79,120 words (Strange sex jokes by Felix...)

Alfredo was whispering to Felix, who instantly stood up pushing his chair over in the process. “That is a great idea. I will speak to Brohm about it.”
“Shh! He doesn’t go by that at all, Felix. You aren’t going to try it out now, are you?”
“Now is the time, dear Alfredo,” Felix said as he braced himself from swaying and leapt on the table on top the pile of coins.
Just as Felix was about to speak, Timothy DeCloud and Jeremiah Ulysses came through a door over the kitchen, bright sunlight gleamed inside the darken saloon. Timothy closed the door. Both men’s shirts and hair were soaked with sweat. Ulysses eyes went wide as the Jester stood atop the table.
Before he could be admonished the Jester spoke. “I purpose a great idea that Alfredo and I have cooked up for when the dark times are over. I call it Make Sex, not Abstinence. It will be a show where I do standup making light of all the freaky things, that I am sure filled with a room of rough and rowdy sky-pirates, that we all love to do in and out of the bedroom.”
Felix gyrated his hips when he said the words in and out and began laughing to himself. Timothy and Ulysses could only watch the horror unfold.
Felix continued, “But there are so many taboos with sex even in this day and age. We need to clear those taboos and make sex a safe subject. Of course, Rub hers are allowed, but not rubbers!”
“Do you think he has a disorder. Can we get him some help?” Ulysses asked.
“You remember even when we were in the Guild together, he has always been obsessed with sex.
“I think he is a whore,” Ulysses said as he scratched his head.
“Thank you dear Ulysses,” Felix said with a wink. “Speaking of whores, a whore who has removable teeth is just an artist who is suffering to be the best at her job. We should not make fun of those artists.”
Alfredo, tugged at the Jester’s leg and said, “You keep talking about women. I thought you played it both ways, Felix.”
Felix looked down at Alfredo and leapt off the table. “Mage, toss my hat!”
Erikson who was blushed a deep scarlet, grabbed the red hat with the seven bells and threw it at Felix. Felix placed it on top of his head. “My dear, Alfredo, I have always wanted my bells rung by a Sky-Pirate.”
Everyone watched as Alfredo and Felix went through the saloon and up to the hotel next door.
“Well, I never knew Felix was so good an engendering camaraderie,” Timothy said as he slapped the jaw dropped Ulysses on the back. “Let’s explain the plan to the guys. We got some work to do and it seems we will be two men short for a while.”
“Oh, brother,” Ulysses mumbled.

25718: day 36+

**
I have 20 chapters, with four separate storylines/sets of characters (two with pairs of characters, two with single characters, and one character who has moved between two lines as of last night), and they're finally beginning to cross with eachother. Two of them will merge soon, and I will declare an end to Novel Part 1. Each chapter is ~1000 words, and I try to make each one a self-contained scene, usually with the characters arriving at and then departing from some locale. I am writing a sort of travel novel?
**

“I don’t eat pork,” said Ezi, frowning.

Momoko smiled approvingly. “No meat at all?” She pulled the cabbage out and closed the cabinet, and started peeling leaves off and stacking them on the counter.

“Not if I can help it. Especially not pork.”

“Why not?” Momoko asked, producing a knife from a slotted container attached to the cabinet.

“I like pigs. They have nice personalities. I went to an animal psychology retreat last month, and we talked with some pigs directly over the feed, but we were right there with them at the same time.” Ezi was getting excited. Momoko laid the cabbage out and started slicing, and waited for the girl to finish her story. “They told us that they like to eat, and they liked rubbing up against things, and that they didn’t mind people because we brought them things to eat, and that they wondered sometimes why things are the way they are.”

“They really wonder that?” asked Momoko, smiling as she watched the knife slicing through the cabbage leaves.

“That’s what they said. Two different pigs said it, the same thing. We tried to explain that we were students, and that we were there to learn about pigs and other animals, and how they thought, but they didn’t understand at all. We asked them some questions, but mostly they didn’t get it, and sometimes they gave dumb answers. Dr Levitz was able to get them to give better answers, because he could give them other types of commands, since he works with them all the time. But they were nice, so I don’t think we should be eating them.”

“I guess that’s reasonable. Look in there,” Momoko pointed at a cabinet, “get some noodles and boil some water.”

Ezi complied, and kept talking. “I haven’t gotten to talk to any other animals yet, except for dogs and cats and horses of course, but no one wants to eat them at all. Dr Levitz said you could talk to cows too, but he said chickens were hard, and didn’t have much to say anyways. He said the pigs can talk to each other over their feeds, and that they mostly talk about smells and food and needing to shit. He didn’t say if a pig could talk to a dog, I didn’t think of that until later.” She was filling a pot, also pointed to by Momoko, with water, when a cry arose from the other end of the room.

Michael A. - Winner!

I won! It feels sweet!

I think my novel needs about 20k to be finished! So on I will march.

22,804 words, FAIL

The pursuit had entered a stretch of empty tunnel devoid of stalled trains. Silently, Venn passed a set of instructions to Bede, and the truck began to decelerate. The remaining patroller swept in close behind the truck, decelerating in tandem, and aimed its EM beam at the rear motor well. Fixing velocity for less than a second, the truck accelerated again, opening a broadening space between the truck and the patroller – at that moment a catch field sprang up between the two vehicles. The patroller was caught as if by a rubber tether, decelerating to a standstill and then accelerating back to a point before the catch field origin. As the truck sped away, the patroller drifted to a stop at an oblique angle to the side of the main maglev track.

“That was dangerous,” said the truck. “Catch fields are made for low-velocity runaways, not for high-velocity low-mass vehicles. The occupants are injured.”

Venn nodded. “Not severely. They will recover. Continue following my instructions.”

The truck approached a flying junction, taking the lower track, descending into the third underspace level. Soon the tunnel bifurcated again, and then again, the truck bearing left each time. Ahead, another flying junction – this time the lower track was blocked by a closed gate. The truck slowed to a stop a dozen meters away.

71,691 words!!! (Okay actually 8000 for Nov. 09)

Okay I never had a chance to really get started (cue little hand violins) First I have a new baby. Second 16 days out of the month I have either my mom and sister visit or Becky's sister. And lastly, I had to reread 40 pages to my story in order to really add something meaningful to it. But I am happy to get back in the swing of things and I added over 8000 words to my story and I am proud of that. I hope everybody met their goals this NaNoWriMo year. Here is a sample:


Even for Fall, the early evening air was almost too cold as the breath of the pending storm broke against the black onyx tower standing high above the rolling plains below. The tower was so tall that it seemed to preside over the whole field of ripened havala plants tucked in the tower’s shadow. Each plant’s fully peeled back husk revealed a midnight blue kernel shining and sucking the energy of the crimson lunar eclipse above. Clouds blanketed the majority of the night sky except for where they passed around an great invisible circle overhead that allowed the moon’s luminescence to shower through the otherwise cloud filled sky.
A tall man, almost dangerously thin, stood at the top, near tower’s edge, soaking in his creation. Almost every plant was in bloom in the field below. It was like thousands of blue eyes staring in worship from below the tower. The havala’s were ripe and that meant that it was only a matter of time before everything was his; before he could chant the final incantation and seal the spell with the sacrifice of blood.

Michael A. Day 22 - 36,819

On a side not, I have 14k words to go, but I think I'm roughly halfway through the story that's developing. I can't tell if my pacing is slow, or my intentions have grown...

Felix tried the large brass door knob. “Locked,” he announced, and moved to peer into one of the grimy front windows. With his sleeve, he rubbed away dirt, leaving a clear porthole in the glass through which he could see an expanse of hardwood floor and the edge of a rug. The dim shapes of furniture crouched in the gloom beyond like artifacts in an undisturbed tomb.

“This is a might creepy,” Clarence said. “I don’t care for houses so quiet.”

Alexa was on the porch, moving with ease over the creaking boards. “Let me open the door for you,” she said brightly.

“Can you pick locks or something?” Felix asked, impressed.

“Of course,” she answered, and heaved a brick through one of the front windows.

The shattering glass tore at the quiet forest, thunderous and final; silence rushed in as the stunned birds fell mute, and then the noises of the forest returned; within a moment it was as if nothing had occurred.

Alexa stood, hands on her hips, looking quite pleased at the gaping window. “Lock pick,” she smiled, then frowned. “However, I’m sorry to report that I do not climb through dangerous-looking broken windows.”

I do not think I can win this contest, unless I write more than 3000 words per day from now on, which I don't think I can do! But this is fun!

[[here is an example of a paragraph with several sentences packed together. i try to avoid these generally]]

“Stop,” said Wili. The truck stopped, Wili opened the right-hand door and hopped out. He approached one of the potentially accessible doors and touched its com panel. There was no response. He touched it again, pressing hard against the panel surface. Nothing. He walked across the track to the other door. As he did so, he noticed something in the distance, in the tunnel ahead of the magtruck, colors standing out against the dim concrete and metallic grays of the tunnel and station. He opened his eyes wider, and it was as he had hoped: another patch of painted symbols and characters. He ran to it. It was poorly lit, being a dozen meters from the lights of the magtruck, but as he stood just a meter away he could read it clearly through all the grime and cobwebs and dust: “Access Station 8-64, Medna 15 km, Tug Day, Fivemonth 5, 837,” and then, “BURY THE GUNS, SINK THE SHIPS, OPEN THE CITIES.”

Wili repeated the final lines under his breath. A Mountain Hero song, an especially heroic and portentous one, was playing across his mind, and he began to hum along. He skipped back to the magtruck and climbed inside. He pulled the door shut. “Keep going,” he said.

The magtruck slipped forward, away from station 8-64.

Michael A. Day 17 - 28,498

The Mirror - The mirror is a member of a curious class of objects (all with negative effects) wherein the effects of each object are initiated by an event. In the case of the mirror, the triggering event is the breaking of the mirror. The person who breaks the mirror experiences seven years of pervasive negative effects on his or her life. The mirror regenerates after seven years, and may then be broken again.

The Ladder - The ladder causes approximately twenty-four hours of negative effects on those who walk under it. Negative effects can range from mild to extreme.

The Black Cat - The cat generally causes a single, localized negative effect on whomever's path it crosses, generally within thirteen hours of the crossing. The bad luck is usually constrained to a single severe instance, a car crash, for example, or some catastrophic event. While death is not a common end result, it has been reported.

The Umbrella - The umbrella's negative effects only occur if the holder of the object opens it while inside a man-made structure (no data exists for opening it in a cave). The effect is variable in length and intensity, seemingly at random. It is considered an unreliable object.

The Hat - The Hat is a handsome dark gray fedora of brushed felt, with a black hat band. It is reminiscent of Prohibition era fedoras, and is generally considered stylish, in a timeless way. It causes mildly unpleasant bad luck if worn to bed. The negative effects are generally short in duration, seldom lasting more than ten to twelve hours. Curiously, the hat seems to be one-size-fits-all, as men and women of varying head sizes all report a most pleasing fit.

Alert

I just realized that to make my story work, I'm going to have to contort the timeline! So, it's either going to be fun to read because it will be kind of tricky, or it's going to be impossible to understand because it's so confusing!

*edit*
Oh wait, I just thought of a way to fix the problem without making it so confusing, nevermind.

This is just a warning.

Here is a sentence I wrote last night:

“I never finished my coffee,” said Gil, standing and twisting his body in an attempt to stretch despite his restraints. “Can I get some coffee?”

Michael A. Day 12 - 21,202

The next day every freshman student but one in Miss Henry's English class failed a quiz on The Scarlet Letter. Even kids who had read the stupid book. Even straight-A students. They all bombed. Bombed. No one could even be sure why they failed. They just did. They walked into class; the quiz started, and they wrote down the dumbest bunch of garbage ever committed to paper. Quite a few pencils broke and a number of pens bled ink everywhere and Sheena Flint's glasses spontaneously broke, the lenses dropping from the frames and hitting her desk and ricocheting onto the floor, rolling like little crystal wheels. It was as if the class was destined to fail. Miss Henry read the tests in shock and decided it must be some sort of organized protest on the students' part. They always hated Hawthorne.

"The Scarlet Letter is a book about a crazy man who writes the alphabet every day, and every day one of the letters turns red, and he doesn't know why," began Susan Eck's answer.

"Hester Prynne's scarlet A symbolized her membership in the Avengers," wrote Clarence Dobbs, the big kid who always wore overalls and carried his books in a grocery bag.

When Felix's quiz was handed back to him, he stared at it in wonder. He hadn't read the book, but his answer made him look like a psychotic moron. "The Scarlet Letter is about a young actress name Scarlet, who is so awesome she wears the letter A on her shirt. She is killed near the end of the book by a pack of dogs controlled by an evil priest, who happens to be a failed film critic and a master of animal hypnotism."

Alexa thumped her head dully on the desk, embarrassed that a teacher had read her test. "Scarlet, a plucky teenage scientist, invents her own letter. The letter comes after Z and is shaped like a cross between an R and a D and is pronounced with a sound similar to a frog choking on a sunflower seed. Scarlet's letter has magical powers."

Maggie: Imagine it, 16189 words of this high quality

Her parents had left the front porch light on, and so the fluttering, whatever the fluttering was, cast a dramatic series of shadows down the left side of the tree in the direction away from the light. Fearing that she would startle whatever it was, she’d stood up slowly from the couch and had taken several, very hesitant, steps towards the window. She couldn’t see it clearly, but it seemed to definitely be bigger than a butterfly. And she’d briefly wondered whether butterflies even fly at night. They seemed like a sunshine loving creature to her.
But it did seem much bigger than a butterfly. She remembered that it had definitely been bigger than the tree’s bellybutton, and that had been bigger than her palm. Standing in her living room, behind the piano, she was at least ten or fifteen feet away from both the tree and the fluttering. It looked like it had several sets of wings, and now she thought that it was probably three times the size of the bellybutton.
Suddenly, she froze as whatever the fluttering was froze by the tree. Without the fanning action of its wings, it almost disappeared in the darkness. Claudia had moved even closer to the window, leaning over the upright piano precariously up on her tiptoes with her hands keeping her balance on the top. She had squinted and moved even closer to the window until her nose had almost been touching it. Still, she hadn’t been able to see the fluttering at all.
She’d thought for a moment that it had gone away just like it had the morning before. And she had glanced longingly to her right and to the stairs up to her bedroom. Giving up, she’d turned one last time to the tree with her nose by this time pressing up against the window. And it had been then that the fluttering had swooped towards her.
It had come towards her so fast that she’d lost her balance jumping away from the window in shock. The fluttering had swooped to the window without pausing and then away again, past the big tree.
Claudia had remained standing in the middle of the living room for another fifteen minutes, still staring out the front window until her father had shuffled back in.
‘Claudia, why are the lights still on? You’re hard enough to get up in the morning. Give your mom and me a break and go to bed.’ He’d walked over to the front door and had turned off the porch light and the living room light, leaving them both in darkness.

Michael A. Day 10 - 17,394

Milo hauled the old ladder all over town. He leaned it against busy store fronts and watched shoppers walk under it and then trip and fall on their asses or shout as a stray shopping cart suddenly rammed into the side of their car. Again and again, it seemed like walking under the ladder actually ruined people's day.

But that wasn't possible, was it?

Always shrewd and methodical, Milo repeated the same experiments using his father's telescoping metal ladder in place of the rickety wooden one. Nothing happened.

It seemed to Milo that clearly, he had found a ladder that actually caused bad luck to those who walked under. He diversified his experiments, testing whether or not the ladder had to be leaning. He hung it over doorways, suspended it above walkways, wedged it in trees. He tied it to the top of a swing set so that every kid who came to swing was under the ladder. Kids fell out of swings and hurt themselves in a comic parade of sprained arms and twisted ankles and crying children. Bad luck.

Murf, Day 10, <9000 words... and we begin to slide downward...

No sooner had they dashed to the saloon exit when the doors burst inwardly open. A short, stout man led a posse of four through the doors. The lead fellow walked with this hands on the lapels of his fully white suit and paused to fully take in the patrons of the bar. His entourage consisted of a group of burly ape-men, dressed in dark grey suits and wide-brimmed hats. The four grunts stood behind the man in white, forming an impenetrable wall at the saloon's exit.

Clester stepped forward and greeted the newcomer. "Well, hello there Mr. President."

The man in white held out a heavily ringed hand, and Clester bowed to kiss the knuckles. Ivan, who stood just behind Clester, wondered aloud: "Who are you?"

The man in white started, unaccustomed to nonrecognition, withdrew his hand and snapped his fingers at the men standing behind him. One of them withdrew a golden music box, intricately inlaid with gems and metals, its handle covered in diamonds and emeralds. The music box looked extremely puny in the giant's paws. He began to crank the handle, and a tinny melody sprung forth. The other men began to hum a low, deep bass line to the melody. The man in white started bobbing his head, and spoke:

"I'm James K Polk, and I'm here to represent. I'm the baddest young mother fucking U.S. President. I love my wife, my girlfriend and all the single ladies who conspire with me to make some Democratic babies!"

Bit of Chapter One

Finally, Felix spoke up, “I have been exiled out of all three kingdoms on this continent! By the Lord Overseer, where am I to go?”
Timothy walked back and sat down next to his single-booted friend as he began to rave.
“How can I, who has served all three kings in this land, go serve some petty noble man and his pitiful little castle in some remote area?” Felix said as he gave no time for Timothy to answer his question. “Most country nobles have a least three wives or at best one wife, another mistress and a cousin. How am I to entertain anybody when it is sex, sex and more ugly sex with these country nobles? I certainly don’t want to watch those ghastly encounters! Ugh! No one but their kids will want to watch my juggling unless it is with flaming torches. Do you know I have burned my bell hat more than once with the fire? The fire is one of my finales, not the middle of the show! But fire is all they want. Burn those little—”
“Felix!”
The Jester shrugged and continued, “And the constant monster hunts are so dreadful when you are in the remote regions.”
“Monster hunts are mostly for protection so you don’t have to draw a blade and realize that you should have spent precious guild credits on learning how to use one,” Timothy said.
“Ha, I know more than you think,” Felix said as he winked at Timothy. “I always have an ace in the hole when it comes to protection against assination. Recall that I worked for all three kingdoms, my good Sub-Knight.”
“Well, when the time comes I hope that your ace in the hole is more than a cheat in cards. By the way, I have only known two nobles who openly had more than one woman in his court. It is the exception and not the rule.”
“If it isn’t in the open, it is on the side. That is where you will be getting yours from now on.”
“I am in love. I don’t want any on the side. Dammit! I wish I could have seen her, explained what is going on,” Timothy said as he pounded his fist into the palm of his gauntlets—a fusion of soft worked leather and steel backing. “I hope this isn’t the last time. Felix, I may never see her again.”
Felix ignored the emotional plea of his friend and slapped him on the arm. “On the side. On the sly. Slippery and divide. That should be your path, noble sir.”

Michael A. Day 7 - 12,603

Felix paused, puzzled, and pulled the door open; it swung out.

He barely had time to register what was happening. As he pulled the door open, he saw a long, stiff cord trailing from the inner doorknob to the top of a huge gilt mirror sitting on an easel in the middle of the room beyond. It was too late to stop what was happening--as the door swung open the cord yanked the mirror forward, toppling it from its perch on the easel. The mirror pitched forward in slow motion and seemed to hang in the air for a moment before plunging abruptly to the plank word floor and exploding into a thousand shards, projecting tiny glass missiles into the air around it--slivers of glass shot across the floor and bounced off of Felix and Alexa's shoes.

Silence crashed in around Felix in the wake of the shattering of the mirror. Seven years of bad luck. Seven years. Realizing he was holding his breath, he exhaled and stared blankly at the shards, which were everywhere. It must have been the biggest mirror Felix had ever seen. Or the one with the most glass, anyway. He couldn't believe how much there was.

"No one is ever going to be able to walk barefoot up here again," Alexa remarked.

Murf: Day 6: 7100 words

The voices came closer and echoed around the unseen chamber. Ivan turned in circles, searching for something to stand against. The voices seemed to surround him, coming from all directions and no direction at the same time. Suddenly a small orange orb floated into view to his left. It bobbed up and down a few times, and then stopped, hovering like a new planet in an empty universe. Ivan shrank down on his heels, but it was too late: the orb spit out a blinding beam and focused on his crouching form.

"There he is!" shouted a husky, wavering voice.

"Oh lordy, he's an interloper!" shouted another.

Ivan couldn't see the number of the approaching voices with the light in his eyes, but it sounded like a small troop. He called out to the light: "Please, don't hurt me!"

my first robot attack! 7841 words, but i started early!

“Venn, stop,” came Bede’s signal. Venn stopped. Bede stepped out of the portal, his arms like two dead pendulums. The lights in his eyes were undetectable. He was followed by two peacemen bearing zapsticks. Bede’s signal came again.

In a flash, Venn flew the few meters to Bede’s position. The surprised peacemen stepped back and then tried to hold their ground, expecting an assault from the fearsome and stately form of the Chief Librarian. Instead, the decrepit and damaged Bede slung around, his arms striking out and crushing the two zapsticks. In the same motion, he gripped the peacemen by their uniforms, lifted the men off the ground, and tossed them back into the portal. Venn quickly followed them in. Bede remained motionless in his battle stance.

“Gentlemen, you are in mutiny against the City of Medna. Your identities will be recorded for future reference,” said Venn in an authoritative voice. “Restrain yourselves, and the severity of this incident will be reduced.”

Murf: Day 4: 5300 words

The vibration grew stronger, and Geoffrey dropped his corner of crust and held onto a leg of the catapult to keep from falling over. Stones fell from the nearby tower, and now the guarding herald was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, the catapult leaped upward, raised into the air by the earth itself. Geoffrey clung to his beam with all his might, but the fair-skinned soldier lost his grip and tumbled out from under the catapult's shelter. A great fissure opened up underneath them, slowly, deliberately, like a great slimy mouth, and the rain fell hard onto its mossy gums. The catapult pitched on the edge of the opening, teetered away for a moment, then, as if from a great inhalation of the earth, veered into the gaping chasm. As the wooden structure collapsed into the void, the soldiers lost their grips and fell howling into the abyss.

Murf: Day 3: 4710 words

Ivan opened his eyes and saw Anzil hunched almost in half, her hands pressed together around a ring of light. A rage permeated his skin at the audacity of this stranger trying to take his family heirloom. It was his birthright, and it was special, and Ivan would be damned if he'd lose it. All the hairs on his arms went rigid, and Ivan slowly got to his feet. He moved quietly except for the grinding of his teeth and the muted pops of his back as he straightened into a menacing figure. Anzil's focus was also singularly directed, and she had no thought of anything besides the coins in her palms. Ivan reached out and grabbed a lamp from the dresser he had just plowed into. The stem of the lamp was shaped like a woman holding a man, the two stylistic figures arching out from the feet and coming together at the hands, making a thin heart between them. Where there heads rested together, a stem protruded, which gripped an incandescent bulb and the lamp's shade. Silently, Ivan removed the shade with his left hand and gripped the heads of the lamp lovers with his right. In a violent movement he didn't think himself capable of, he swung the base of the lamp with all his might at the head of the distracted girl.

Michael A. Day 3 - 7184

Finding Felicity was easy. She was at the head of a long cafeteria table, and she had spread out a slick, glossy-looking tablecloth and put out linen napkins and several pieces of silverware. Strangely, she was alone.

Felix sat opposite her and glanced around the cafeteria. "Where is the rest of the, what was it? Hospitality club?" he asked.

Felicity looked cross. "You're late," she said. "And there are no other members."

"Oh," Felix replied. He'd never heard of a one-member club before.

Felicity went on. "Miss Nib is very selective about who joins, you know."

Felix, of course, didn't know. He didn't even know who Miss Nib was.

"And you're dressed like a poor person," Felicity remarked.

Felix felt his face flush. "What?"

Felicity's face was stony. "That was a joke."

"Oh," mumbled Felix, thinking it hadn't sounded like a joke at all.

Murf: Day 2: 3521 words

Ivan's apartment was sparsely furnished, but the few pieces of furniture he did have were arranged quaintly and neatly. The walls were an unoffensive off-white. His carpet was a simple tan shear. Ivan decided not to delay this visit with any unnecessary touring and went straight toward his bedroom. "I think the thing is probably in my closet somewhere," he said, and entered the room. Anzil followed him, practically bouncing on her toes.

As Ivan got down on his knees and started fishing through the floor of his bedroom closet, Anzil peered anxiously around his shoulders. "U really have the c0in stuffed away?" she whispered. "U have n0 idea what u've been missing, dude. M0mz t0ld me when she gave me the c0in that when u gave it 2 her, u were all saddy faced and l0ng speeches."

Ivan froze. "When I gave who the what?" he said into pairs of sneakers and boxes of trading cards.

"Just hurrrrry! Ivan please!" Anzil whimpered.

Michael A: Day 2 - 5110 words

"Hold onto your britches, I'm coming," she drawled in her slow, Southern mountain accent. She sidled up to the other side of the counter and sat her coffee cup down unceremoniously. Liquid sloshed onto the sign-in sheet. She said nothing and stared blankly at Felix.

A clock on the wall of the office ticked out an account of passing time.

"You the Hutchinson's new boy?" she asked at last, apparently deciding she knew Felix.

He shook his head, wondering who the Hutchinsons were and why they would have a new high school freshman. "I'm Felix Ferguson. I'm new."

The woman tapped a huge fake purple fingernail on the counter, in time with the clock. "You kin to the little devil kid in here not ten minutes ago?"

"Glenn?" Felix asked. "Glenn Ferguson? He's my little brother."

She nodded one slow, deliberate nod and ticked off six more fake purple seconds. "You a trouble maker like that one?"

"No, no, no. Not at all," Felix replied hastily.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

"I'll keep an eye on you two," she said at last, and tapped her glass eye with one purple nail. It clicked against the eye dully.

this is probably part of like chapter 7 or something but i haven't written lots of earlier parts yet!

"Why didn't it come?" asked Wili. "Why wouldn't the Earth people come?"

"You really haven't studied this in school? Your parent's haven't taught you?" Wili shrugged. Zunzhen shrugged back. “I always thought this was the greatest story ever told. The Tug came three times, at the beginning, bringing settlers and supplies. It was supposed to come on a circuit, every couple of years, bringing new people, and news of Earth and the other worlds.” He smiled, and laughed. “The third time was the last – there’s been no Tug, and no more Earthlings, since then.”

Wili wondered when this could have been taught in class, and how he could have missed it. He was sure the Earthlings must have had fantastic robots. “Why not?” he asked.

Zunzhen walked away from the mural, back to the station entrance, and motioned up the stairs. “Who knows? It’s the greatest mystery of human history, as far as Acan is concerned. We’ll find out someday. We’ll go back, and find out what happened – once we build a Tug of our own. Another thousand years, maybe.” He started to climb the stairs, leaving Wili behind him in the darkness of the station. “Let’s go, kid. I’m late for a meeting.”

Maggie: First Try (1692 words)

When he asked her how she was doing, she’d actually made a small yelping noise and jumped a little. The jump had dislodged the panties from her thigh and had begun to slide down her leg. Tony asked her something, but Sophie couldn’t quite remember what it was. She was too focused on her panties sliding so slowly down towards her knee. She remembered being relieved that she’d worn her long blue jeans, but still was nervous that the panties might fall past her shin and straight onto the floor. ‘What panties were they?!’

She and Tony were standing by her locker in the middle of the busy hallway where the other teens were changing classrooms. Tony said something else and Sophie mindlessly mumbled back. If her cheeks had been flaming red minutes before, that was nothing to the color of her ears now. She shook her short hair out from behind her ears and leaned her face further forward. She was now able to see the bulge in her pants leg rather than just feel it. ‘Oh please god,’ she thought, ‘Please don’t let these be the underwear with the cartoon characters on them.’

Murf: Day 1: 1812 words

"Wh0a, I say!" said the girl, now standing and brushing at her track suit. The crooked lines went from red to violet to blue. "Why did u get all c0llided 0n me?"

Ivan could only gape back at her. He thought she was a cute girl, but her age escaped him. For a moment she looked like she couldn't be older than twelve or thirteen, but a moment later she could have been in her thirties. And her accent....

"Wait, what?" Ivan finally muttered. The girl was still trying to catch her breath and fidgeted with her clothes, as if they were something new and awkward. After a few moments, the girl's attention returned to Ivan and her grey eyes grew bright again.

"R u Ivan?" she asked.

"What?" Ivan repeated.

"I think u r glitched, dude," she said. "U seem dense 2 me."

"Listen here, kid," Ivan said as we started to stand. "You just ran into my store, and then ran into me. I'd say you are the one who's a little out of it. Are you on drugs?" He watched the girl closely, and while her eyes blazed wildly at him, they seemed to be vacant windows. Another thing occurred to him. "And how did you know my name?"

"Wh0a, h0ld up ancient dude," the girl said. "D0n't g0 all h0stile 0n me. I c0uld kick y0ur ass in a Wi-Fight bef0re u c0uld even c0nnect 2 tha cl0ud." She pointed a finger and raised thumb at Ivan and fired it repeatedly. "D0n't blame me u want 2 g0 hide 0ffline in s0me ancient brickh0use."

"What?" Ivan said again. He was completely lost as to what this character was talking about.

Michael A: Day 1, ~2400 words

Any time Felix spilled salt, he had to toss some over his shoulder. The bad thing was that he tossed salt over his shoulder if he even suspected he had spilt salt. And that was pretty much anytime he used a salt shaker. After all, a grain of salt was tiny. Who knew if one bounced off the plate and ricocheted across the floor? As far as Felix was concerned, it wasn’t worth taking the chance.

Felix always had salt on his shoulder. He was certain his family thought he was a loon, walking around with salty shoulders. Felix’s brother Glenn sometimes rubbed the odd French fry or onion ring on Felix’s shoulder and say, “sorry, I didn't get enough salt.” No matter how many times Glenn did it, it never seemed to get old. Glenn would howl with laughter and their parents would chuckle, or double over laughing, depending on whether or not they were drinking. Felix just grumbled and dusted off his shoulders.

NaNoWriMo 2009!

I went ahead and created a group blog so everyone could post updates, excerpts, tips, suggestions, or even music recommendations. Hopefully this can be a one-stop shop for news on our NaNoWriMoBand's progress.