NaNoWriMo: Day 25 outtakes

Well, I'm making up ground fast. Between tears and fears and pure procrastination, I'm forcing myself to make a final push to the end. I think I have some good stuff in store. Whether or not I'll figure out completely how all the bits and pieces tie together by the end of the month, I'm not sure. But in all honesty, I think that once I map out the bits I have, and write out the characters and the plot, there are several folks I know I can tap to help flesh out the spots I'm stuck. My writer's group, my parents, my pals, there are many who will readily feed me ideas if only to get me to finish the damn story so they can see where everything fits together. I know because when others are stuck, the answers seem sometimes obvious to me. I'm counting on the bridges to my canyons being obvious to others, and thus I continue to write. Following the tips of many of the NaNoWriMo guest columnists, when I get bored, I jump. I go explore another realm. When I feel the storyline stagnating around a particular scene, I wrench myself away from it. Push myself away.

And thus today's scene, which I really can't believe I'm posting. No blushing allowed. I opened the doors and this is what came out. No apologies. And, ok, a few blushes. But hey, I went to VooDoo Donuts in Porland this weekend. And I visited my grandma. I'm feeling a bit daring.

And to my writer group: I will be seeking some input soon. I need some help pole vaulting some canyons. Oh yeah, and I should thank my brother for this evening's excerpt.

Day 25 outtakes:

Liz headed to the molded plastic seating area. Around the corner, true to what the ponytailed order taker said, was racks of pubs. Senior citizen newspapers, real estate listings, autotraders, a few copies of The Oregonian, The Columbian, The Olympian, The Daily News, The Daily World and even The News Tribune out of Tacoma and some copies of The Stranger from Seattle. Lots of commuters must travel through. And of course, there were the nickel ads. As if anything was a nickel anymore. Even the ads must be worth a few dozen nickels by now.

Liz grabbed a copy of the Stranger. She was in a mood for some mindless entertainment. And the Stranger’s “alternative” voice managed to cover fact and fiction in a manner both informative and entertaining, that she might even learn something while distracting herself. It was a nice benefit. On the cover this week. A bucket of geoducks sitting on a vintage scale. Apparently submitted by a reader. It honestly looked like a bucket of castrated penises. Gotta love the geoduck (pronounced gooey-duck for the uninitiated.) And you gotta love that it’s actually the mascot of Olympia’s Evergreen State College. Only Evergreen, with its fuck-if-I-care-what-you-think-of-me reputation would have the balls to pull off such a mascot. There might be no football team, but no one at UW or WSU could pull that one off. They need huskies and cougars to amp up their masculinity quotient. Vicious predators. Evergreen just puts it out there. You want mascots and masculinity? Well then, we’ll just make our mascot a penis. It’s almost like a subtle joke on all the other schools. Mocking their mascots while they think they’re mocking the geoduck. If only they knew.

Along the edge of the alt-newspaper was the faintly visible daily message. This copy was well-used by the time Liz grabbed it out of the bin of earmarked papers, but the words were barely visible. “They’re watching.” Short and simple. Sometimes meaningful, sometimes meaningless. But always there. A little inside joke at times. Today’s was a little too true for comfort. They are watching. Who they’re watching, who knows. What they’re watching, who knows. Everyone? Everything? Liz hoped not. Liz really hoped she’d still managed to stay beneath the radar for the most part. Obviously not completely, as she was learning how on the radar she was for a certain segment of folks.