http://www.nanowrimo.org/user/212741
You may click around that page and see my stats (showing a chart of word count), my writing buddies and their results, information about me, and those three excerpts. Have fun.
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August 1, 2008 UPDATE: The link above may not work after NaNoWriMo starts again in November of 2008, so here are the three excerpts I posted for NaNoWriMo 2007:
3rd excerpt
It was Anna Grace on the phone.2nd excerpt
“Hello, Mother,” Anna Grace’s voice said into Lilli’s ear.
Lilli’s first reaction was annoyance that her writing time was interrupted and that she was going to have to talk to Anna Grace, but her second reaction was fear that something was wrong. Anna Grace didn’t call often, and usually Lilli’s day was ruined because her daughter could always manage to make her mad.
“I was thinking about inviting you down to Atlanta this weekend...”
“Oh, no,” Lilli said quickly. “I already have plans for the weekend.”
“…so you could tour the High Museum with me,” Anna Grace continued, ignoring her mother’s response.
“I can’t, I really can’t,” Lilli said. “And besides I don’t like walking through museums, you know that.”
“But I can get you a wheelchair, and you won’t have to walk,” her insistent daughter said.
“No.”
“And we could spend a little time together. I would so love to show you what I’ve been doing with the room I am decorating for you!”
Damn that room, Lilli thought, before saying aloud, “Let’s not get started on this again, Anna Grace, because you know very well that I do NOT want to move to Atlanta. I do NOT want to live with you. I do NOT want to move at all.”
“But Mother, it was be so much easier for you, especially now that you have a broken wrist.”
“It won’t stay broken forever,” Lilli said, fuming inside. “Please, I am busy and I don’t want to talk about that right now.”
“Peter and I agree that you would be better off with us,” Anna Grace continued, oblivious. “We will even build on a separate apartment for you, giving you more than a single room, but you would be near us where we could look after you.”
“I do NOT need looked after!”
“Maybe not now, but you aren’t getting any younger,” Anna Grace said. “Won’t you at least come see the ideas we have?”
“No,” Lilli said emphatically, adding, “Anna Grace, I’m going to hang up now. I think something on the stove may be boiling over.”
“Don’t give me that old lie, Mother. We both know you have a cordless phone, since it is a cell phone. And we both know you wouldn’t be likely to boil something without being in the room with it, don’t we?”
“I’m hanging up,” Lilli said, and she did. It was a delightful feeling to do that! She thought she’d have to try that again next time. The phone rang immediately and, grinning when she saw Anna Grace was calling back, Lilli pushed the TALK button and them promptly pushed the END button. She was sure she could picture the surprise that must be registering on Anna Grace’s face right now, knowing that her own mother had just hung up on her – TWICE. What fun! I’m old enough, Lilli thought, to do whatever I damn well please and (pardon my French) I think I damn well will.
“Would you like to talk about bird food?” Ben asked.1st excerpt
“BIRD food?” Zoe scrunched up her face into a scowl.
“Sure,” Ben said. “They eat, too, you know.”
“Okay,” Zoe said, rather reluctantly.
“Some birds like to sip nectar from flowers,” he said, “so I want you to think about that a minute. If you are trying to sip something from a thin and tiny flower, how would you do it?”
“You mean how to drink something?” Zoe asked.
“Yes, how would you drink from a flower – if you were a bird?”
“Well, a bird is too little to pick a flower, right?”
“Yes.”
“And he doesn’t have hands either.”
“Right.”
“So,” she said, thinking hard about it, “I guess I’d use a straw, but birds don’t have any way to carry a straw.”
“No,” Ben said, “But you have the right idea. Birds don’t have straws, but they have beaks.”
Zoe frowned, trying to follow his reasoning. “There really is a bird,” he said,”that has a beak very much like a straw.”
“What color straw?” Zoe asked.
Ben laughed. “It isn’t a plastic straw, so the beak is beak-colored. Okay, don’t think about color. Think of what a bird needs to sip like from a straw.”
“Does the bird have a long, long beak?” she asked.
“Yes! Well done, Zoe!” he said.
She smiled, pleased with herself.
“A hummingbird has a beak like a straw. Those little birds have tiny wings that go so fast we humans can see only a blur. They are so fast, they can stay in the air in one place – and that place is in front of a deep flower.”
She was listening intently.
“Then they insert their long beaks into the flower and have lunch.”
“Wow!” It was obvious she was impressed.
“No self-respecting woman would ever do that,” Julia said, slamming the door as she left. What were you thinking? she asked herself. Why would you ask him for help in the first place?
Julia was totally unaware of the image she projected, walking with authority and self-possession down the echoing hallway at the school. Her own office was on the floor above Richard’s department, and she reached it quickly and closed the door between her office and the receptionist secretary. Almost immediately, there was a light tap on the door.
“You had a couple of calls while you were out,” Marla said. “One was from Zoe.”
Zoe, checking in after school. Hopefully that’s all it was. Julia quickly dialed the number.
“Zoe? Everything okay?”
“Yeah, Mom. Just letting you know I’m home, and Grandma is already here to pick me.” Julia could hear her mother talking in the background, telling Zoe what to say to Julia.
“Be good for her this weekend, Zoe. Don’t push for special favors.”
“Mom, I don't. She just likes to give me stuff.”
“I know, I know, but don’t ask for anything more. We don’t have room in our house for one more Beanie Baby, you know!” Julia’s laugh always made her daughter smile, and she was laughing now.
“Um, how about another rock?” Zoe asked slyly. Zoe the rock hound. Zoe’s rock collection would some day collapse the house under its weight at the rate she was buying, finding, labeling, and storing her polished stones, rough rocks, and pretty pebbles.
Julia laughed again. “Don’t you dare!” she said.
“Just kidding, Mom,” Zoe sang into the phone. “Just kidding!”
“No, you weren’t,” Julia replied, but Zoe heard the laugh in her mother’s truth. Collecting rocks was better than … better than … better than always wanting new dresses like that silly Kaylyn across the street. Such a sissy.
“Take a dress for Sunday morning,” Julia was saying. “And your dressy shoes.”
“Aw, Mom!”
“Do it, Zoe. You know she always goes to church.” Julia repressed a sigh, not wanting her daughter to hear it; but she was so tired of her mother’s insistence on the importance of taking her only granddaughter to church.
“Zoe needs to go to church, Julia,” her mother would say. “Otherwise, she’s going to grow up a heathen.”
My daughter is not a heathen, Julia was thinking as she said good-bye and tried to get her mind back on the fight with Richard.
1 comment:
Congratulations, Bonnie! I read some of your excerpts and it looks like you've got a good story going on there - instantly "relatable" - clearly defined characterisation. Good luck with the fine tuning and editing - hope it goes really well!
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