(o)_(o)

so, who has read my story so far? i am waiting.

waiting.

I'm stalled out on my NaNoNovel, so I've started a diversion.

I think it's fun. I've decided to write an old-school Narnia-type children's book where the children neither talk nor behave like real children. Here's the opening. (Special shout-out to Andrew Najberg for the idea of people suddenly finding a lot of blood in their house.)

Chapter One, In which There is a Great Deal of Blood.

Thomas and Zooey tromped from the school bus with their usual end-of-the-day lack of verve and pluck. They scuffed gracelessly up the walk to the front door and, in his usual manner, Thomas shoved the door open unceremoniously. The school day was over, and laziness could at last begin.

Except that the living room was completely covered in blood.

"Oh my," Zooey remarked.

"That is quite a lot of blood," Thomas said.

Zooey nodded in agreement. "It does appear to be a great deal of blood."

Thomas and Zooey stared in silence at the gory tableau. The walls were spattered in crimson; the floors were puddled in scarlet. Unidentifiable chunks of macabre red clung to suede couch and the cream-colored venetian blinds. It was, indeed, a great deal of blood.

"I confess that the presence of so much blood and the apparent lack of our parents does not sit well with me," Zooey said at last. She twisted one of her auburn curls nervously around her slender index finger and frowned.

"It troubles me as well, sister of mine." Thomas strained his ears. "And the house is much quieter than normal."

"Perhaps eerily so?" Zooey suggested.

"Eerily, yes. Like a horror movie," Thomas admitted.

Neither one of them moved.

"Oh!" Thomas said brightly, as if a cheerful idea just occurred to him. Oftentimes the greatest comfort in the face of the unknown comes from within one's own mind, and it was so in this case. "I bet this is fake blood," Thomas explained. "This situation is so like a horror movie because it is a trick put on by our parents. After all, it is uncommon to come home to a room covered in blood."

Zooey looked at the room doubtfully, her brow furrowed. "It looks awfully real." She pinched her nose. "And it smells weird. Coppery."

this is pretty neat: you paste in as much text as you want, and it gives back a graphical representation of the word frequencies, minus common words like "the" and "of", and you can even turn these on if you want. it also, when you run it yourself, gives a tabulated list of all the word frequencies. here's one derived from Part 1 of my story, "Automatic for the People!"

50,484 words! Victory!

i've done it! five months and 50,000 words!

two more short chapters (32 done already) and Part 1 will be finished, basically. one chapter of Part 2 is already written.

i've figured out most of the rest of the story. i think it's all downhill from here, at least in figuring out what happens next. sitting and writing it is the hard part. i estimate 25,000 words for Part 2? i wish it were less...

i think it's a good story. if no one ever reads it, i'm still glad to have done it. it's at least as fun as actually reading a book; even better i think.

anyway.

~49,700 words

almost there!

two more little chapters, and a little more editing, and i will declare Part 1 (really, i think, about 80% of the total story) of "Automatic for the People!" to be fit for human consumption. this should push it past 50,000 words, and then i can take a break and not open the file for a while. i hope.

i do use correct capitalization in the main text.

also, some footnotes.

i'm afraid it's kind of boring. and confusing. and that i don't write dialogue very well, and most of it is dialogue. and i'm worried that figuring out how to get to the ending will be harder than i think. but so what, right? i like it!

no excerpt, since i'm in my office now.

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.