day 100 something: 41,026 words

(I'm closing in on 50,000!)

“You believe anything! We don’t know what just happened, but I know that he started it. He kicked the first guy, and then knocked them all out, and then he hit the last one, even though he knew what would happen!”

“Wait,” said Zunzhen, staring ahead, turning right, then left, leading the girls over a little wooden bridge over an ornamental creek. Ann noticed how yellow all the apartment lights were, and yet how dim were their surroundings. She noticed how Zunzhen made each turn without hesitation, as if he had been through these paths many times before. “We’ll get to a safer place, then we can talk about this. I’m taking over for Momoko. I’ll get you to your mother, whom I know, and who knows me. Trust me for ten more minutes, okay?”

“Ann, we should run away! If you don’t I will!” Ezi pleaded through the feed to her sister, who along with Zunzhen was the only person she could positively identify, despite that she knew she must be surrounded by hundreds or thousands of others.

“Where would you go? You want to be arrested by a bunch of Medna goons?” Ann’s private tone, over the feed, was more worried and uncertain than she betrayed physically. “Momoko knows him, and I trusted her, didn’t you?”

“Mom told us to find Momoko, not this crazy wushu stooge. Whatever the Mednans do, they won’t hurt us.”

“If he does anything, I have Alvi’s knife.”

Ezi laughed out loud, and wailed, “We’re going to die!”, then silently, “If you can beat him with a pocketknife, then you could beat a hundred peacemen, you stupid pig.”

Ann, still pulling her sister along, stopped short, turned, and kicked Ezi hard in the shin. “Quiet!” she spat. Ezi squealed and shook off her sister’s grip, and tried to kick back, but Zunzhen was there, pushing the two apart. “Come here,” he said. He walked ahead a few steps, to a corner in the path, and stood beneath a dim amber park lamp. He jabbed an index finger at the ground just in front of him. “What’s he going to do?” thought Ezi, glaring at her sister, fists clenched. Ann went and stood a few steps from where he was pointing. Ezi went to stand a few paces again behind her sister.

day 90 something: 32,141 words

(still working on it. here is a sample:)

“The feed is being emptied. I see what’s happening now,” said Venn. The magtruck slowed to a halt at the station platform, and Bede’s body stirred back to life. His head turned to face Venn, slowed by a rapid, helical oscillation. Bede’s eyes glowed a dim red, and he messaged Venn: “There’s another feed. The city is being transferred to other control. Probably the same in Nidehal. Where are the other librarians?”

“Churchland will meet us above.” Venn leaned forward, inspecting Bede’s exposed neck and shoulders. “What is that new oscillation in your movement? Can you exit by yourself?”

“Some charge drawn from the truck. Damage is severe, but under control. A few more seconds.” Bede withdrew his hand from the truck panel. Venn nodded, opened the nearby hatch, stepped out onto the platform, and looked around. The station lights were out, but he could see by the trucklight. Along the length of the platform, a sign named the location as West Medna Station. At the end of the platform, he could see stairs and escalators.

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.