NaNoWriMo Day #1: ribbons, cloaks and unexplained drivel. Mostly grunge. Lots of grunge.

OMG IT’S NANOWRIMO 2011!

HOW WE DOING? You keeping up with NaNo? Did you meet today’s word count? I certainly didn’t. I’m 300 words behind but do you see me in despair (yet)? Bwaha, nooo. It’s good to see a cluster of my friends working and fretting to meet the daily target. You’re all excellent for partaking in such a mammoth task, especially for starting something so daunting.

I began my chapter at midnight, on the dot. Hypothetically. After staring at a blank page for more than three minutes my housemates told me that I had to name every chapter after a 60s Psychedelic Song, which gave me instant inspiration. Thank you, Dexter Child. Perhaps I should state that by this point I was tipsy after a Halloween gathering the pub called The Hobbit (where cocktails are named after characters. I had a Bilbo).

Words began to flow! The city was grungy, it was grimy, it was dirty, and you know what it stank but the protagonist loved it anyway. Exciting though it was to settle into the mentality of ‘write or die’, within the hour it began to turn into repetitive drivel. Like I said, it was a grungy city.

Today was not as productive. After rolling out of bed Mikey Wyatt flounced over to my house. We shut ourselves away with mugs of tea and commenced project ‘DAY 1, SRS BZNESS’. Serious business frazzled away rather quickly… I even took time out to make hot apple cake and ice cream for five people. I even volunteered to be tea-monkey. My willingness to procrastinate and make everyone else write has come from having my NaNo idea for over a year, I think. I love the idea but truly must make myself write it. My biggest problem at the moment is having two characters whose name begin with ‘Mar’. Gosh darn it. I’ll have to change one of them…

But that is just this day. Tomorrow (so technically once I finish this post – it’s now midnight) I shall continue with fresh gusto. Once I’ve been forced to stop and attend dull lectures, I’ll race home full of inspiration. The coffee pot will stew and the cat will eat the goldfish. Best of all, guess who has not gone back and edited at all today?

-Willow //end scatter-brain spew. It’s midnight. I’ve had a bucket of coffee. Just go be awesome and write more novel already.

EXTRACT
Arcatera was a grey city. The streets were narrow and the buildings crooked. The pavements were cobbled and the most important buildings were made of green, worn metal. Having grown up there all his life, Marziale did not see anything wrong with the dull, dirty city. In fact, Marziale loved Arcatera.

“Come on, Marzie!” cried Marian. “We’re going to miss the play at this rate!” Marziale gave her a withering look.

Marian was a small girl of about thirteen years old. She had brown eyes, short brown hair, tanned brown skin and an average, healthy shape of any young female. Resisting the urge to flick her tomato-nose, Marziale went back to sharpening his axe. Whoever let a child join their Clan was an idiot, he thought.

“Oh Marziale, pleeeease,” she whined, “I really want to go.”

“You’re a big girl, go by yourself.”

Marian chewed her lip, her eyebrows touching in a look of distress. “I don’t want to go by myself.”

“Then you should have woken up early this morning and left with the others.”

She grumbled and stropped over the Marziale’s bedroom doorway, then stropped back and crossed her arms, snarling at him when he did not budge from his bed.

“Go away, Marian,” he said.

“You’re so mean! Why don’t you want to go with me? You said you like Mist Plays.”

“I do.”

“Then why won’t you go?”

“Because I like them best in tomorrow’s newpaper. Look, I can’t be bothered.”

Marian gasped and he peered up at her. She looked as if he had just spat in Father Aksel’s face. “What do you mean you can’t be bothered? This is the most important Mist Play of the year!”

“Marian, I won’t say it again. Go away.” Marziale gripped his hefty axe in both hands and stood up. As he carried it past Marian and hooked it onto the wall beside his bed, the girl made an angry noise before storming off; her boots thudding on the wooden floorboards. “I probably should go…” he mumbled to himself. It was his last chance to find work before the Clan moved on.