple leave the bar and take another booth. He wished he was sitting with a pretty lady but, instead, he was sitting with Norm. Where Lenny was rather large, feeling the booth table cutting into his girth, Norm was skinny. If they weren’t as old as they were, Norm could’ve been sitting with his legs up on the booth seat and still have room to be comfortable. 

But, they were as old as they were so that wasn’t happening. Lenny cleaned his glasses with his tie while Norm built a small house out of a stack of cardboard coasters. Lenny put his glasses on and was pretty sure he had just scratched up the lenses.

“They’re going to lay us off, Norm,” Lenny said.

Norm was placing two coasters together at an angle creating a room corner. “You don’t know that,” he said.

“No, you’re right. They could fire us.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Being laid off or fired? If they don’t have anything against you, you get laid off. If you fucked up, then you get fired. No boss has ever pointed his finger at someone and said, ‘You idiot! You’re laid off!'”

“What makes you think we’ll get either?” asked Norm, placing the other corner of his room against the previous one. He was almost up to half a room. A foyer, Lenny guessed.

“Because we’re nobodies.”

Lenny and Norm, when asked what they did, usually said, “Work in computers.” People assumed, then, that they were programmers or web designers. What they actually did was fix the computers of people who had no idea of what computers did, or how they worked, even though they used them every day. 

Unfortunately, those people were dying out. Now, younger, hipper, kids were entering the workforce and they’d been using computers their whole lives. They weren’t as easy to fool. As it was, Lenny and Norm could make out like bandits by, say, disconnecting someone’s monitor. Then that person would call the help desk and Lenny or Norm would show up, tut tut over poor workmanship over there in China, and order a new monitor. Then they’d replace it and take the old one home, if it was better than what they already had. This worked out because nobody knew what happened to old, broken hardware. Not even their bosses. 

But now, with these new people, they check things like that first. And usually fix it on their own. If something is legitimately busted then it didn’t do Lenny or Norm any good and the part when into the storage closet that, while large, was beginning to bulge. One day they would have to figure out what to do with all that crap. If they didn’t get laid off first. Or fired.

“I gotta headache,” said Lenny. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a bottle of aspirin he bought earlier. Or acetaminophen. Or whatever it was people were taking these days. When he was a kid it was always aspirin, and that was always good enough. He struggled to open the cap and, when he got it off, he was presented by a silvery covering over the bottle opening. “Jesus,” he said. He pressed his thumb into it, which made a dent but stretched underneath it. He tried again with different fingers, wishing he hadn’t trimmed his nails at lunch. 

“What the fuck?” He slammed the plastic bottle down and took a gulp of beer.

Norm looked up from placing a roof on what appeared to be a ground level master bedroom. “What’s up?”

“This tamper proof crap. It’s indestructible. They should make bullet proof vests out of this crap. If hymens were like this, nobody would ever have kids.”

“Go get a knife. It’s a bar, someone is gonna have one.”

Lenny looked at the table where there was no silverware. He looked over at the bar. They had to cut limes and stuff, surely there’d be a knife over there. He squeezed out of the booth and approached the bar. He tried to get the attention of the bartender, but he was busy making nice with some blonde chick. In frustration, he drummed his fingers on the bar top, hitting something.

He looked down and saw a pen with a small bit of silver chain dangling off the end. A pen could work. He picked it up and walked back to the booth where Norm was busy adding a two car garage to his house.

After squeezing into the booth, he took the pen and violently stabbed the silver membrane with the pen, making a hole. After that, it was easy work to grab pieces of the material and tear it away from the mouth of the bottle. Subconsciously, he put the pen in his shirt pocket.

Lenny shook two pills out of the bottle and washed them down with some beer.

“Uh, I don’t think you’re supposed to do that,” said Norm.

“Do what?”

“Take medication with alcohol. It should be water.”

“Beer is water, mostly. And it’s not medicine, it’s aspirin. Or something like it. Whatever. I’ll take my chances.”

NaNoWriMo 2021 (Day 03: 1,666/50,000)

Here it is, day three. I didn’t post last night because I didn’t write a lot and it was my birthday, so I felt entitled to not post anything. What I did write I wasn’t particularly happy about. It was just part of a boring conversation that didn’t go anywhere. But words are words, right?

So, as a recap, I’m trying to write for an hour every day. Whatever I get in that hour is what I get, and I should be happy about it. This means I’m technically behind. In fact, I have about a day’s worth of writing in three days. This… is actually better than I thought it would be. So that’s a plus.

The negatives are, FocusWriter is not working for me. It would be fine, except for two things:
1. I can’t increase the size of the text. Normally, this is not an issue. However, if I’m working in full screen I’d like for the text to be larger so I don’t have 90% of the screen just blank.
2. The “smart” quotes seem to be causing an issue. I can’t use single quotes. This makes typing things with contractions look like this: How”s it going? And that just annoys the shit out of me.

So I ditched FocusWriter and switched to GhostWriter. It’s a little better, once I figured out how the colors worked. And, as a QA person, the color selection thing is shit. But single quotes work and I can increase the text size, so that’s good. I’ll continue on with it. Other than that, Haiku on my Atari computer is working out just dandy. So, on we go.

Alice sat in one of the plastic chairs, next to another woman who was looking at something on her phone. Alice took her own phone out and started checking messages and emails and browsing the web until she got bored. The chair was uncomfortable. She began to question why she was there at all.

“Do you come to these things often,” asked the woman next to her.

“What? Oh, no,” said Alice. “I`ve just started, really. You know, trying to figure out if this is what I want to do. What about you?”

The woman smile, “Yeah, I keep trying and hoping I get a part.”

“Have you ever gotten one?”

The woman shook her head. “No, not yet. But I`m hopeful. It`s what I`m meant to do.”

“How many of these have you been to?”

“Oh, about a dozen or so.”

“That sounds like a lot,” Alice said. “My name is Alice, by the way.”

“Patrice,” said the other woman. “It`s nice to meet you.”

“Same. So, how do you find out about these things? I”m only here because I saw an ad posted on a bulletin board in a coffee shop.”

“I have a whole network set up to let me know when auditions are being held. Contacts, email lists, alerts. You name it, I get it. Oh! There`s another one after this, if you`re interested?”

“Aren`t you afraid of competion?”

Patrice chuckled. “Not at all. It`s a number game, really. See, they`re looking for someone specific. Maybe it`s me, maybe it isn`t. I won`t know, though, until I show up.”

“What do you mean by someone specific?”

“Oh, like, they’re looking for someone specific. Like, a specific look or attitude. And you either have it, or you don’t.”

“Ah, I see. So, the more I go on, the better the chance of being ‘it’ I have.”

“That’s right!”

“In that case, sure, what’s the one you’re talking about?”

“Do you have a pen?” asked Patrice. 

She pulled a square of Post-It notes out of her purse. Alice gave her the pen from her purse. Patrice looked oddly at the chain for a second, then shrugged and wrote something on the top sheet of Post-Its and handed it back to Alice.

A door opened and a head poked out. “Patrice?”

“Ooh, that’s me. Good luck, honey!” She stood up and hurried over to the door.

Alice checked her phone for a few minutes when the head came through the door again. 

“That’s it folks, we’re done for the day. Go on home.” 

She gathered up her purse and started towards the hallway door. “Shit,” she said. “She took my pen.”

The light in the bar was dim, despite the abundance of neon signs that lined the wall. A vintage Rock-Ola jukebox was spinning tunes from the 1970s. It was pretty early, so it wasn’t very busy yet. Patrice sat at the bar, holding her phone to her ear and sipping a martini.

“Just grab some people and come down to The Big O,” she said. “No, this time I’m celebrating. I got a part! Yeah! No, it’s a small thing, but it’s something. No, it’s not a tampon commercial. Don’t be crass.”

She put the phone down on the bar next to her martini glass. She was excited and there was no one there to be excited at. There was nothing to do but sit there, antsy, waiting for her friends to show up. That could take a while because they all had jobs.

But she had a job now, too! Granted, it wasn’t steady work and it didn’t pay a lot, but it was a stepping stone on her way to a career. And it wasn’t flipping burgers or being a waitress. Not that she had anything against those jobs. She like hamburgers and eating out as much as anyone, it just wasn’t something she wanted to do. Besides, she’d already done her time there. 

Patrice ate the olive off the toothpick out of her martini. She didn’t really like martinis, but they came with free food. She wasn’t particularly fond of olives, either, but she wasn’t aware of any drinks that came wih pineapple chunks.

A body sidled up next to her. “So, you’re an actress, huh?”

She glanced over at the guy. He was average looking but dressed nicely. 

“Do you always eavesdrop on people’s conversations?” she asked him.

“No, but you were talking kind of loud.”

“It’s that damn jukebox,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder with her thumb. “It drowns everything else out.”

“All I heard was that you got a part,” he said. “Nothing at all about it not being a tampon commercial.”

“One day I hope to make it up to one of those,” she said. “This is actually my first gig.”

“Congratulations,” he said. “Are you worried about being able to memorize your lines?”

“Not in this case,” she said. “I don’t have to say anything.”

“Huh. Did you have to read for it?”

“Nope, just had to stand there. It turns out, I had ‘the look’.”

“Hey, whatever gets you there. So, can I buy you a drink?”

“Do you know of any drinks that come with pineapple?”

“Ah, I do not,” he confessed.

“Then I’ll have another martini.”

He flagged down the bartender and ordered another round of drinks. 

“Would you like to hang out in my booth over there?”

“Yeah, all right,” said Patrice. She picked up her phone and dropped it in her purse, but it didn’t go all the way in. She took out the pen that was obstructing it and placed it on the bar before heading off to the booth.

NaNoWriMo 2021 (Day 01: 719/50,000)

This is a lot less stressful when I’m not counting words. Anyway, I had a day long meeting today, so chances to write were slim to non-existent. Couple that with the ‘fun’ walking I’m supposed to be doing every day so my ‘team’ can… win something? I’m still not sure how all that is supposed to be working. Anyway, this is what I crammed in today.

            Chet pushed through the aluminum and glass door to the bank and walked straight to the table with the deposit slips. He looked around, nervously, trying not to look nervous. Reaching the center of the lobby where the slips were stored, he took one out of its slot and flipped it over so that the blank side was up. Then he took one of the pens out of its holder and placed the point on the slip. A chain, which secured the pen to the table, was draped over the back of his hand. He flicked his hand making the chain jump, but it laid back down on his hand.

            He started to write, and then paused. What should he write? “This is a stick up,” or should he skip the whole explaining part and go straight to, “Give me all the money in the till”? Chet didn”t know; he wasn”t a bank robber by trade, just an unfortunate individual in unfortunate circumstances.

            Flicking his hand again, he sent the chain writhing like a small silver snake. That was the thing, wasn”t it? He wasn”t a criminal. He never wanted to be a criminal, he was just at the end of his rope after being laid off and not being able to find another job. And the bills keep piling up and he has a family that needs to be taken care of. So what else could he do?

            The chain rubbed against his hand. In a fit of sudden rage, Chet yanked on the pen, snapping the chain and leaving a small stub attached to the pen. This was stupid. He”d probably end up dead, shot by an over zealous guard. Or hunted down by the police. He”d find another way.  Right now, he just wanted to go back home to his wife and his kids.

            Crumpling the paper in one hand and still grasping the pen in the other, he turned away from the little table and strode through the bank doors. Turning and walking along the sidewalk he realized he was still holding the writing supplies. He threw them both at a trash can as he passed it. Neither of them went in.

            She hurried down the street, deftly weaving between the people who weren”t in as much of a rush as she was.

            “Just text me the info,” she said into her phone. “I don”t have a pen or paper! Just text it! How can you have a phone and not know how to text? That”s, like, the most important part of them. Oh my God!”

            She stopped at a corner in a throng of people waiting to cross the street. “Look, just… hang on.”

            Stooping down in her too tight dress, she picked a pen and scrap of paper off sidewalk. The small bit of dangling chain gave her a moment of curiousity which lasted as long as it took her to brace the paper against the pole for the walk sign.

            “Okay, give me the info.” She wrote something on the paper while balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder. “Great. Okay, thanks. I”ll talk to you later.” She folded the paper and dropped it into her small purse along with the pen.

            She looked at the paper then looked up at the number above the door. She stepped through the doorway into a narrow dingy yellow hallay and made her way to the ancient elevator. She rode it up to the floor and stepped out into another dingy yellow hallway. She looked at the paper again and walked down the hallway looking for the office she was supposed to go to.

            Finding it, she pushed open the door and stepped into a small office with plastic chairs lining the walls. There were more women here than she liked, but she pushed on in and approached a desk with heavyset woman looking at papers.

            “Hello,” she said. “I”m here for the reading.”

            The woman didn”t look up. “Name?”

            “A-lease Bonton”

            The woman looked through her tortoise shell glasses, which had a thin chain attached to the temples that wound underneath her hair. “Spell that?”

            “A-l-i-c-e,” said Alice.

            The woman looked at her over her horned-rim spectacles. Then she made a mark on a piece of paper. “Go ahead and have a seat.”

My Writing Set Up

Oh Dear…

Now there’s two days. Or maybe a day and a half. Let’s just round it off and say one day. One day until November. One day to come to a decision of what I want to do. One day to come up with some sort of plot for some kind of story. One day to figure it all out.

Most of that isn’t going to happen. What will happen, though, is me making a decision on if I will participate in NaNoWriMo this year. And the answer is: Yes, until I give up. This year, however, I’m going to go for a different goal. I will not worry about getting to 50,000 words by the end of November. I will not worry about keeping a minimum of 1666 words a day. What I will worry about, is a minimum amount of time spent writing a day. Like, an hour. That sounds like a good amount of time.

I figure this will be better. For one reason, I probably won’t spend a solid hour writing. But, if I set aside the time each day and write for part of it, doing nothing else, then I’ll consider that a win. That way, I can sit back and say, “Okay, I spent an hour writing” and be happy about it. I won’t have to look at an anemic word count and feel like a failure.

Also, it’s possible that by sitting there doing nothing but trying to write, I may get my groove back and actually write a lot. That would also be a win, in my opinion.

Back in my high school days, I took a typing class. The funny thing about the class was, it didn’t have a teacher for a long time. I don’t remember what happened to the person that was supposed to be teaching it, but she didn’t show up. For a while the class was unsupervised, or supervised by substitutes who didn’t know anything about typing. So we, the students, were left to our devices quite often.

I would practice typing by writing out some nonsense words that eventually turned into weird little stories. The people who saw them were amused by them, for the most part. It’s been something that I do, since then. Like, if I have to write filler text for something at work, it’ll usually be some kind of goofy short story.

Reading through Reddit, it appears a lot of people worry about rules. I do not. At least, not for this. I know there’s no NaNo police that are going to knock down my door if I don’t do things “by the book.” I understand why there is a ‘book’, but I believe that some of these rules are meant to be bent, if not broken. And, to be blunt, if I’m not winning a prize for my hard work, then I’m gonna bend as many damn rules as I can this year. The only thing I care about is getting back into writing.

If you find yourself in the same sort of situation, where you sit there staring at blank page feeling frustrated that you just can’t think of anything to write to get to that 1,666th word, I’d advise you to do the same thing: switch to a time a limit. Or set aside several blocks of twenty minutes and see how many words you can cram in that time span. Make it a game and try and beat your ‘score’.

For me, NaNoWriMo is supposed to be fun. I feel a lot of that fun had been leeched away by reading about professional or semi-professional writers using it as a way to bolster their own writing into something to be published. This can be discouraging, I think, when you have no plans on ever getting anything you write in a month to be published or making money off of it.

When I think about the first time I did NaNoWriMo, it was fun. I just wanted to see if I could complete it (it was the only one I’ve completed), and it was a horrible story about a group of adventurers working their way through caverns and dungeons. It was painful, at times, but still, I had fun doing it. I don’t think I’ve had fun doing it since then. So, maybe, I can turn that around this year.

October?

Well, it’s midway through October. This is usually the time when I start wondering if I should bother participating in NaNoWriMo.

I haven’t completed a NaNoWriMo since my first attempt, which was a long time ago. It doesn’t, then, make a lot of sense to try again. Especially since I don’t plan on doing anything with whatever I come up with, even if I did finish.

On the other hand, I kind of enjoy it. I can block out a space of time and say, “I’m a writer!” Then I can feel important. So, I will waffle on and see what happens.

I’ve actually wanted to do it using unusual tools. Like, in an Atari ST emulator using a period word processor. Or Amiga. I think that would be a lot of fun. But, then, I have the Atari VCS with Haiku and FocusWriter along with a really groovy keyboard, so that sounds like fun, too.

The year that I did finish, I went all out. I even went to write-ins, hoping to get some social time stuck in. I never did, though. People just wrote and wrote and wrote and left. But it was nice being around other people, I guess. Now, I live further away from people so that, along with the remnants of the pandemic, will probably quash any idea of going to one.

I could host a write in, if people didn’t mind sitting outside. I’d probably spend more time making snacks and coffee and keeping the fire pit lit (still never lit it up, by the way) than writing, though. That’s assuming anyone showed up, which they probably wouldn’t. Maybe if I told them they could pet the cats?

Maybe… it would make sense to post here what I’ve written each day? Maybe that would be a further incentive. I’ll have to think about that one. The worst that happens is that you’ll probably understand why I give up.

I actually used an Atari ST for quite some time and I know I had a word processor for it, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was. I’m not even sure which one I used the most on the Atari 400 or 130XE, although I suspect it was AtariWriter. I think I had a ‘type-in’ one for the VIC-20.

Come to think of it, the VCS has Chrome so I could write using Google Docs (or, presumably, Word or Pages) then switch over to Centipede: Recharged as a reward for getting a paragraph down. At that point, though, Black Widow: Recharged should be out. It’s probably better to stick with Haiku, where I don’t have any games.

Of course, Forza Horizon 5 will also be out next month…

It turns out, in addition to FocusWriter, the same author has a word tracking utility called Novprog. It’s QT based and compiles without issue on Haiku, so I reckon I’ll add that to the arsenal. If I had even the faintest idea of how to make a package, I’d make one and try it get it on HaikuDepot. Unfortunately, I find the tutorials on making such a thing too mystifying to follow.

Snippits

The other day I was just puttering around with Haiku and whipped this up real quick. I’m not sure where it’s going or what to do with it, just yet.

The Tricky Coyote

            Trace sat in the back of the pickup, propped up on all-weather cushions and drinking from a bottle of Pearl beer. He watched the sunset. It was something he enjoyed a lot, since he spent all his time alone, anyway. Sitting there, watching the colors in the west deepen and meld into the darkness of night, when the bright lights of the stars came out.  After a day of mending fences, Trace felt it was the best way to end the day. He hoped that, somewhere, somebody was enjoying this just as much as he was.

            Few people knew of the Tricky Coyote, despite it being a fairly large building and lit up with florescent lights; most notably, the sign that showed the back of a coyote, outlined in white, who, every few seconds, would look over his right shoulder and giving a bawdy wink.

            Walking past the coyote and through the rickety doorway, there were wooden tables, chairs, and a long bar. All things one would expect to see in a hole-in-the-wall type establishment. It wasn’t until one walked further back that things started to look a bit off.

            For instance, there were circular booths back there. It wasn’t until one got closer that it was clear that the bottom of the circular benches were sunk a foot or two into a circular depression. It was at that point you might realize that the normal looking guy sitting in it was a great deal taller than you originally thought. Stranger still, on the table was another table and a chair of about six inches. Sitting on that chair was what you hoped was a doll, but was actually another person. Just, very small.

            “I’m not sayin’ you have it easy,” said the small figure, with a hint of a slur. “I’m sayin’ you got it easier.” He stressed the ‘er’ part of the word while punctuating his point with a wave of the small mug he was holding.

            “Oh, please,” grumbled the larger figure. “I can’t walk amongst the mortals without being noticed. I just want to go shopping and I have to put up with  all kinds of comments about ‘the weather up there’ or playing on the basketball team.” He took a sip from a larger mug. “You, you can pretend to be a human child.”

            The smaller figure sputtered out his drink. “Human child! I don’t look like a human child, I look like a human child’s toy! You just look tall!”

            “Maybe so, but you can sneak around and not get noticed. Also, your bar tab tends to be cheaper.”

            “Yer right about that,” laughed the smaller figure.

The Time I Nearly Died

I was washing the dishes while Zoey pecked at my hair and tried to measure the width of my nose with her beak when I was reminded (for no reason that I can fathom) of the time I nearly died. I think I’ve only ever told one person about this, and I’m not sure they believed it.

It happed long ago. I guess it was a hot day, or something, because I popped an ice cube into my mouth and then headed into the garage to play some games on either the Atari VCS or the ColecoVision (I don’t remember which). There was, I think, a short step down into the garage which I probably forgot about and stumbled. This caused the ice cube to slip down my throat.

No, no, not this Ice Cube

I started gasping and choking, just trying to either get some air in past the ice cube or to cough it up. Neither was happening. I’d like to say that I saw my life (such as it was at the time) flash before my eyes, or realize how stupid it would be to die by ice cube, but I was really much more interested in trying to breath.

The Murder Weapon

Luckily, the ice cube melted just enough to slip down the rest of my throat and I was able to gasp and wheeze, happily sucking in new air. The whole ordeal lasted just a few seconds, but it was a pretty scary few seconds.

It wasn’t until later that I realized how bizarre it would have been if it had killed me. The family would have found my dead body, asphyxiated, with no obvious cause. It would have been the mystery of the century. Unless it’s happened to other people; in that case, I’d just look like another person who choked on a cube of frozen water.

My dad was big on mysteries. Maybe he would have figured it out. He used to get me books with “One Minute Mysteries” in them. Short stories that were more interested in the how of people being murdered, rather than the why.

Now that I’ve thought about it for a few minutes, I guess if I had passed out due to lack of air, I would have fallen down and hit my head on something. They probably would have ruled the bonk on the noggin as cause of death, without looking any further. That would have been a bummer. For several reasons.

So, the next time you feel like chomping on an ice cube, remember this story. And beware! Or, at least, chisel a hole in the ice cube first.

NaNoWriMo 2020 Wrap Up

You’re probably wondering what happened since day 17. Nothing much, really. I just found myself writing late into the night and, by the time I was done, I was too tired to update the blog. Then it became a choice of writing in the blog or writing for the story. So the story won out.

I did not make it to fifty-thousand words. I ended up with 33,876 of them, though. Some days I just wasn’t feeling it, so only managed a hundred words or so. That sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. It’s like a paragraph.

I did, however, learn a few things. For instance, if I do this again next year, then I’ll probably do more planning. The parts that were easy to write were things that I thought a lot about while sitting in traffic. Once I got past that, things got more difficult because I didn’t have a solid plan. Most of what I write are short-short stories, and they just fly out of my head in one stream. That’s easy, because they’re short.

Longer things, for me, would benefit from a good thinking about what is going to happen.

Scrivener’s analysis

The NaNoWriMo Analysis

So how do I feel about failing miserably yet another year? Pretty good, actually. This time I didn’t ditch it halfway through. I wrote something every day, even if I didn’t like it or feel like it. The first time I did NaNo, I did “win” and the story was absolute garbage. This time, I feel like the concept has legs (so to speak). It won’t win any awards, but that’s all right. It’s barely a first draft.

Day 17: Bump In The Road (26,434/50,000)

It’s late so I have to hurry this up. Didn’t write much today, for various reasons. But at least I got something done. I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out how to wrap up the whole parasite thing and get back to the waking world.

The inside of the cabin was surprisingly nice. A table, a couple of comfy chairs in front of a lit fireplace, and rustic looking knick knacks adorned the place. He had to hand it to the nanites, they really knew how to decorate a place. He set Mr. Lamp down on one of the side tables and fell into one of the chairs. It was pretty comfortable, but he was too keyed up right now to fall asleep. He wondered how far along the nanites were in cleaning out his system. Or if they found a parasite. 

This definitely wasn’t the Earth he had left, so many years ago. At least, he was pretty sure there were no suicidal parasites living in apples. How would something like that even come about? Was it nature doing its thing? Was it a science experiment gone wrong? Larry didn’t think he’d ever find out the answer to that.

It also meant he couldn’t be as careless as he’d been. Even the nanites couldn’t protect him from everything, it seemed. This wasn’t his Earth, anymore, and there were probably a lot of dangers he didn’t know about. He didn’t really belong on Morto, with their odd way of living. Now it’s looking like Earth isn’t his place, either. Maybe he didn’t really belong anywhere. Except floating around in space by himself. 

But, he’d only been here a couple of days. He hit one snag, he probably shouldn’t be making judgments so quickly. He’d see how it went if he recovered from this current thing. 

Now he was getting bored, just sitting around looking at the fire and feeling sorry for himself. He looked around to see if there was anything he could do. Nope. Not a thing. This wintery cabin was too authentic. Larry pushed aside a curtain and looked out the window. There was a lot of snow out there. Nothing but snow as far as the eye could see. Except for that polar bear that was ambling around.

He watched it as it trundled towards the cabin. He could see it was wearing a yellow sun hat as it got closer. It got to the door of the cabin and knocked on the door. “Herroo neighbor, do you have a bowl of oatmeal I could borrow?”

“Well now this is just getting silly,” said Larry. He went over to the end table.

“Hey, Mr. Lamp?”

“Yes?”

“I think it found us again. There’s a stylish polar bear at the door.” 

“Already? All right. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Say, how far along are you with the poison and possible parasite thing?”

Mr. Lamp seemed to think a minute. “Well, we’re doing pretty well with the hallucinogen. We’re pretty sure there is a parasite and that it works with the fruit, somehow. There’s a squad digging through your brain right now, searching for it.”

“You could probably phrase things a little better. How long until I can go to sleep? I’m pretty bored.”

“Neighbor? Are you ignoring me?” Called the polar bear, still at the door.

“Also, it probably won’t be long before it realizes it can just bash the door down.”

“All right, hang on.”

They were on a tropical island. Palm trees waved in the slight breeze and the sound of the ocean lapping on the shore drifted over them.

“Well, this is nice,” said Larry.

“Thanks. Well, try and keep yourself occupied for a little while longer. Then, I think, we’ll be in a better place and you can get some sleep.”

“Is it safe to go swimming?”

“Um, sure. Should be. At least until the parasite shows up.”