The Stillness That Precedes the Great Clash for Power in the Sky

NaNoWriMo is fast approaching with it's key clacking, heavy lidded, maniacally creative little legs. It's an exciting thing, partly because I think I might have an idea to write. Problem is I never finished last year's. And if I want to consider myself a self-respecting Wrimo, I'll finish it...before November 1st. I think I had just surpassed 40,000 words last year. Which if I do say so isn't too bad for a noob.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's this:
Insanity.

Basically it's a bunch of literary inclined masochists that thirst to write something meaningful and need an excuse to do so. Or maybe that's just me. Any way you slice it, my November '09 will be holed up, spaced out and full of adjectives. I apologize in advance.

ADDENDUM

I've located my progress chart from last year. It's not pretty:



I'm going to blow this up and put it on my wall. Nay, my CEILING!!

The fountain glugged, micturating into his Nalgene with the flow of a drunken bachelor yet performing better than the most efficient worker bee in the droning fluorescent office. He stood as still as a pothos on a breezeless morning, absentmindedly gazing at the boundary where the carpet and the tile conferenced. With the forethought of a zombie he mumbled, "Write something everyday." His bottle runneth over.

A good sign?

Ryan writes, quoteth Google docs:

Title: Attention

Sorry, this document is too large to be saved in Google Docs. The limit is an HTML file size of 512KB.

Really? You're going to give me another obstacle? The NaNoWriMo gods are not with this one.

Monday funday

The only way i'm going to finish this novel is if I write as much as possible at work without getting fired. Worst timing ever what with this failing economy and friends and family alike getting swiped by the lay off pendulum. I'm attempting to work better, which includes getting along with co-workers better. It's the latest in a series of begrudgingly accepted tasks (most of which have to do with either work or cleaning my house). Once in a while though Steve comes out with gems like "This is a pain in the Rumpus McDumpus", and things start looking plausible.

Another week!

NaNoWriMo has a countdown to the end of the month on thier website.

nanowrimo.org

it's unnerving.

I think I just caught a teen runaway!

Here I am working away for once, and out from the bushes emerges this young kid with a black hooded sweatshirt (hood extended, light blue jeans (the kind a kid's mom buys for him at k-mart) and a huge red backpack (again, mom's decision). Mind you i wasn't outside working in the bushes,that would kind of be great. I was sitting at my desk facing our serene pond-scape out the window.

So this kid's pretty shifty, looking behind him and all over the place. But here he is traipsing around a tiny pond next to this office building that from the packed parking lot clearly has people working in it. One guy was even getting out of his car as he walked by.

He goes around the length of the pond, and st this point I'm forced to stand up to see what he's doing on the other side of the building. He ends up getting hemmed in by the water, as there's a stream that separates the half he'd been walking. So the kid takes a giant leap over the thing and practically falls in. Actually he might have dipped a foot in there from what I could tell. So it's clear now that this kid's insane.

He heads directly over to a picnic table like he'd reserved it. He starts going through his bag and I don't know, jumping around with something in his hand. They were either matches or those paper bombs you toss at people's feet or cats and freak them out. He was surrounded by grass, so I don't know what the hell he was doing.

Then he zips up the bag and takes off again, this time underneath the effing building! So I lose sight of him, and as fast as possible head over to that side of the building. I have a choice of office to trespass into, so I pick Peter's cause he's cool. I got over to the window and he's like "What's going on?" all excited and shit. And I'm like "I just saw someone walking along the pond. He had a hooded sweatshirt and a backpack." And Peter's like "Oo, we got a hitcher!" And just then there were like a series of honks from somewhere, but I couldn't see where. Now our office is at located at the left thigh of the Route 2/I-95 crotch, so this kid might have been crazy enough to cross the highway.

My vantage point here was no longer ideal, so I headed downstairs, shirking all work responsibilities and went for a brief foot search for this kid. I came out of the emergency exit (this was a fucking emergency) but didn't see him, not around the pond, not in the parking lot, not careening across the highway, not even flying through the air after impact. Nothing. He was GONE!

This was around lunchtime, so his attendance had to have been missed somewhere. I know this kid probably has problems that he just can't bear to face anymore, but I was thinking about REPORTING his ass. Yeah? Get the fuzz down here, make a day of it?

Anyway, it was like the most exciting thing. I promise the ol' novel won't be a series of 'like's and 'so's, though who knows where my mental capacity will be come 40k+. If a day was ever a bitch, yesterday had her period on top of it.

15,000...tick tick tick....

8 bucks, 8 books

What better way to blow some cash at goodwill? I'll make this one (relatively) short and (unnaturally) sweet. I have wurk to do.

In the order I just piled them on my desk:

1. Digital Fortress by Dan Brown - I've read every thing else he's written so far. Completes the set!

2. Big Fish by Daniel Wallace - I wanted to live in the movie, so this should be fun. I'll probably love anything described as having "mythic proportions" and is "comic and poignant" (says the cover).

3. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner - A never read American classic. I read also now that Part 3 takes place on my birthday in 1928. Bonus.

4. Animal Farm by George Orwell - A review of how to write talking animals without being absurd. You'll see.

5. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier - One of last years banned books. I had skimmed this as part of my first Mercury article, but not read it. It seemed at the very least worth the dollar.

6. Tales of Mystery and Terror by Edgar Allen Poe - A little late for the season but wtf. I've read a few of these but not all. Scary times.

7. The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean - I fell hard for Adaptation so I think I'll enjoy this. Sold again on the jacket: "A lesson in the dark, dangerous, sometimes hilarious nature of obsession."

8. Running with Scissors by Augusten Borroughs - During my passing out twenty minutes into movies phase, I passed out twenty minutes into this movie. What I did see was absurd and great. Later on strangely, my Starbucks cup had an Augusten Borroughs quote on it. Weird.

No fruit resulted from an extensive search for more Tom Robbins or for Interview with the Vampire. They seemed to have every other Anne Rice novel though. Ah well, next time.

Now back to...whatever this guy's name is. I haven't named him yet.