8:30 - And about to start writing. I have a half hour before I have to start preparing for tomorrow. I was invited to attend the AAP's Young to Publishing conference tomorrow and need to straighten the hair and do the nails and turn myself into a true professional that doesn't show up for work in frumpy clothes and sneakers. 3 minutes gone! Blog procrastinating. Let's go!
8:40 - Boyfriend called and interrupted process.
9:04 - Phone call ended. Devoting another 10 minutes before beautifying process begins.
9:15 - 420 words and taking a break. Will continue when beautifying process is complete. One of the guys upstairs is talking outside my window again, and he's lucky I'm in a good mood. That's all I'm saying.
Oh, also, before I go. I think I found some sort of direction for my story. It opens with the line I mentioned yesterday and the character discusses his childhood depression, loneliness - etc. His "suicide" isn't really a calculated suicide and has more to do with a child's desire to slip away, disappear. He talks about this with a bit of childhood innocence, a bit of humor. Anyway, the story really starts at his second suicide, a death he fakes to escape his life and start over. There's this mother son thing going on in the first part, and so I think I'll have him watch his own funeral and react to his mother's pain.
Thoughts?
10:18 - starting again, slowly, with wet nails. But it's a fab dark eggplant-y color. Very professional.
10:48 - I am so tired and can't continue. After sitting up way past midnight last night, I don't think I can hack it again tonight. But I am glad I have some sort of maybe direction.
This was fun!
Oh - I'm something like 3000 words behind, but need to have something like 11,500 words by the end of the week. I'm going to put it on Google Documents so that I can work during my lunch breaks. Seeing as how I only have a few hours at home to myself, that may be the only way to reach my goals realistically and without killing myself.
Here's the excerpt I posted to my NaNoWriMo page:
There were other things too.
The time Eric bet me I couldn’t knock that nest of baby birds out of the tree with the rock he had in his hand. Not wanting him to know that I really didn’t want to knock the nest of baby birds out of the tree, I took the rock from his hand and hoped that the smirk on my face matched his. Heavy, hard and cold. It pressed against my fingertips and I twirled it slowly, watching my target. There was a shrill cry from the tree and I could see at least 2 little heads reaching up towards their anticipated lunch. If their mother came home just now, maybe she’d eye Eric and I and know what we were up to. Maybe she’d swoop down and poke out Eric’s eyeballs, giving me enough time to drop the rock and run for it. She’d leave Eric bleeding on the lawn and fly after me, but I’d be too fast for her.
Eric looked at me. “Scared, Mark?”
“Nah.”
I twirled the rock one more time, drew my arm back and threw. My aim was perfection and the nest exploded, sticks, mud, thread and tiny baby birds bursting up into the air. Then it all came down and their tiny bodies hit the ground hard. Bounced once. And all was still.
“Cool,” Eric shouted, running to inspect the chaos.
I followed more slowly and quietly contemplated the murder I’d just committed.
There was the time I called Donny a nigger because I’d heard the word on TV and I was pretty sure I’d applied it correctly, but also wasn’t quite sure how much damage the word would do. He told his mom and then his mom came to my house and told my mom. My mom said she’d never teach her son that word, which was true because she hadn’t. And Donny’s mom said maybe she should have taught me not to say it. And my mom said that you never know what kids hear and she was sure I was sorry, which I was sorry that my mom was getting yelled at but I wasn’t sorry I called Donny a name because he had stolen my backpack. Donny’s mom answered very rudely and my mom asked her to leave. Then Donny stole the stick and that was the last I saw of him.
There was the time I told mom everything about myself. Everything I was and everything I feared that I was. And she took me in her arms and told me it would never matter to her, but her eyes looked so sad and scared.
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