NaNoWriMo 2006

What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.
Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: Sign-ups begin October 1, 2006. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

The Novel

What's it about?

It is a science fiction novel, set in an undefinded location at an undefined time. Robots are ubiquitous, useful and reliable, but humans are still in charge and try their best to screw up.

Can I read it?

Can I read it? That's a very common quesion, and the short answer is "no". The product of NaNoWriMo is never a completed and polished finished novel but a very rough first draft. The story is still very shaky, the characters inconsistent and the grammar horrible.

A longer answer is: if you're very interested and you are prepared to make some promises concerning unnecessary praise and I feel I can trust you then I will consider sharing this piece of drivel with you. Of course if you're a publisher with lots of money everything is open for negotiation.

Excerpt

Below follows an excerpt of the novel, as it was on my NaNoWriMo profile page.

I gathered my painting gear, strode downhill to the stream, and spent a lovely afternoon painting. Since that morning a few dewflowers had blossomed, and they gave an unexpected burst of life to a piece of riverbank. People sometimes accuse me of painting overly optimistic pictures. It may seem like that in the city, but what's a man to do if that's what he sees on the spot. The dewflowers were closing on the sunset when I packed up. The dusk didn't linger: a bank of cloud had come up, and brought sudden darkness.

I walked up the hill to the hut, hampered by a wind that blew around my bags and cases. I got to the cabin, fullfilled but tired. It had been a long day. I dumped the load on the porch to get the door open. The lock would not open. I pressed my thumb on the lock, but fingerprint scanner stayed dark. I scratched my thumb with my fingernails: it would not be the first time that a smear of paint had barred access. Still nothing. I dug in the deep recesses of my memory, and typed in the override access code. Nothing. By now it was pitch black dark. I realized that something else was wrong. By now the courtesy light should have come on. It seemed that my porch had a power failure. How would I get inside? I could call for help, but the flitter was away and the only other communicator was inside the cabin.

Maybe Keroia's monitoring robot would have a signalling device on it. I found it crouching next to the door, plugged into a power socket, as if recharging, but dead. Hot, but dead. I held an open jar of turpentine at its sniffer, but there was no reaction. Not even a smear of Arsenic Green from a tube of paint to its soil probe would make it do anything.

It started raining. I was seriously in trouble now. It was pitch black. Rain was coming down in droves, being driven onto the porch. I tried digging at the lock on the door with a pallet knife, and breaking in at a window, but I knew when I started that it was hopeless. The cabin was vandalproof.

Cold and wet, I did what I could to protect myself. I put down my canvas case at an angle against the wall of the cabin, and crawled underneath it. With my other bags and cases I built as much as a windbreak as I could. With head and shoulders under the canvas I was protected as best as I could, but it still was a meager protection. It was not midnight yet, and the safety of sunrise still far away. It was cold. I drifted away to sleep. I awoke shivering. It was half an hour later. The rain had stopped, but the wind picked up. I shifted my position on the hard boards and heard a tinkling sound: it had started freezing. Nothing I did could keep me warm. I tried staying up, but the freezing wind nipped at my nose and fingers. I crawled into my little shelter. It was warmer inside, but I could not move to stay warm. I gave up. Hugging myself, I felt myself drifting off to a welcome sleep. My toes and finger still hurt, but it was fading, I was not longer shivering, and I felt at peace.

I was jolted from my sleep by the sound of the door latch springing back. From the door came a voice. "Master must come inside. It is not safe to be outside in this weather without adequate protection." For a moment I felt I was dreaming, but then I saw a light. I crawled out of my shelter, and saw it was real. In the open door stood Lara, a faint guiding light shining on the floor. "Master must come inside. It is not safe to be outside in this weather without adequate protection."