Sunday, November 07, 2010

20k Landmark Reached (Already!)

My goal was to reach 20,000 words this weekend and I have achieved that goal! It makes me so incredibly happy because last year it was November 19 (or so) before I got this far. Though last year at 20,000 words I was two-thirds of the way done. This year I'm only about one-third. That's perfectly fine though because I got there in only 7 days! (NaNoWriMo = excuse for lots of exclamation points)

The only thing that hasn't been going quite so smoothly is the picture taken. My picture for the 5th was taken by my mom (as was the one on the 4th) and for some reason I have still not gotten the e-mail containing it. We're working on it though as we have to take today's picture with her phone as well. My picture for the 6th wasn't even really taken on the 6th though it does look like it because I'm at the right place and wearing the right clothes but really I took it today because I forgot. I just switched clothes for the picture to make myself feel slightly better. Also, I think the karma gods were looking down on me because the picture is on Lizzie's phone and she got grounded from it. I guess that's what I get. It will be up eventually though. I have a spot in the sidebar all set up for it. I also put in a temporary picture that says 'Coming Soon' on it so I don't loose track of which pictures go with which days (because it would so be like me to do that).

Speaking of the sidebar, you may have noticed that I've added another person to my word war widget. It's my friend Leo. She, Madeline, and I are all good friends and since we're all doing NaNo (I just found out Leo was doing NaNo today, great friend huh?) I decided to stick her on there too. Don't be fooled by her low word count, Leo isn't one of those people who updates her word count very often.

And speaking of widgets, I stuck the first 20,000 words of Thinking of You into the I Write Like website and got this:





I write like
Stephenie Meyer
I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!


And just for kicks I stuck the first draft of The Lullaby in to and got this:





I write like
Neil Gaiman
I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

I'm thinking my writing style may just depend on what I'm writing, or maybe what POV I'm doing it in. It may also be that I've changed a lot in the last year. I also hope as the novel progresses it'll be less like Stephenie Meyer. Not that I'm one of those people who like hates her guts or anything, I mean she's a bestseller after all, but lots of olderish people do not like her style of writing and I want people to enjoy my writing. What author wouldn't? To let you decide for yourself if I write like Stephenie Meyer or not, here's an excerpt. Please note, this is in the middle of a flashback.


When I woke up, I knew what they would tell me, that she had been stillborn, that the little girl who I had carried around for 9 months was gone. That the birth certificate that had been set and ready with the name Ariel Lanfeld written across the top, would never be sent in. They had offered to let me keep it anyway. The doctor had signed it with the date and time of birth written down, and I had clutched it to my chest.

I can admit to myself know, that half of the tears I cried were ones of relief. I was only 15 with a full life ahead of me, a great career. I had done something stupid, and this was the consequence. And somehow I had been lucky enough for it to go away. I kept that birth certificate. I framed it at home, but lately I had taken to carrying it around with me, close to my heart. It was in my bra always, even now. They hadn’t given me any new clothes to wear or anything.

I never got to see her. They wouldn’t let me see the body, they said it would be too hard for me, in my adolescence. And I went with it. I didn’t want to see what a horrible person I was. The little baby corpse that I was relieved was that way.

In later life, after Clarence was gone, I would wish so desperately that I had persisted, that I had looked, that she had lived above all else. No matter what I thought I saw, my team, our missions, I never once saw her, and I always remembered that she was gone. That pain never went away no matter how bad I wished it would.

A sudden thought struck me. If she had still been alive she had to be around here somewhere. Could I walk around in parts of a memory I didn’t remember? Could I see her at last? It was worth a try. I stood up from my chair and drifted from the room leaving me behind.

I drifted down the hallway looking for a door labeled Nursery or a large window looking into it. Finally, I found a nurse carrying a baby and I just followed her. She led me into a room full of heated baby beds. I searched for my baby. Her name on some kind of tag. I finally found it but a blanket covered her almost completely. All I saw was a dark head of hair poking out of the top. [No blonde hair like Clarence.]

I lifted the blanket slowly, amazed I could touch something in a memory. Her face slowly was revealed to me. I leaned forward with anticipation, finally, after eight years. Then my joy and hope crumpled inwards. I didn’t know whether to scream, cry, laugh hysterically. So I just stared there shocked. In a movie quiet dreamy music would have been playing. But this wasn’t a movie. My dreams were crushed and lay in ruins all around this baby nursery. One of them started to fuss, and a nurse hurried to check on him or her. I barely registered any of it. I was focused on one fact.

My daughter had no face.

3 comments:

  1. I like the last line, very creepy! Yes, I can kind of see similarities with Stephenie Meyer. You both write in a style that is easy to read, in a similar way to how someone would talk and you both put a lot of emotion into even a short sentence.

    I did the I write like thing to and got stephen king and william gibson. It's a really cool website.

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  2. I guess when you put it like that it doesn't seem so bad. XD That's cool. Though I can't quite remember who William Gibson is.

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  3. *shivers* That's creepy! I'll have to give that site a go!

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