A Dozen Times None, Or How Will I Choose?

 

Oops, I did it again.

The year was 2009. I was SUPER-UNEMPLOYED, and had been so for a year, at that point. I was encouraged by some sadistic friends to try NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The premise is simple: writers are challenged to write a 50,000-word novel (that's a novella, really, but let's not quibble) in one month. I was successful, and for better or worse, I was hooked. Soon, there was a summer version of the traditional November event: Camp NaNoWriMo. A little over a month ago, I stopped writing my twelfth first draft. It's not done, but if we're being honest, are any of them?

So. I have self-imposed a rule on myself. No more new projects (National Blog Posting Month notwithstanding) until I make an honest effort to get one of my twelve babies to see the light of day. But Which one gets the call? 

November 2009. Working title: "Tiny Scars." It's a semi-autobiographical tale of a sixth-grader with a genius friend, and a cool teacher who produces plays that turn out a lot better than they have any right to turn out. There's also weeklong trip to a  camp that's oddly religious, for a public school trip, but whatever. Here's an excerpt.

November 2010 - the month I started working at Beloved Employer. Working title: "Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid." If you're a fan of "South Park's" first season, you know from the title that this is a zombie story. We follow a lottery-winning slacker and his dog on their new boat, as they gradually learn what's happened and try to work their way home from the Caribbean. The dog is probably the best part. I just reread an excerpt, and meh.

August 2011. Working title: "Sand In The Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid." Same zombie apocalypse, but told through the lens of a budding semi-comedic romance in off-season Rehoboth Beach. Here's a bit. So to speak.

July 2012. Working title: "Falling Off The Universe." I like this one. It's an ensemble thing - a group of friends gathering after years apart to scatter the ashes of their gone-too-soon former ringleader. They encounter a alien with a busted spaceship, and interstellar shenanigans ensue. The ending needs a complete rework (the whole story needs a lot of work), but the elements are there, and I love some of these characters so much, they keep appearing here in the blog, sharing their ALTERNATE MEMORIES. One of them is also dangerously addicted to COFFEE.

June 2013. Working title: "Buck Mope Catches The Westbound." Not-so-young, freshly laid-off new couple befriends a hundred-year old hobo, creates a viral sensation telling his far-fetched stories online, and tries to help him take a final ride into the sunset, so to speak. The old man has an unexplained endangered black-footed ferret you may have seen on this very blog, this very month. This is the little novel that my ever-lovin' editor and fake alternate elector [Maris] thinks could make it, so it's the clear front-runner for my first publishing attempt. Still needs work, but I loved these characters, too, so I guess I kind of owe it to them.

November 2013. Working title: "Bane's Existence." What was I thinking, starting a new novel just weeks after stopping work on "Buck Mope?" This one's about a guy who questions his own existence, and accumulates a lifetime of evidence to support his theory that he's actually a ghost or something. Also, he dates a ghost. I think. It's been about ten years since I've looked at this one. I faintly remember that it had moments, but probably needs more work that most of my other drafts.

July 2014. Working title: "Undead Drunk." Another zombie thing, but this one set in Baltimore, as another group of friends gathers with their classmates for a high school reunion. Pretty sure I kept this gross horror show as funny as possible. I think I have a whole chapter (or more) with two or three of my protagonists "treed," and just watching the apocalypse and doing play-by-play. Yeah, I hear you. meh.

July 2016. Working title: "Party At Ground Zero." Stolen premise from the hugely-underrated 80s movie "Miracle Mile." A bunch of 80s high schoolers are partying their little 80s butts off, when credible news of a full nuclear exchange crashes their shindig and kills everyone's buzz. So, I love the idea. BUT... I used most of the characters from "Falling Off The Universe," and [spoiler alert]: PREQUELS ARE HARD AND THIS ONE IS DEEPLY UNSATISFYING. Might rewrite this one using new characters.

July 2017. Working title: "Plan Nine From Inner Space." An admittedly half-assed ripoff of the "Futurama" episode where Leela's in a coma and has a series of coma-dreams that turn out to have been triggered by Fry's incessant talking at her, trying to bring her back. It has moments, but yeah - a bit on the meh side.

July 2018. Working title: "Milo And The Art Of Nodus Tollens." This is more like it. Inspired by a list shared by my late cousin Mary M.. Nodus Tollens refers to the realization that the plot of one's life doesn't make sense anymore - that your "writer" might not know what the hell he or she is doing. I came up with another cute and fun couple for this one, and because side characters always steal the show, we invented Deejay Atmospheric Skip. A global wild goose chase ensues, as Milo tries to fix his story himself. This one is near the top of my list, with "Buck Mope" and "Falling Off The Universe."

July 2019. Working title: "Back To Somewhere Else." Based on my never-ending quest with [Maris], in search of the elusive portal back to the world we obviously came from that is somewhere else. I like this one, too. Portals are wily and capricious.

[Long, long pause...]

July 2023. Working title: "Songs From Later." Another rom-y, com-y one. Young "friends with benefits" arrangement turns real (I know - shocker), but one of the lovers has visions of the future. These visions are often vague and annoyingly cryptic, but over time they begin proving true - or at least semi-true (because me) - culminating with September Eleventh, or possibly January Sixth. I wrote through August and September and into October, eventually passing 80,000 words, BUT this one needs a ton of work to make it work, and I'm just not ready to tear it all down and start over, so I'm spending November doing a blog post a day, instead. 

So. When this month's over, which little book gets the nod? Oh, wait - my busy season at Beloved Employer is just beginning. 

Maybe in February, then...

It's All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets His Neck Bitten Open By An Undead Neighbor

Hello, my wonderful and loyal reader or readers! Today, I am feeling an overwhelming need to post some drivel here. Unfortunately, I'm also feeling just oh so lazy. Well, not as much lazy as just too busy. So, remember that little NaNoWriMo novel I wrote in November? "Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid!" Here's another tiny taste, lovingly extracted from an early chapter, long before the main character (or the author, for that matter) has any clue as to what is happening back home...

* * *

Two days later, as they left Magens Bay in St. Thomas, Bill amused himself for an hour by playing with his old AM/FM Walkman. Thanks to a phenomenon called "atmospheric skip," he was able to tune in the all-news WTOP from Washington, DC. He chuckled as Lisa Baden reported on the horrid traffic on the American Legion Bridge, Doug Hill warned of the coming of the first frost of the season and both of them did their best to tolerate the utter inanity of Mike Moss and Bruce Alan. Today, like most days, they were howling with exaggerated laughter at the slightest provocation - intentional or otherwise - by their supporting cast of imbeciles. Kristi King was excitedly, amateurishly "reporting" on the unspeakably alarming outbreak of "some kind of rabies-like disease" among the squirrel population of the Annapolis-Baltimore-Washington region. Speaking to her listeners as if reading a storybook to a roomful of four-year olds, she attempted to explain that similar outbreaks were being reported in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, and that the Centers for Disease Control was investigating. No - not funny, per se, but Mike and Bruce thought it the most side-splittingly hilarious thing they had ever heard in their lives, ever. "Squirrels biting each other - HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO..." Just as Bill's Walkman was letting go of the signal, he heard Ms. King mention, almost as an afterthought, that at least two people had been bitten in our region, and that one had died.

Bill put the Walkman into his backpack of electronics. (Well?) woofed Doug, returning to the deck from his doggie bed below.

"I got WTOP from home, buddy! I know, right! It's weird to hear their voices down here, looking at St. Thomas. Sounds like there's something wrong with the squirrels, back home." he explained.

"Bark! (Squirrels!) Doug's tail waved enthusiastically.

"Man - I'll bet you miss the squirrels. I hadn't even thought of that, dude. Well, maybe we can hit a couple of nice beaches along the leeward islands, and you can chase some birds or children or something." Bill said, patting Doug's head.

Doug woofed appreciatively.

"Would you like that, Dougie? You wanna go to the beach? You wanna go herd some children and chase sandpipers and run around and bark and jump in the water and (sniff, sniff) ugh - maybe have a real bath someplace, so you look good for the girl beach dogs. And so you don't smell quite so much like a sewer. Sound good? What do you think, buddy!"

Doug barked his approval.

* * *

There. Now I feel like I wrote something tonight. Everybody wins! And no, you may NOT have those six minutes back. Sorry. That's life. I do have a couple of things cooking, but at least one of them is not fun or the slightest bit funny, and that stuff is always hard for me to get up for. But I'll try.

Back soon, but possibly not before Christmas. So, Merry Christmas, reader! Or readers! Peace...

What I Should Be Doing Is Something Else

Hi!

I'm back! In more ways than one, actually. I have plenty more Double-barrel Unemployment to cover (I hadn't even gotten to the part when it officially became double-barrel, yet!), but first... Where I've been. Who am I kidding? Any one of the half-dozen of you who read this drivel already know precisely where I've been for the past month. I got a nice new job with nice people performing nice work for a really nice cause. Not great money, but seriously, the mission (it's a non-profit) and the commute (outrageously close to home) more than make up for that.

Between starting the new job and writing a 50,730-word zombie novella in 29 days, I've been neglecting pretty much everything else in life. What I should be doing right now is taking down -ahem- HALLOWEEN decorations. I should be cleaning this shamefully dirty house. I should be making the grocery list, or working out, or sleeping, or catching up with my tiny group of wholly-inappropriate friends, or packing that piece-of-crap humidifier up and returning it to Sharper Image (it is really bad), or doing laundry or updating my LinkedIn profile and/or résumé - you know, something useful. But no. I'm doing this. Because I love to type stuff and then read it to [Maris] later. Maybe I'll be productive this week-end. Yeah. Maybe.

Hey - who wants to read an excerpt from my little book, "Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid?" ALL of you do? Well - okay, then. Here goes. (and who here gets that title?)

* * *

"Right on schedule, at ten o'clock Bill was met by the guys from Enterprise, and he quickly crossed "Return Car" off his list. That left only the newly-scrawled "Christen Boat So Dad Will Chill" and "Get Hell Out Of Dodge."

Bill, having declared that the cheap bottle would be sacrificed for the occasion, held the André aloft. "I christen this boat, The Good Ship--"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Bill!" Frank interrupted. "Talk directly to the vessel. Tell her what you're naming her and say a blessing and be serious for just a minute."

"Yeah, dude. It's bad luck if you don't do it right. Don't tempt fate or Ursula from 'The Little Mermaid' will kill you in her animated whirlpool!" Bart concurred.

Bill sighed, put his hand on the port side railing and faced his boat. "In front of friends and family, under this perfect September sky, I christen thee Sedna The Dock O' The Bay, and I pray that God's blessing be upon you and all who upon you sail. May your seas be smooth, your rudder be true and your captain wise." With that, and with his loved ones wondering who this person was and where he had come from because he was not the Bill they knew, he brought the bottle down hard across the railing, utterly failing to shatter it but exciting his dog to no end. A second, harder whack took care of the bottle, eliciting a cheer from friends and Fords - and even a few fellow boaters who had gathered to offer their best wishes. The railing had a noticeable dent, at this point.

"Very nice, Bill." said his mother."

* * *

I know - it's not a very exciting part of the story. Maybe I'll post a more zombie-ish bit later. If anyone asks for more.

Back to some tales of DB Unemployed woe and whatnot, next time. Stay tuned - and thanks for reading my drivel!