NaNoWriMo

The National Novel Writing Month (or, for brevity, NaNoWriMo) is a yearly event in which, during the thirty days of November, participants attempt to write a 50,000 word novel. It is something of a contest, though the writers are merely attempting to beat the word-count and not one another. 'Winners" received a web image as well as a certificate stating such and, most importantly, a feeling of achievement and a (probably poor) complete novel which they own all rights to.

This year, I will finally be participating. I've toyed with the idea since I first heard of it in my Sophomore year in high school, but never had the conviction required. This, however, had changed, as I've found that I have no excuse to not partake in this event. I will probably update as I progress along with my novel, but I will wish to get at least part way into it before posting excerpts. You can see I've also added the image on the right to signify my approaching demise.

A Conversation

We were recently working on dialogue in my Intro to Fiction Writing class and were commissioned to write a short bit of dialogue with few or no "tags." I waited to see how the other members of the class interpreted the assignment before taking to the keyboard. This is what flowed out:

“So, do you want to hear something Simmons told me yesterday?” Weathers was grinning again.

Bill looked over his shoulder and gaped. “Are you fucking serious?” He found himself shouting to full capacity to counter the din.

Chuck frowned. “What else do we have to do we have to do?” A slight rain of dirt came down on them.

“I don't know , not die?” countered his companion as he turned back, squeezing off a few rounds from his weapon.

“Come on, you know they're not in range!” Biff-Crack-Twang sang the bullet as it caught the top of the berm and skipped off of his helmet as the final words rang out.

Corporal Bill Wilson's laughter couldn't be contained. He sat back against the edge of the foxhole behind him and let out a hearty chuckle.

Specialist Chuck Weathers hid his eyes under the edge of his helmet. “Yeah, yeah, screw you and fuck irony.” He eased up to the berm, his rifle shouldered; Whoever had scored the lucky shot was going to pay. Pift-pift-pift. The ground shot up in front of him as more rounds impacted the berm, sending him lurching back into hiding. The rifleman looked to his hole-mate, “Hey, Bill, think you can get the scope-jockeys on that guy? I don't feel like eating a lead sammich'.”

With a grunt of recognition, Wilson pulled out a headset and pressed it firmly to his ear. “Foxtrot one to Mike three. I repeat, Foxtrot one to Mike three.”

The worn out speaker buzzed back, “This is Mike three, go ahead Foxtrot.”

“Yeah, Weathers and I are having a helluva time with an unknown at thirty meters, eleven o'clock. He's not too shy on the trigger and we're right in his sights. Think you can lighten our load?”

“Foxtrot, we have no visual on unknown.”

“Yeah, hang on.” The corporal pressed the headset to his chest and motioned at Chuck. “Make him shoot, man!”

“Aw, hell,” was the response as Weathers took off his helmet and placed it on the muzzle of his weapon. He slowly lifted it above the edge of the berm. The bullets hit the helmet before the reports sounded, sending it skittering across the street. “Shit!” He quickly thrust his arm out and grabbed the pack of cigarettes that he was keeping in there, narrowly missing another volley.

Wilson pressed the headset but to his ear.

“Foxtrot one, we have visual on your shooter. We don't have good enough line of sight from this position, but Mike four is sliding on down to see if he can get a better angle.”

Bill sighed. “ETA on shot, Mike?”

“Uhhh, looks like about five minutes.”

He cursed under his breath before responding, “Roger that, Mike, we'll stay put.”

“Wilco Foxtrot one. Mike three, over and out.”

Wilson stashed the headset back in its place and let out a sigh. “They've got to reposition to- hey, give me one of those.” He waved at the cigarette that his comrade was putting in his mouth and quickly snatched one from the offered pack, “Anyways, they've got to reposition to take this prick out, so we're stuck here for a bit.” He inhaled deeply as Chuck lit it.

“So, do you want to hear what Simmons told me yesterday?” Weathers was grinning yet again.

Wilson sighed again, “Are you fucking serious?”

I was hoping to capture a mood of humor and comfort in a particularly tense situation and, according to some cursory reads from some classmates, I seemed to have achieved that. If I were to write it again, I would most likely shorten the conversation between the marksmen and Wilson, as it seems to dominate the piece. Overall, however, I am quite proud of what I came up with in an hour or so and think I may expand upon it farther.

This is Hard Life

Another writing exercise from one of my classes. This time around we had to choose a place and describe it to the fullest detail possible. Seeing nothing worthwhile in my locale, I traveled to Chinatown and slipped into my favorite internet cafe.

Beats break and rhythms shatter across straight edges and hard corners. There are no shapely curves or groovy ridges; This is hard life and few of the chairs are even soft, though they are somehow comfortable, as is the din of the scene.

Unabashful disgrace hangs in tandem with the cobwebs and debris off of the minimalistic light tracks which hold bulbs as bare as is legal; This is hard life and it has no filters on its shine, though the corner shadows do creep out, trekking far from their lowly recesses.

A woman electronically screams from the peripheries, perhaps a warning to the unwary patrons; This is hard life and it brings all manner of its occupants to bear: the perfectly elegant homosexual, bruised street urchin, and sultry gothic or punk.

A treehouse holds its ground around a bracing pillar, though no sentinel mans its beacon; This is hard life and one cannot afford to live cautiously, risking everything for one more day, one more moment of experience.

People hide under headphones and man computers, wearing shirts with inside jokes only they get and using acronyms as humorous relief; This is hard life and the folding walls that contain the technomonks do little to dissuade them from worshiping the cyber gods in their own way.

There are paintings and murals in the back, by the bathrooms, and no one is forced to view but the most avant-garde of them; This is hard life and only the creators, as evidenced by their stiff price-tags, see art as anything but a temporary departure.

Three tables hold court of kings, bishops, and rooks, not guided by the hands of gods on high, but mortals in a macabre game of skill; This is hard life and these possible leaders must be ready to wield their enforces with the strategies taught by few other games.

Behind the bar and the working people is the decaying brick wall which anchors the whole room in crumbling reality; This is hard life and, not matter its true structure, the foundation must look strong, for anyone to put faith in it.

Of course, this is not hard life, but Backspace, a simple internet cafe. But what it means to me, and others I am sure, transcends such a simple premise. It accepts those which others turn away, not in policy, but atmosphere. It stands, in fact, as a reprieve from that hard life by being merely a facade of it.

With this, I was pulling some of the stylings from poems that I had enjoyed in my poetry class during the summer and tried to apply them to prose. The effect isn't quite what I had hoped for and is going to take quite a bit more work before it looks less like prosey poetry. I do think the mental picture is painted, however, which was, of course, the objective of the whole assignment anyways.