NaNoWriMo 2007

... almost 43,000 words. That's what I cut from what I ended up with at the end of NaNo. I took out all the junk such as quotes and such. Now I've finished Don Quixote I am returning to the novel. I am only at the end of chapter 2, and have to do some reworking of chapter 1. And then we'll see...

Well, three parallel story strands, with completely different plot lines, resulting in a big mess that'll have to wait until Saturday to be sorted out, but I'm there, I've made it, I crossed the magical 50K line, hurrah and huzzah!

The third installment is working very well, though. So far, I am sticking to Don Quixote chapter by chapter (well, I am only at chapter the second, but still), and I find that I have plenty to write about, something that was missing in the first two attempts. Chapter one is about 4K, chapter two so far 3.5K (although some of the stuff from chapter two will be moved to chapter one).

Jon Quixote is on his first sally, the one where he travels alone, and he is trying to be knighted with an academic title. Then he'll have to travel back to his village, and set out again in the company of the Sancho Panza character. The only aspect I haven't covered yet is the Dulcinea del Tobosco character. Who is his muse? I'm sure it'll come to me...

Yesterday I finally came to the point where I couldn't see where the story was going anymore. Or rather, I failed to see what point there was in getting there. And then it struck me - how the story needed to be told. I rewrote the first chapter, and it all started making sense. I finally felt like the story was easy to write, the feeling that I'd been missing all this time.
And so today, I have been writing more of what I call the 'alternate story chapter 1', and it just keeps coming, and things fall in place as I write, and I can write at full tilt, the ideas coming as fast, and sometimes faster, than I can type them.
So I'll be writing the alternate story for the next four days, and then come Saturday I'll chuck all the old stuff into a separate file.

Well, after thirteen days I am almost halfway. Only got home at half nine, and by the time I had eaten I had less than two hours to write. Didn't think much was going to happen. Shows you what I know. I made my daily quote, with a scene that really got into the head of my MC. I think the story will be a lot easier to write from now on - I have found a certain ambiance that I want to maintain. Luckily one that needs lots of description, and has a fair bit of dialog. Oh, and monologues. Since the two MCs have decided to make a documentary about their journey, I can just have one of them record the other speaking etc, and then just play back the footage, transcribe the dialog, and describe what happens in the frames. So they do all the work, and I can just sit back and relax. Thanks, Jon and Marc. I only hope that they will bump into some interesting characters. But then I can just lift these out of Don Quixote, so again little work involved.

Time for bed...

So I'm now pretending to merely be the translator of Mediocity. In that spirit, I have just written a translator's foreword. The idea is to work on the multiple layers of reality approach that the original Don Quixote books so successfully achieved. Problem is, I am starting to, well not really believe it myself, let's just say I'm getting tangled up by the fiction. Pretty soon it'll trip me up, but that's cool, because that's yet another layer.

I just had the thought that I should be mocking up a cover for the book. On to that, then...

A good day, only had this evening to write, and managed nearly two thousand words. I got my first Don Quixote scene in (apart from the opening paragraphs), and the most famous one at that - fighting windmills. Our two heroes are instructed to go and cover a local protest over wind turbines. Which leads to the MC's first appearance as a television reporter, with the immortal opening line:

‘We are here in the village of... Fuck, where the hell are we?’

Okay, I'm on the right track again. The story is now well and truly underway. One of the main premises has been set up, and the second main character has made an intro worthy of Danny Ocean. The dialog between the two main characters is sparkling, and they have managed to maintain a semblance of civility.
We're on the road, off on the first sally!

That's right. A first in my three years of NaNo, a negative daily word count. The story just wasn't going how I wanted it. Or rather, it didn't have the feel I wanted. So I did a fairly major replot, and had to ditch some of the scenes what I already wrote. On the plus, the whole thing is now much more tightly linked to my own experience, so hopefully that should get the word count going in a positive direction again. I'll probably have to kill of some of the characters as well.

At least I have all of tomorrow to write.

Oh, and the garden looks much better. I also dug a fire pit round the back.

It's going alright. Found lots of good reasons not to write. The drive is covered in shrapnel from the garden, These bushes were taking over, so I started cutting them back some, and them some more, and I couldn't stop. Found an apple tree, but the apples weren't very good, so I cut that back as well, in the hope that it'll grow back straighter.
Oh yes, writing. After two days I didn't like where the story was going, or rather how it was getting there, so I changed tack, went back to the source, made it much closer to Don Quixote, only with lots more swearing and general vulgarity.
This evening the site seems to be either down or very very slow. I just had a look and the most I ever wrote in a day was 5358 words, so I'll see if I can top that tomorrow.
Wow, is that the time?
I think I'll go make a Kombucha, then to bed with Mr Cervantes...

So, NaNoWriMo2007 is two weeks away, it looks like there are more people active around Cambridge than ever before, and lots of write-ins and meets planned. Plus I have an extra two days every week available for NaNo than the last two years. Sweet...
This years working title is Mediocity, and the idea is that it's gonna be loosely based on Don Quixote (but don't ask me how). I dusted off my copy and I'm gonna give it a quick read.

The Last Supper

Only my closest disciples, the inner circle of apostles if you like, are ever allowed inside the vicarage, and tonight they are all invited. Amely and I are waiting for their arrival. I am rearranging the furniture and laying the table, and Amely is putting the finishing touches to the meal, a Sri Lankan curry. The fumes from the food that are drifing out of the kitchen alone are enough to bring tears to my eyes. I walk into the kitchen to get some more cutlery, and she is standing with her back to me at the stove, tasting the sauce, then adding more spices. I grab her ass with one hand and one of her shapely breasts with the other and peeking over her shoulder I ask why it is necessary to put so much cayenne in the food. She turns away from the stove, licks her finger, sticks her tongue down my throat until I feel the fire of Hell consuming me from the inside, then says, 'Cayenne may contain the 'Y', but for the answer you will have to wait until tonight after everyone's gone home,' and she gives my manhood, who has sprung to attention like a good soldier, a playful squeeze.
Right then the doorbell rings, and I curse my rotten luck. It is Peter, my First Apostle, who has come early to deliver and decant the wine. He shoves a box of clunking bottles into my chest and points back to his wreck of a car, 'I'll get the other one.'
Fifteen minutes later the others arrive as one group. Amely emerges from the kitchen, having shed my mother's apron, which I found strangely attractive on her, and I'm not talking in an innocent way here, I had to exert all my willpower to not grab her and take her right there on the kitchen table, while the rice cooked dry, the naan bread burned under the broiler and we were covered in boiling globs of thick curry sauce exploding from the pan as tar from a pit, and dressed in one of her more tolerable hippie dresses, a lilac one with purple needleword embroidered all over it by the industrious hands of the fellow members of her commune, and although in the company of the apostles she maintains a professional distance from me, not that they don't know or at the very least suspect what is going on inside these walls when the two of us are alone, I am sure that rumors abound, not that I care in the least what they think, and I know that Amely, if possible, cares even less, occasionally, and surreptitiously, she will in passing trail one of her fingers along the length of my arm or across the width of my shoulders, causing shivers of delight to run like cutaneous rabbits down my spine, like she is doing just now, to say that the food is ready and will be served in a minute, and if we want to please take our places at the table.
And so we are taking our seats. Straight across from me sits Amely, the radiant lilac flower. The first thing she does after she sits down is to kick off her shoes, and now she teasingly runs her toes up the inside of my leg. My left testicle does a little hop and skip. She smiles sweetly at me. Oh my god, her toes are getting dangerously close to my crotch, but just before they arrive there, she moves her foot over to my other leg.
Everyone looks at me, I guess they want me to bless the food. I'm hungry, so I decide to keep it short. 'My friends, let us enjoy this wonderful meal,' I wink at Amely, who responds with a brief toehold on my still erect manhood. 'Uhm, like I said, we have all been working flat out, so tonight is a chance to unwind and relax. Please, dig in.'
Thankfully, so that I can concentrate on the foot, I mean food of course, but also disappointingly, apart from the occasional caress, Amely leaves my male anatomy alone during the meal. But she was right in one respect. What with all this chili powder, my erection never sleeps or so much as dozes. I guess that is what she is doing from time to time, check to see that her culinary wizardy has the desired effect. After a while, it actually becomes a little painful, but not in an altogether unpleasant way. Not even the wine, that is flowing freely, can do anything to weaken the spirit on this occasion.
After half an hour, most of the apostles have had enough to eat, but Ned, Parker and myself are still gorging ourselves. Amely has really outdone herself this time, we simply cannot stop eating. Third helping after second helping disappears, until there is only a little rice, some sauce, and one naan bread left. Parker hands me the bowl with the bread. 'Here, Burl, you take it.'
Instead, I break the naan in three pieces, and distribute it evenly. 'Here, take this bread, I don't think my body can take all of it,' tapping the top of my extended belly.
Peter is pouring some more wine. 'This one is a Chianti, look at how it clings to the glass, the sign of a good body.'
I don't know much about wine, just how to drink it, but I like playing it grand. I swirl the glass and hold it up against the light. 'Wow, it really has the color of blood.' Yes, the dark red blood that is throbbingly keeping my erection at full pelt. 'Well, let's drink,' and I take a deep swig.
When finally everyone is sated foodwise, and Max and Cyril have made several large cafetierres of strong black coffee, it is time to turn to business. Tonight is all about securing my legacy, to lodge in their heads the words that will prepare them for what's to come, even if they don't know and I can't tell them, not even Amely, what it is. I grab my spoon and ping it against the coffee cup.
'Dear friends. It seems only days ago that you all arrived here, literally for those who came from outside the village, as a manner of speaking for those who like me grew up here. It has been an incredibly busy time, but also an immensely satisfying one.'
Oh my dear God. Taking her cue on 'immensely satisfying', Amely plants her foot in my crotch again, and this time she's not teasing either, she's going for the full frontal attack. I imagine my eyes glazing over, luckily the wine should provide some cover. Amely has folded her hands into a bridge, resting her chin on top, elbows resting on the table cloth. She smiles sweetly, her head slightly cocked, as if she is all ears for what I'm saying. What am I saying?
'Tonight is a special occasion.' It is indeed, even if most of them will only realize this tomorrow morning, when it is going to be too late. 'I feel we now stand at a critical juncture. I may have started this new church, but you have all helped me build it. And now it is bigger than any of us, or indeed all of us together. It has a life, a momentum all of its own'
Talking about momentum, Amely's right foot is joined by the left one, and together they grab my cayenne hard erection, rubbing up and down against the front of my jeans. It's a miracle she can hold her balance on the chair, let alone keep from rocking in sympathy with the movement of her legs. Now she disentangles her fingers, licking two of them in passing, rolling her tongue around them, before she slowly trails her hand down her body, following the curve of her breast. Her chin is now resting on her left hand only, the other hand has disappeared under the table, her arm moves forward, as if she is sliding her hand down the length of her thigh. Then it moves up again, as if she, oh my God. Finally there is a smaller motion down again, I imagine her moist fingers seeking out her pudenda, rubbing around her clit, the way she has shown me that she likes. She blinks her eyes at me.
'So far, our church has grown organically. But since the movement has become so much bigger than us, it is time to put some structures in place. However, it is important that we keep the enthusiasm and spontaneity alive as well. We should not become dogmatic.'
Talking of dog, Amely has stopped rubbing mine and withdrawn her foot. What is she up to? Is she stopping the action? Has she reached her climax? I know I almost have. She slips a big toe in between the buttons of my fly, and manages to undo the top one.
'First, we need a council to make the important decisions, always seeking a consensus. You will be this council.' Amely's feet work their way down, opening up my trousers one button at a time, the next one plops opens.
'Second, we need a line of succession, if anything should happen to me, or any of us. Peter is my next in line, but after him, the council should appoint its own leader, so that different opinions can shape the course we are taking in the long run.' Amely has reached the third button.
'Third, we should prepare ourselves for a separation from the Church of Avignon. This, what we are doing, what we are trying to achieve, is too important to end up as a game of politics and intrigue. We should stand on our own feet.'
Then her toes grab the two ends and simply pull my fly open fully. Now the only thing that stands between her toes and my manhood is the flimsy material of my boxer shorts, although the cayenne has pushed my soldier into a forward position, leaving a gap at the top of my briefs. Through this breach in the defenses, she grabs my soldier's helmet, then pulls down to expose his full length, standing at attention, awaiting her inspection. She dips her toes in the sticky liquid oozing freely out of the top, smears it around the rim, then, without further warning or ado, launches into full assault mode, attacking the poor defenseless soldier, beating him to within an inch of his life. This and the corresponding motion between her own legs make it difficult for her to conceal her excitement, her breathing is getting deeper, and now and then she closes her eyes, and has to try hard to stop herself from moaning. At my end of the battlefield, I am having similar problems, with the added complication that I am in the middle of a speech. I need to end this now, to provide some distraction, not for me, but for my disciples.
'Now, let's discuss this some more over a glass of port in the lounge. But first, let's clear the table. Of course, our cook, who has provided us with such a magnificent meal should be excused.'
Everyone claps, just as the movement of the troops involved in the attack below the line increases, as if they are really applauding the imminent arrival of the inevitable. Chairs scrape across the floor, as my defenses can no longer withstand the onslaught. Before I know it the lines are breached, and the trenches are flooded. Amely giggles under her breath as the sticky substance runs between her toes, then she grimaces, I can feel her leg muscles tighten as she stretches her legs, pushing hard into my crotch, then they shudder and go limp. Her head pushes back, then relaxes. Her right hand reappears above the table, grabs the wine glass, and she gulps down its contents, meanwhile trying to regain her breathing. She winks at me, takes a napkin, which she uses to wipe her toes, then with clean toes, to drain the trenches. I quickly guide my soldier back to barracks. Amazingly, although all his life force has been spent, he still stands to attention. Or maybe rigor mortis is setting in.
All around us the apostles are bustling around with plates and dishes, completely unaware of the battle that has just been fought, while in the kitchen the taps are running water into the suds.

(1360 words)



How could a nice case involving big city fraudsters, dorky accountants and arm breaking karate teachers end up taking him to the kind of place he swore never to return to when he made his big break and become a detective with the municipal force, whose tree lined High Street he is now cruising, passing the town hall, a sad looking cafe, a feeble attempt at a restaurant, and various small stores, but with no sign of a hotel, he slows the car down and ambles over to the side walk, crawls up to the kerb, winds the window down and addresses a skittish looking woman of indeterminate age, you can never tell in these little rural towns, they could be thirty or seventy, once they lose their youthful vigor, before which time the smart or at least ambitious ones will have split to seek their fortunes in the city, where they will end up as a waitress or a secretary, and if they're lucky, before they lose the last of their good looks, they'll meet a rich man who doesn't himself have the looks to wow a more cultured girl from the city into marriage, not even with all the money he's earning and the nice house he's inherited, they end up looking the same, the same short cropped dyed hair, the same garish make up, the same tentlike dresses on a Sunday or one size fits all their expanding bums and breasts jeans and pastel colored sweaters on weekdays and Saturdays, 'Excuse me miss, could you please point me to hotel the La Pauberge,' and as if he is some perverted serial killer, for he's sure that they've recognized the city licence plate and they think that everyone from that pit of sin is at the very least a sodomist or a pedophile, on the look out to aleviate his particular sexual inclination for women of indeterminate age dressed in the modern equivalent of hessian sacks, without looking up from the tiles in the sidewalk she points a scrawny finger just up ahead, and now he sees it too, in a small bend in the road, up on a grass embankment stands the grandest building in town, not that that's saying a whole lot, erected from brown stone that hasn't suffered much from traffic polution, there being very little traffic around, the same building in the city, take the police headquarters as a good for instance, would be covered in black soot, and with the ubiquitous granite tiles that give the town such a garish and gloomy character, a sign in front displaying its name, La Pauberge, and one more word underneath, VACANCIES, to which a small sign has been added, this one says NO, which, to his utter relief, as he didn't want to have to drive all the way back to the crummy motel that he saw on the way into town and which, if he understood the somewhat quixotic neon sign correctly, still had vacant rooms, but had his mind set on staying in this hotel, which, notwithstanding its strange name, looks nice and clean, the closest you can get to the city he so loves in this kind of places he so loves to hate, now that he thinks of it, as soon as he learned from the nerdy accountant that the case would take him here, he should have called ahead and booked a room, is at this very moment being removed by a buxom lady, and with no time to spare, he can just image some random person walking up the steps to the hotel and snapping the room from under his nose, he parks the car and the double yellow lines, one of the many prerogatives a police detective has over mere mortals, and runs after the lady up the steps, catching up with her in front of the reception desk, that, like the rest of the hallway, is covered in dark oak panelling, antique by the looks of it, if newly varnished, breathing heavily, which makes her inspect the detective with some hastily concealed suspicion, before launching into the hoteliers customary greeting, 'How may I help you?', as if it is not immediately obvious what someone walking into a hotel wants at this time of day, namely a clean room, a quick shower, a change of clothes, and something hot to eat, but he plays along with the conversational game, asking her, 'Do you have any rooms available,' even though he knows she has, having just seen her take down the sign, outside on the grassy bank, at which point the woman, he assumes from the way she is dressed and the manner with which she carries herself that he is dealing with the proprietress, deviates from the customary scenario, and, looking at the book in front of her, completey for show, because she knows that there is only one room available, now that it has been vacated by the young couple from the city, whose money has finally run out, and who have just packed their suitcases, settled their accoutn, and moved to the tent village, that blight on the town's good name, that clutters up and makes unsafe the village green in front of the church, so that no sane villager now dares go there, whether by night or by day makes little difference, that stand impervious to any threatened intervention by the local authorities, on account of some archaic byelaws that were meant to deal with cowboys and trade caravans setting up for the night on their way west, not with religious hippies from the city, attacted here by that awful son of the old minister, God rest her soul, and tells Manoogian, 'There is one room that has just been vacated, but I am afraid that it is a double room,' which is quickly waved away by the detective from the city, 'That doesn't matter,' after all he can claim back the expenses, it's not as if he were paying for this, which settles the transaction as far as he is concerned, however the owner has one more point to make, namely that 'The room is being cleaned at the moment, but you are very welcome to wait in the bar,' which he assures her is no problem, 'If it would be possible to leave my suitcase here?', "Yes, of course,' she says, 'I'll put it in the office where it will be safe, and may I ask how long you are planning on staying with us?', to which the detective's response is that he doesn't quite know, but that it will most likely be for just one or two days, which she assures him it's fine, it's just that they have someone else booked in a week from now, by which time he assures her he will have left, after all, in spite of the hotel, which is tolerable, he doesn't want to spend one more hour than is necessary in the town of Pough and Pough Hill, as soon as he's found this Parker Lee person, and has interviewed her on her possible role in the disappearance of Mr Passarel, or whatever his true name may be, and established that she has nothing to do with it, as he suspects, but that the guy is probably just hiding out somewhere, lying low as they say, or if something unfortunate has befallen him, it is more likely going to be at the hands of some mobster whose path he stupidly crossed during one of his shady business dealings, he's going to be out of here, jump in the car and drive as fast as it can go back to his beloved city, which reminds him that his car is still parked outside on double yellow lines, he'd better get his suitcase and park it behind the hotel, then take a stroll through town, he has driven enough for one day, see if he can find the house that belongs to Parker's parents.

(840 words)

If this were a movie, Parker would tell the guy in the white linnen suit and straw hat, sipping from a tall drink under the shade of a parasol by the side of the pool, a big tall guy with shades and a black wool suit standing at ease but at attention on each corner of the pool in the hundred degrees plus heat without so much as a drop of sweat on their shaven bald heads, that he should really avoid getting typecast into these big mafia boss roles, however much it suits him, because soon the audience will get confused as to which flick it is they are watching, is this supposed to be a sequel to that other film they say last month?, fill out their test audience feedback cards to that effect, and that will be the end of his movie carreer, since no director will want to hire him any more, saying, Listen, we know you're a good actor, but when, just suppose, the moviegoers see you playing a nice uncle or a football coach, they will still see the mafia boss, and wonder when is he going to shoot his nephew on his wedding day, during the best man's speech maybe, first telling everyone what a wonderful guy he is, how he has come to trust him so much in the business, it is never called by its true name of organized crime, but everyone present at the dinner knows what he's talking about, and the nephew is getting more and more nervous when he hears the praise being laid on so thick by his uncle, he must be on to him, he never should have gone into that little side business, it looked so inoccuous at the time, is there any way he can get himself out of this pickle, he looks at his bride by his side, she is blissfully unaware what is going on, she thinks the family business is running a few restaurants in the Italian district, so imagine her surprise when the speech all of a sudden takes a rather different tack, the uncle reaches into his jacket, as if to take out a wedding gift, maybe an envelope with the downpayment for a house, or the keys to a brand new car, who knows, only to find he is holding a gun, which he points at her husband, she still has to get used to the term, and of course every one else has already seen this coming and is diving under the tables, shots ring out in the cavernous room of the city's most upmarket hotel, bits of blood and brain from her husband cover the widow's, because that is what she now is, virgin white wedding dress, her mouth is opened in shock and horror, she watches as the chair next to her, containing her former husbands body minus the top half of his head, slowly keels over backward into the table with the wedding cake, that topples over and splatters onto the floor and the body, or, why has he fallen so low that he needs to work as a basketball coach, or has he maybe finched on his organization to the police in order to save his own hide, broken the ancient rule of honor, and is he now in a witness protection program, with a whole new life based on a whole new identity, I bet they'll track him down, shoot the gangster turned coach while his team is trailing agains their arch rivals in the season decider by two points with seconds on the clock, and, also because he might start getting hassled in the street, people with a not so firm grasp on reality who didn't like the way he treated that poor guy in that last scene, okay so maybe he had it coming, but did he really have to kill his wife and children as well, after all, what did they have to do with the whole affair, and it'd be no good explaining that that was just a movie, it's not real, he's just an actor playing a role, they'll just say, that still doesn't excuse what you did to those dogs, they were behind a fence, you didn't have to shoot them, but this isn't a movie, and so she won't, after all she is here on a mission, to trace the guy who took all her money and ran off with it, and she is hoping that the guy sucking the tall drink through a straw, the ice cubes clinking against the glass, will be able to help her find the bastard, or at least be able to give her some information that will point her in the right direction, so she can either get her money back or at least inflict some revenge for what he's done, so that she can get one with the rest of her life.

400 words, count'em and weep:

Amely emerges from the kitchen, having shed my mother's apron, which I found strangely attractive on her, and I'm not talking in an innocent way here, I had to exert all my willpower to not grab her and take her right there on the kitchen table, while the rice cooked dry, the naan bread burned under the broiler and we were covered in boiling globs of thick curry sauce exploding from the pan as tar from a pit, and dressed in one of her more tolerable hippie dresses, a lilac one with purple needleword embroidered all over it by the industrious hands of the fellow members of her commune, and although in the company of the apostles she maintains a professional distance from me, not that they don't know or at the very least suspect what is going on inside these walls when the two of us are alone, I am sure that rumors abound, not that I care in the least what they think, and I know that Amely, if possible, cares even less, occasionally, and surreptitiously, she will in passing trail one of her fingers along the length of my arm or across the width of my shoulders, causing shivers of delight to run like cutaneous rabbits down my spine, like she is doing just now, to say that the food is ready and will be served in a minute, and if we want to please take our places at the table (it's actually two tables pushed together to form one long table and I have covered it with one enormous piece of cloth, but I don't dare tell the apostles that, because then those who don't share the table under the cloth with me will feel a grudging jealousy to those who do, and this is just one, at first glance innocent and innocuous, although you should never assume so, for instance of the sort of politics that I have to carefully balance all the time in order to keep the peace and harmony within the group within workable bounds, I can't for instance ever sit at the head of long table, because then the ones further down the table feel hard done by, so that I have to sit in the middle, which doesn't solve all of the problems, but makes them at least a bit more manageable).

I open my eyes and blink against the harsh light, wondering whether I've forgotten to close the curtains, but no, they're drawn. My necks hurt, and I rub it with my fingers. My head hurts, too, but I don't think rubbing anything will help there. My arms have lifted the sheets, and underneath them I appear to be naked. Some vague recollection is knocking against a door in my memory, asking to be let in as it has some important information, but I can't find the right door. Something about... I almost had it. I turn my head to my left, and notice that there is another pillow resting against the headboard, with an indentation in the middle. I feel the mattress, that is still harboring the warmth from a human body. I retrace my steps until there's something I can remember with any definity. The service, the sermon, the...
'Hey there, sleepy head!'
Oh yeah, the girl. She is standing naked in the doorway, completely unselfconscious, not that she has any reason to be, she has a lithe trim body, not an ounce of fat anywhere, perk little breasts with nipples standing erect in the cold morning air, and furry tufts of blond hair sprout from under her arms and in the cradle of her lap. A tooth brush is sticking out of the corner of her mouth, and she resumes moving it back and forth in her mouth, in an erotically stimulating manner, if that is not her intention, then it surely has this effect, because I can feel something starting to stir below the line. She's killing time by looking around the room, studying the books on the shelves, which provides me with the opportunity to study the other half of her anatomy. She has broad strong shoulders, almost masculine, tapering down to a narrow waist, where two dimples are placed above small but firm buttocks. She stands on tiptoe to reach a picture frame on a high shelf, and the muscles in her calves and thighs stand tout. The toutness is greeted with one of my own, and I hastily raise the covers with my knees to hide the evidence. She turns on her heels and shows me the picture. She takes the toothbrush out of her mouth. 'This is you with your parents?'
'Uh, yeah, that must've been taken... I guess I was twelve.'
She looks at the picture again, and nods, as if the answer makes sense to her. She walk over to the bed and puts the frame on the nightstand, sticks the toothbrush in her mouth again, and like an eel slips back under the covers, turns onto her side and slides a leg up over mine, until its progress is halted by the aforementioned tumescence. She squeals a little fake squeal of excitement, climbs on top of me, slides back onto my erection, her fingers digging into my chest, and starts riding me, her nails clawing away at my chest, like I am the bull and she is the cowgirl, the toothbrush still sticking out of her mouth.
The door in my memory finally bursts open, and through it the previous day's events come flooding back into the arena of my consciousness.

Eleven days into NaNoWriMo2006, and I'm almost at the halfway point. Progress is not as rapid as last year, but still well ahead of the 50K schedule. In the meantime, my story has taken some strange turns from the plan that I set out with. There is a new character, Pough Rock, that, through means of the MC, and yes, through means of my story, is trying to save the world from the humans. A whole new cosmology has been created under its influence (we have to assume gender neutrality here, after all stones do not mate, not even in this story).

Some long sentences have been written. Okay, 258 words is hardly Joycean, but it does nicely further the word count. There are three POVs: aforementioned rock, the MC (Burl S Wood), both in first uh... 'person' perspective, and a third person voice to fill in the gaps where neither of the other two can reach. I make it sound like a toothbrush.

Oh, the kitchen is finished, btw, and very nice it is, too.

Well, on the writing front that is. I have been busy tearing down the old kitchen and putting in a new one. The end is in sight, and none too soon, too, to my relief. I guess it has the advantage that all my characters (the majority of whom don't have names let alone any background or character sketches) and plotlines will be fresh when I start at midnight on Tuesday (okay, Wednesday technically

A further downside to all the kitchen stuff is that I've used up all my vacation days, so there's no backup if things go wrong. Then again, that could've given me a false sense of security, a safety net with one corner pulling loose.

Off to bed.