NaNoWriMo Excerpt/Update Thread

Hamelin

I'll keep this updated with excerpts and whatnot, just for you, my Orange Beltish friends.
November 1st - 2:00 AM EST:

The first two hours of writing has drawn to a close, with me clocking in at ~1500 words. If I consistantly keep at that rate, I'll be done in 67 hours.

Ha, like I'd do it all at once, I'm going to bed. But the day's not over yet!

Oh, and furthermore, things like what Stef mentioned above about the cookies, I want things like that, seemingly mundane things that can be expanded on so much more than something way out there and fantastic, things that can be far more interesting that most people would give them credit for.

Here's an excerpt for you to eat with your eyes.

She wasn't the hottest girl around, she would say so to us relatively often. My roommate would disagree, as boyfriends always do, despite her persistence. But the way she carried herself with all that bursting enthusiasm and boundless confidence more than made up the difference, and did plenty enough to turn quite a few heads around campus. On more than a few regular occasions the guys from around campus would make passes at her, but she shunned them like they were felons; the girl loved my roommate more than I've ever seen anyone love anybody. Besides, they had more than enough reason to back off after hitting on her once, even with the relationship she was already in.

Oh, if only her character traits would have stopped there, things would have been a little quieter around our house, but it was not to be. Sarah wasn't an air-headed trophy girlfriend, by any means. The relationship between her and my friend was one of complete respect that the jerks who hit on her couldn't even begin to imagine by just looking her over.

She was an engineering graduate student. I would have figured it out even if she hadn't told me the first time we were introduced to each other. Something about the way she... existed, for lack of a better word, simply oozed physics and science and math, and all the things that come with holing yourself up in a lab to work on god knows what scientific endeavor for eighteen hours straight until your eyes nearly bleed from staring at a computer screen. Sometimes I wish she would have come home after a long day of working on one of her projects for class, with blood pouring out of her eyes. Just one time through that door with red gushing out of her sockets and I would have felt that my perception of her would have been completely validated in an instant. I think she came close to it once or twice, but I have yet to see any blood.

The day that my best friend picked me up of the street near the liquor store Sarah was engaged in the engineering lab on the third floor of the science building with some sort of experiment involving magnets or lasers or sound waves. Something along those lines, I never really understood what she was talking about when she'd gush on about gravity this and energy that and how this robotic arm setup worked so much better than that nearly identical but not as awesome robotic arm.

Edit: Day one is over! Final word count for the day: 2650 words.

Hamelin

November 2nd - 5:40 PM EST:

The first draft of the Prologue and Chapter 1 are done. I need more ideas folks, I have some, but I know you all have excellent ideas for me to incorporate into my novel.

Excerpt! It's slightly annoying that the indentations I have in my file don't copy over when pasting into the forum.

Leon charged up the stairwell with amazing ease, He wasn't all that muscular, but he was fit enough to hold his own in a foot race and the five flights of stairs between the ground floor and Sarah's haunt halfway up the building went by like they were barely there. The students sitting around in the lounge jumped clear out of their chairs as the door slammed open and my roommate rushed into the room. Three girls screamed at him as he frantically looked around for Sarah and found her, holding the box of meringue cookies in her hands like they were causing her pain simply by existing.

"Sarah! Oh my god!" he panted, "You have to... to look--"

"Not now puddin'!" She cut him off with a look of extreme perturbation on her face, "I'm busy!"

Leon stammered, the run up the stairs suddenly affecting him as his adrenaline wore off, "But sweetie, there's a guy on the roof and--"

Sarah made a face. "This is more important! These damn cookies have been sitting on my desk for a month, and I keep eating them even though they're so horrible! I'm getting rid of them once and for all!" And, with an over-dramatic flourish, Sarah threw open the window and stuck her head and torso clear through it.

"The trash is too good for these vile things!" and with an almost inhuman laugh, she thrust the cookies to the ground below as her peers looked on and cheered.

She looked down as they fell. "Hey... what're all those people doing in front of the --"

Sarah screamed as her legs jerked off the floor, her whole body forcefully yanked out the window.

Current Word Count: 3060 words, and the day's not over yet. I have to get at least 3400 to be on schedule, and I intend to get more than that before midnight.

stef

Dude! Old meringue cookies really are that gross!

It's a good start. I look forward to reading more.

hlavco

This story's getting interesting. I meant to post sooner, but forgot.

Puddin'.

Drooling Iguana

Is Sarah going to invent something SCIENCE!-y which will lead to whacky adventures and/or hijinks?

Hamelin

Maybe, I haven't decided yet. I'd like to keep this story somewhat realistic, but I'm not opposed to some wacky science.

I don't want to make a surreal story, but I am leaning towards Magic Realism, not to say I want any magic in my story, but I'm not against totally absurd situations that no one ever seems to question.

Anyhow, the second day of November is over! My current word count as of midnight is 4298 words. I'm a whole 8.59% towards the bare minimum!

I'm having fun with this so far, I haven't enjoyed myself so much in a while, it feels good. I hope I can keep the pace up.

Here's a quote from what is currently unfolding as Chapter Two. This part is set a long time prior to the events of the story, a sort of flashback, if you will.

Standing before me, drenched from the rain, was this red-headed girl struggling to balance two suitcases and a duffel bag in her arms. She was astoundingly pretty, but looked as if a train had run over her, then backed up and done it again a few times. The party dress she had on over her shapely frame was ripped and torn in more than one place, her long hair was disheveled and soaked, the mascara around her dark green eyes was running and someone had managed to give her a black eye recently. It looked as if was she sobbing, although it may have just been the rain, everything about her told me that her entire world had just shattered and the raindrops that were falling on her head were each a piece of it, slamming into her with abandon as they dropped to the ground in a mangled, glittering heap.

There I was, standing at the front door in my pajamas with this waterlogged girl staring back at me like I was the only solid thing in a five mile radius. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure what to do with her, I was tired, a bit confused, and she looked a bit scary under what light was shining off the street lamps. I hesitated for a moment, waiting for her to say something, but she just stared back at me with a wholly distant look in her eyes. We just stood there staring at each other, me in the doorway, her on the porch with the rain pouring down.

It may have been a minute, it could have been ten, but I finally collected my senses and broke the silence.

"Would you like to come inside?" I asked, timidly.

She didn't say a word, but left her bags in the rain, walked past me into the house, kicked off her heels and dropped herself on the couch in a soggy heap.

Hamelin

I have fallen below the average amount needed to keep up at this thing due to a busy weekend, but I will persevere!

Current tally is 5736 words.

Having decided to walk to and from work that day, as I often did, I exited the student union building where the print shop was located and was greeted with an ominous roar from the sky that had not been around when I left this morning. I groaned as I realized that a storm was totally heading my way and took off at a fast walk, hoping I'd get back to the house before the rain started coming down.

Less than a minute away from campus the first drops hit the ground and I started running.

By the time I got home ten minutes later I was soaked head to toe, and it seemed as if all the clouds in the sky had been slashed open with a huge knife and their entire contents were pouring down on me. I threw open the door, gasping for air after the nearly two-mile run, and ran to my room to change. My house mates, who were all home at the time, gave me some good-natured teasing as I trailed puddles of water across the wood floor.

Ten minutes later I was dry enough, and came out of my room in the nice button-up shirt and pair of slacks that I was planning on wearing out to dinner that night, with a tie and everything. I found a big mug of hot chocolate waiting for me on the coffee table, care of Sarah, the only good cook in the house, and said thank you as I sat down and took a few sips from it.

Sarah lifted her head off Leon's shoulder and looked towards me, away from the game he was playing on the television.

"Red said she'd be a little while, she's getting ready for--."

"For your date, eh buddy?" Without looking away from his game, Leon cut her off, "Good job man."

"Shut up! It's not a date." Sarah punched Leon in the shoulder. He looked unaffected, but I knew he was wincing inside. Sarah hits hard.

I just looked at the both of them as they started playfully hitting each other, ready to intervene before someone accidentally took a shot to the mouth. It happened often enough for me to know the signs, but thankfully, for my sake, Leon went back to his game before I had to break out the peroxide.

"At this rate, you're going to kill each other one day." I half-joked, seeing the truth in my statement. Both of them were too rowdy.

"Well, if you take me down, I'm bringing you with me, right?" Leon squeezed his girlfriend's shoulder.

"Right, same for you, puddin'!"

While cute, their exuberance was a bit unsettling. I turned to the game Leon had on the television and drank my cocoa in order to cut off the conversation. He was playing some old-fashioned side-scroller, one of those ones where you play a Rambo-like dude with infinite ammo who has to run through umpteen thousand levels and shoot a bunch of big shiny bosses before he can rescue the president from ninjas. It was the sort of game that had the personality of cardboard, but was fun anyway.

hlavco

I think the "totally" in the first paragraph breaks the character of the rest of the story. It doesn't seem to fit too well.

Hamelin

WORK IN PROGRESS!

Thanks though, I'm not really much of a revisionist in regards to my own stuff sometimes, so small things that I tend to overlook are alright with me.

That was the only occurrence of the word totally in the story used in that context, and now it is gone. None of my characters are valley girls, damn it.

Agentcel

What game was he playing?

Great story though...you have the stuff that it takes to be an awesome author!

Hamelin

He is playing an indeterminate Contraish game. I prefer to be as vague as possible, letting details take the place of an actual name.

X'o'Lore

That is the best way to go.

hlavco

Makes for a higher word count as well.

X'o'Lore

If he simply listed off the name of some game, It would close the story off to some people who may not know that particular game. Just remember "Show, don't tell."

Keep up the good work Hamelin. I'm slightly sad that I am not partaking in this writing event myself. Perhaps next year.

Hamelin

I hit 8,500 words right before midnight, I'm still behind, but if I write the same amount I did today for the next few days, or a whole bunch more tomorrow, I'll be back on track

A quote wherein there is action! I normally don't use cursing very much, but considering the situation I decided on it here in this scene. The first line is dialog from Red, it'd be apparent if I had the line preceding it in here too.

"What the hell are you doing here?!"

Blondie stood up from his place at the frat table and walked out into the aisle. His friends watched intently, as did most of the restaurant within earshot.

"Reddie, I told you--"

"Brent! What the hell!"

"Listen, I--"

"No! You cheated on me! Twice!"

"That girl didn't mean--"

"Don't give me that crap. You're an asshole!"

I stepped between them, Red looked as if she was about to tear the guy's face off, and I didn't really want to cause a scene, "Let's just go back to our dinner, alright?"

Brent looked me over, "Who's this twerp, your new fling?"

"Twerp?" I'd been called a lot of things, but twerp was never one of them.

"Shut up Brent, I'm done with you." Red grabbed my hand and started pulling me back towards our table, "Come on Chester."

I walked with her as the frat boys jeered.

"Dude, you gonna take that?"

"Show that bitch some respect bro!"

"Look at that dweeb she's with, looks like a total nerd."

We stopped, and Red turned around. She looked absolutely furious, then a sudden look of surprise shot across her face and I turned to see what was going on behind me. My timing was perfect, from some points of view, as I managed to pivot straight into Brent's speeding fist. He caught me right on the shoulder, knocking me off balance, and I spun backwards, past Red, face-first onto the floor accompanied by a chorus of laughter from the frat boys.

Elsewhere in the restaurant, the two security guards that Mao kept on staff saw what had happened on the security cameras and began making their way towards our table.

"Pah, wimp." Blond boy was grinning like he had just taken down a bull.

I pulled myself up to my knees, somewhat dazed, and only managed to listen to what was going on as I tried to collect my senses. The frat boys were laughing and gloating at me. I was about to stand up and head back to my dinner, in hopes of ending the situation, when I noticed the sound of heavy black boots clomping along the floor. I deduced that it wasn't over, and I looked up at the scene.

"You son of a bitch!" Brent turned just in time to see Red's boot rushing towards his face. He tried to dodge, but to no avail. Her sole smashed straight into his nose, sending him sailing halfway across the room, straight onto a family of five's newly served dinner.

I couldn't believe it, Red had hit him a flying kick. Not one of those lame one my friends and I would try when we were younger, but an honest-to-god kick like you'd see in a martial arts movie. It was amazing.

The frat table was suddenly extremely quiet, all of the guys had turned back to their beer and cheese fries.

Hamelin

10,519 words as of the end of November 7th! I'm closing up my deficit.

This is the part I've been waiting to get to.

The girls were engrossed in conversation and hardly noticed the footsteps coming up the front walk. There were three sets of them, a pair of Italian loafers followed by two sets of stiletto heels that stopped midway up the walk, leaving the expensive shoes to walk on alone.

A shadow blocking out the sunlight ended the conversation by clearing his throat loudly..

"S'cuse me ladies..." The voice that oozed down to them was positively grimy and carried with it an absurd amount of egotism. The girls looked up, obviously annoyed by the interruption.

What they saw nearly sent Sarah into a fit of rage. Red merely looked at him, somewhat puzzled at her friend's reaction. Standing before them was a man in a pressed, three-piece white suit. He had greasy, slicked back hair, far too many rings on his fingers, and a pair of mirrored sunglasses covering his eyes.

"Get off my lawn!" Sarah rose to her feet and looked down at the man, she absolutely towered over him from her place on the porch.

The man in the white suit pulled of his sunglasses and smiled slyly at the girls. "You know of me, this is good."

"I know you're a conniving jackass who--"

Red cocked her head to the side and looked up. "Sarah, who's the suit?"

Sarah crossed her arms, "This is Rick Sujeira, the city's resident sleazebag."

Sujeira grinned, "Such harsh words from such a lovely--"

"Who?"

Acid dripped from Sarah's words, "He's the guy that runs the club district uptown, notably the place where Chester's sister works and the... studio that makes those horrible 'chicks acting crazy' videos."

Rick Sujeira wasn't a stranger to Sarah, they had crossed paths on more that one occasion while he was still attending school on campus before he hit it big with Chicks Acting Crazy. Even if she hadn't met him before, Sarah was pretty well informed about the city, to the point where she knew most of the things in the area that the area considered a detriment to equality, morals, and most notably, tourism. Rick Sujeira had the third spot on that list, only barely beaten by the local chapter of Misogynists United and the problem the city had with killer bees. Although to be fair, Sujeira probably had a hand in both of these things, but the police department hadn't yet found enough evidence to link him to the introduction of killer bees into the ecosystem; the misogyny link was obvious, but unfortunately, not illegal.

Hamelin

HUZZAH! 12838 WORDS, I'M ONLY 498 WORDS BEHIND, YAY ME.

AN HOUR OR SO AFTER LUNCH WE WERE ALL SITTING IN THE LIVING ROOM, SARAH AND I WERE WATCHING LEON AND RED WAIL ON EACH OTHER IN A FIGHTING GAME WITH OVER-EXAGGERATED SPECIAL ATTACKS, THE KIND THAT CAUSE MORE RESIDUAL DAMAGE IN MINUTES THAN MOST SUPERHEROES DO IN THEIR ENTIRE CAREER, WHEN THE DOOR SWUNG OPEN AND IN WALKED MY BABY SISTER. I LOOKED UP, THANKFUL TO SEE THAT SHE WAS WEARING A PAIR OF JEANS AND HER FAVORITE SWEATSHIRT, THE ONE THAT OUR GRANDMOTHER HAD GIVEN HER LAST CHRISTMAS, INSTEAD OF A TUBE TOP AND LEATHER PANTS.

"BRO! WHAT THE HELL?"

MY SISTER WAS THE SPLITTING IMAGE OF THE AFOREMENTIONED GRANDMOTHER WHEN SHE WAS YOUNGER, THEY BOTH WERE UNCOUTH, OUTSPOKEN BALLS OF TEENAGE REBELLION STUCK UNDER SHORT CHESTNUT HAIR, EXTREMELY PRETTY, AND MOST NOTABLY, BOTH WERE STRIPPERS IN THEIR TWENTIES AS THEY STRUGGLED THROUGH MEDICAL SCHOOL.

I WISH I WERE JOKING, BUT IT'S TRUE, BEFORE MY GRANDMA BECAME A PEDIATRICIAN, SHE WORKED AS A STRIPPER. I TRY TO AVOID BRINGING IT UP WHEN PEOPLE ASK WHAT SHE DOES FOR A LIVING. HONESTLY, IT MUST HAVE BEEN A RITE OF PASSAGE FOR THE WOMEN IN MY FATHER'S SIDE OF THE FAMILY, AS MY MOTHER WOULD COMPLAIN ABOUT AT JUST ABOUT EVERY FAMILY DINNER MY SISTER CAME TO. MY DAD JUST THINKS IT'S HILARIOUS.

MY ROOMMATES NODDED AT MY SISTER AS SHE WALKED TOWARDS THE COUCH, RED TOOK THE DISTRACTION AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO PULL OFF A SEVEN HIT COMBO ON LEON IN THE GAME, SENDING HIS BEEFY CHARACTER SOARING ACROSS THE SCREEN.

"HEY ANNABELLE, WHAT'S UP?"

mario

YOU WROTE IN ALL-CAPS! NOW YOU DON'T HAVE TO DISAPPEAR UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES, YAY!

I LIKE THE WAY THE NARRATOR GOES OFF ON TANGENTS DURING SEEMINGLY QUICK EXCHANGES. ANYONE THAT TAKES A BREAK FROM PEOPLE SAYING HELLO TO TALK ABOUT SILLY STRIPPERY PASTS IS ALL RIGHT IN MY BOOK.

Agentcel

This story gets more amazing every day o.o ... I wish to read the whole thing when you're done, ^_^.

X'o'Lore

Your form is slipping a little. I'm seeing more spelling and even a few grammar errors, but it seems like the style and interest are improving. That certainly outweighs a few typos and awkward sentences in my book.

...I miss ALL-CAPS already.

Hamelin

Maybe grammar errors, but there totally aren't many spelling errors, I'm checking it as I go.

Edit: Today's final count is 14233 words. No excerpt tonight, I didn't do as much today as I would have liked, and really, the day kind of sucked in general. I'm going to bed.

Hamelin

Sorry I haven't posted anything in here over the last few days, I've been busy/slackerish/tired lately, plus my coursework is coming to a culmination since there's less than a month remaining in the semester.

As of this moment, I am at 20,568 words and am 2770 words behind. I intend to close this gap and hit 25,000 words by tomorrow night, because...

I'm going to share with you all the entirety of what I've done so far after midnight on the 15th, after half of the month is officially over. Until then, no more excerpts.

So, wish me luck, I have a lot of writing to do yet.

Hamelin

A day early, but anyway...

Here you all go, everything I've done so far.

Cheers, I'm going to bed now. Wish me luck on the second half.

Behemoth

Good Luck! I still can't believe you're doing this, I struggle to crap out a 1000 words for an essay. You're one hell of a writer.

Hamelin

I'm afraid my progress on my novel has diminished significantly as of late (as in, I've written nothing new in the last four days), and as I'm looking at a ever growing word deficit, I don't believe that I will be able to hit the 50k mark by the end of the month.

I'm not disappointed though, I wrote just over 24,000 words that spanned 46 single spaced pages in 16 days, I've never written anything so long and unified in my life and now that I know for sure that I'm capable of such a feat, I'll be more inclined to try things like this in the future.

Not like I'm throwing the novel out either, I'm happy with what I've done so far, of course it could use polishing, everything does, but that along with the finishing of it will happen at some indeterminate future date.

I've just gotten a little burnt out on this story and I need to get back to at least upholding the image that I actually care about my classes.

So, thanks for the support folks, it really meant a lot, and I still would like to hear feedback from you guys on the first part of the book.

There's always next year.

stef

Wait, whoah. Nuh-uh. I'm almost caught up, enjoying the story, and you just call the thing off? No way. Back to the writing desk. *cracks whip*

All of my selfish disappointment aside, I know it defeats the zeitgeist of NaNoWriMo, but you should continue your novel! Perhaps not in daily chunks-- but from here on out, make a weekly goal. You'll feel totally rad when it's finished, and I'll get to know how the story turns out.

For what it's worth, when my classes have finished in a few weeks I'm going to start completing weekly goals myself, except in comics. I told sometimes-forumite Nato that I would do it after hearing that he amazingly managed to surpass 50,000 on his NaNoWriMo novel already. Don't let the writing die just because you have a word deficit. Please.

Hamelin

I said no such thing, I am going to keep working on this, but not at least for a week or so while I try to bust out these horrible final papers for my English classes.

So, feel free to keep on my butt about it.

Amoeba Boy

So I just read the whole thing in one sitting. Sure kicks the hell out of my biology textbook.

I absolutely love it. The only fault I can think of is that sometimes those asides go on a bit too long and I have to re-read the sentence to fully get it all. Other than that, I eagerly await the next few installments.