Nanowrimo 2008.3

Third day of Nanowrimo, still in the game. I'm averaging 2100 words a day, in about two hours of writing. Given the dross I'm producing, I'm not surprised I can spit it out that fast (that works out to 17 words a minute). Still, in the dross, I'm discovering phrases or structures or plot developments I admire. Today, my favorite production was, "he liked the way a lock of curly hair always pulled out of her ponytail and rested red-brown in the pool of her collarbone," although in the momentum of the writing I finished the analogy with a sorry bit of unintentionally funny dead horse: "... like an autumn leaf in a backed up storm sewer puddle." The forward motion is all; so my character's lovely collarbone remains the image of a storm sewer plugged with hair.

I've promised myself that I can read the thing in December -- a sorry week in December that will be, forcing myself to read this.

I've gotten a couple queries about how the "write-in" went on Saturday. It went well, but that doesn't mean I actually spoke with anyone.

There were about 5 or possibly 6 of us there, including myself -- that is, there were that many people with laptops, sitting typing away. I arrived about 15 minutes late, having walked over from Girl-child's last soccer game of the season; ordered a cup of coffee and sat at a small table by myself. One woman, in a sheared haircut with intricate, colored tattoos down her arms, had a paper notebook and was writing by hand. The back side of the page she was working on was covered with drawings (an illustrated novel!). Across a large table from her was a very serious looking fellow, gaunt, in dark sunglasses (inside a fairly dark coffee shop) and a fedora, typing hard.

At another table was a genial, large fellow who had ordered a huge mocha with extra whipping cream on top, the kind of guy named "Mo", or "Kent". At a fourth table was a girl of probably 17 or so, but she looked about 12, some writing prodigy no doubt, with a laptop covered in stickers (I noticed, after some time, a "Nanowrimo" sticker, in the shape of a shield, amongst mementos of what I took to be rock bands).

The prodigy spent 10 minutes or so fixedly gazing at each of her fellow coffee drinkers. Suddenly, she jumped up and said to the gaunt man, "Nanowrimo?" He barely acknowledged her, but she picked up her stuff and moved over to his table. I thought for about 30 milliseconds of joining them, but I had an umbrella and a jacket and a backpack, the laptop and a full cup of coffee and a plate with a cookie on it -- not a negligible amount of stuff to move over one table, so I stayed put. I watched them, but didn't interact.

She must have noticed (I hadn't) that the gaunt fellow had a little folded index card on the table next to him, printed with the Nanowrimo shield, and a place to fill out: Author:_________ and Title:_____________, as well as a row of little blocks printed along the bottom. I was too far away to read his name or the title (title? I don't even have a plot, how could I have a title?!), but after about 45 minutes, the man suddenly picked up the card and blackened a couple of the little blocks at the bottom. I think they are word counts, each block counting 1500 or 2000 words. The whole time I was there, he ignored the prodigy sitting at the table with him. The tattoed lady got a phone call after half an hour and packed up her stuff and left, and he didn't even raise his head. Mr. Gaunt was letting us know he was A Serious Writer.

Like the prodigy, Kent (or Mo) spent the first fifteen minutes or so looking carefully at everyone else in the coffee shop. I would have made eye contact, but he didn't look my way when I was looking his. Then we both set to work, and I hardly registered him until he left just about the time I was thinking of leaving. We didn't exchange words at all.

When I left after about an hour and a half, I waved at Mr. Gaunt and Prodigy, and said, "See you 'round" -- she looked surprised (I think she thought she had found the only other nanowrimer in the place), and the gaunt man glanced up, but didn't seem impressed. Another laptop was arriving just as I left (someone had written that he had to work and would come late, so maybe that was him).

All in all, the silent write-in at the coffee house was good. I've thought of setting up another one, but I don't really want to deal with the social side. So instead I'm going to just go to a coffee house on my own, and pretend that everyone there with a laptop is in Nanowrimo as well. They might actually be.