untitled three

Normally, when Annabelle exited the highway, she was greeted by a gas station and some fast food joints so she briefly thought about getting back on the highway when that didn't happen. Instead of there being a variety of convenience stores immediately off the highway, she instead found a sign informing her that Eden Springs was located eleven miles to her right. Chewing her lower lip, she considered her options. She could turn around and get back on the highway and hope that there was a gas station within about ten miles of where she was or she could take her chances on this country road.
"Momma, I really have to go."
It was settled. If Lila had to pee, then she had to pee and given her daughter's firm stance on not peeing outdoors, they would need to find a bathroom and quick. Annabelle turned right and started the eleven mile drive to Eden Springs.
The drive reminded her of a carriage ride she had seen in a movie once. The road itself was single lane with a single faded yellow line painted down the middle. The trees grew tall and thick on either side of the road hiding anything that may be on the other side and meeting in the top to form a canopy. It felt like you were going to see a castle at the end of the road.
Annabelle felt herself getting anxious as she got further down the road without seeing any signs of life. She was scared that she would get to the end and there wouldn't be any place to get gas and she would be stranded in the middle of nowhere. But, the road suddenly curved to the right and the trees fell behind them and Annabelle could see the approaching buildings. She let out the breath she had been holding as she glanced at the welcome sign to her right.
Welcome to Eden Springs!
Stopping at a stop sign, Annabelle looked up and then down Main Street and spotted a gas station and a diner sitting right next to one another a few blocks to her left. She flicked her blinker on and headed towards them. She pulled into one of only six parking spaces and turned off the (car).
"Lila? Do you have your shoes on?"
"Yup! Can we go in now Momma?"
Annabelle turned around in her seat and looked at her daughter. She was wearing a pair of zip up yellow pajamas with a little duck on the front right pocket and her favorite shoes with Big Bird on them. She was an explosion of yellow contrasts until she looked up and met her mother's eyes, then that green just drowned everything else out.
"Are you ok Momma?"
"Oh you betcha! I was just trying to decide how many of your pancakes I am going to eat, that's all."
"Nu-uh. You have to get your own this time."
Annabelle grabbed her purse, opened her door and climbed out of the driver's seat for the first time in hours. Stretching her arms over her head, she walked around to the other side of the car to let her daughter out. Lila slid from the seat to the pavement and then reached up and took her mother's hand and the two of them walked into the diner.
Lola's Diner looked like a fifties style burger place that Annabelle had once waited tables in. She cringed remembering the poodle skirt and pony tail that had been a requirement of her 'uniform'. This restaurant was definitely not ran with the same nostalgia requirements. Booths ran from one end of the wall to the other and the bar was lined with stools, three of which were occupied. In the first was an older man, probably in his late fifties Annabelle thought, reading a newspaper and sipping coffee. The second occupant was a young boy, maybe seven or eight years old, eating scrambled eggs and sausage and drinking a huge glass of orange juice. He looked over at Annabelle and then to Lila and smiled before grabbing his juice and getting back to his breakfast. On the third stool was a police officer, but Annabelle couldn't tell anything about him since his back was to her and he was reading (what book?).
Assuming she was to seat herself, Annabelle walked Lila to an empty booth and helped her into the seat across from her own. Before she had even set her purse next to her, their waitress appeared with a pot of coffee and a name tag that declared her name was 'Tina'.
"Good morning! Do ya'll need a few minutes to decide on what you'd like?"
Annabelle smiled and silently blessed whoever it was that had invented coffee before answering.
"Actually, we'd both like pancakes and my daughter would like some apple juice. Oh and where is your little girls room?"
Tina took the menu from Annabelle and then signaled to a door next to a pinball machine.
"Ladies room is right over there. Your food should be ready in just a few minutes. Can I get you anything else?"
"No, thank you."
As soon as Tina was back in the kitchen, Lila jumped down from the booth and walked towards the restroom. Annabelle added some sugar and cream to her coffee and sat back to watch the cars drive by her window.
"Hi!"
Annabelle was glad she had set her mug down a few seconds before since she would probably have spilled it in her lap. Standing next to her table was the little boy from the counter.
"Hello."
"Where'd that little girl go to?" He asked as he climbed into the seat across from her.
"She's using the bathroom right now."
"Oh. Well, what's her name?" Annabelle smiled at him. He was really very cute with his red hair and freckles.
"Her name is Delilah, but I just call her Lila. What's your name?"
He fidgeted a little with the buttons on his shirt before he looked up, "Justin. Justin Cooper. My Momma says I was named after her daddy, but I never met him. She says I look like him with my hair being red, but my grandma says I act just like my mom. She says I am ob-stre-per-ous. I don't know what that means, but she says Momma was the same way when she was little."
"Momma, he stole my seat."
Annabelle picked her daughter up and sat her down in the booth next to her. "He didn't steal it baby, he's just visiting for a few minutes. His name is Justin. Say 'hello' to him."
All it took was Lila saying hello before she and Justin were buried in conversation about Sesame Street and bicycles and their favorite things to do. Annabelle just sipped her coffee and listened.

(2,148 words)
(47,852 to go)

Characters developed: 3
Music: Hinder
Sanity levels: stable

untitled two

Annabelle rolled her eyes at the radio dj's comment and changed the station. She didn't feel like listening to the morning shows, she just wanted to find some music. After a few seconds of turning the dial, she came across some Tom Petty.
Well some say life will beat you down
Break your heart, steal your crown
So I started out for God knows where
But I guess I'll know when I get there
I'm learning to fly around the clouds
But what goes up must come down
I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings
Comin' down is the hardest thing
Annabelle thought to herself for just a second that she and Tom Petty were kindred spirits. She smiled at the idea of the two of them driving together into the sunrise talking about how they would drive until they found the right place to stop.
"Mom, where are we?"
The small voice from the back seat pulled Annabelle back into her car, back into reality.
"Hey there sunshine. We are somewhere in the middle of Texas. Are you hungry?"
"Yup and I need to pee too."
Looking into her rear view mirror Annabelle saw the sleepy face and tousled blonde hair of her four year old daughter. She rubbed the sleep from her green eyes and stretched her arms over her head with a big yawn.
"Momma?"
"Yes, Lila?"
"Could I have pancakes?"
"Yes ma'am, pancakes it is."
Lila smiled and pulled her blanket up to her neck as she watched the world pass by her window. It still surprised Annabelle that she and her daughter looked so different, practically opposites. While Lila's hair was white blonde and curly, Annabelle's was almost black and wouldn't even hold a wave. Her eyes were a pale shade of blue and gray, almost sad, but Lila's were such a strong shade of moss green that they almost jumped off of her face when she looked at you. Lila's nose turned up just a little at the end and Annabelle's own nose ended in a point, Lila had a slight sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks and her mother's skin was pale and void of any markings. Yet, they somehow looked right together. Annabelle had always thought that it was their bond to one another, it managed to supersede everything else. The love that they had for each other was so obvious that they had to be mother and daughter.
The gas light lit up signaling that it was time to find a place to fill up the tank and Lila's tummy. There has been a sign a few minutes before saying that there was food and lodging a few miles up the road. Annabelle flipped her visor down to inspect her face. She looked the same as she had looked the day before when she had thrown all of her and Lila's things into her [van?]; tired and sad. She took the claw clip out of her hair, letting it fall down her back, and ran her hand through it to smooth it out. Deciding that this was as good as she was going to be able to look, Annabelle flipped the visor back up and put on her sunglasses. Seeing the exit sign coming up on her right, she flipped on her blinker and left the highway.

(1,110 words)
(48,890 to go)

untitled one

Annabelle Stevens loved the peaceful serenity of driving at night. The slight hum of her car, the soft breeze blowing through her cracked window and the low music coming from the radio. She loved that there would be twenty minutes between the last car she had passed and the next. She enjoyed seeing all of the little towns when they were empty and looked abandoned and forgotten. But most of all, she loved the feeling that she was putting so much behind her, every mile on the odometer was further away and Annabelle loved to feel far away from what she was leaving behind.
She had forgotten how many times she had packed up her old [car/truck?] and hit the road, how many places she had lived, how many jobs she had worked... she had traveled from one side of the country to the other and then from the top to the bottom and back living in apartments and houseboats and even her [car] that one week in South Dakota. There had been so many different jobs and Annabelle had learned long ago that she could do just about anything. She had painted, cleaned, cooked, welded, sailed, taught, bagged, stripped and even written for the local newspaper at one point in time [more jobs? less?]. She just considered herself adaptable and capable and happy to learn new things. She never chose the job for the job itself, she just went where she felt she should be. It was the same with the towns that she chose. She would drive and drive until she felt a place pull at her and then she would pull over and unpack. She would stay long enough for her past, for the pain, to catch up and then she would leave it behind and move to the next town. She loved new places, new people and the thrill of finding them. She had never felt the urge to stay in any one place for more than a few months, there was too much out there.
Dawn was beginning to break. The sky was changing from black to that blue that only happens an hour before you see the sun. Annabelle glanced down at her watch and saw that it was almost six. She wasn't sure exactly where she was, only that she had crossed into Texas at nine o'clock the night before and had been heading South ever since. The heat appealed to her after months of snowy winters and she was sure that she would find a town South Texas that called to her. She reached down and adjusted the radio to another station since the one she had on before had faded out.
[radio talk?]


(452 words)
(49,548 to go)

NaNoWriMo 2005 :: Week One (from Chris Baty)

Dear Writer,
What were you thinking?
I mean, really. With your busy schedule; with everything else you're supposed to be doing in November, you're going to write a novel too?
Are you crazy?
We here at NaNoWriMo think you might be. Which is why we're so proud to have you as part of the team this year.
Because you know what? No one in their right mind has ever accomplished anything truly great. It's a delicious sort of insanity to reprioritize your to-do list and move this freaky, creative adventure of novel-writing to the very top.
Well, near the top, anyway.
Showering is important too.
As is napping.
The bathing and sleeping, we'll keep. But as for all the chores and favors and selfless acts of kindness you've spent your life bestowing upon the people around you...Well, in November, you're off duty.
Seriously.
Let the dog walk itself. Empower your kids to drive themselves to school.
Nothing instills character in a child like operating a piece of heavy machinery. Cooking? Bah. A host of local fast food chefs stand ready and waiting with a wondrous array of largely edible delights.
Pizza is brain food, after all. And you have more important things to do than cook. You're going to be busy building universes and forging lives.
In November, we spare no moments for drudgery, devoting our limited hours instead to frantic typing, long, bookish walks, and soulful glances out the window (which serve as restful interludes between prose creation and much-needed practice for our future book-jacket photo shoots).
Yes, November is our chance to play. To goof around in our imaginations.
To fall asleep fulfilled and wake up a'buzz with revelations about backstories and front-stories and the electric, book-changing knowledge of what our Peruvian double agent has been hiding inside that taxidermized muskrat all this time.
In four weeks, this state of manic creative bliss will be over. And we can go back to doing dishes and wearing clean clothes and talking in complete sentences to our loved ones.
For now, though, our books beckon, and our tales demand an author.
Let's go give it to 'em.
Best of luck to everyone on the first week of writing. We'll meet again in seven days, when we gather together on the mighty precipice of Week Two.
Off to dream a few beautiful stuffed muskrat dreams,
Chris
NaNoWriMo

Welcome to the pain...

Hi and welcome. Since there are still two hours before we are allowed to start AND I have just finished walking something like five miles (trick or treating), I am going to make this short and start on my story tomorrow morning :)
First of all, if you are doing NanoWrimo and have a blog/website for it, email me your link!!! Even if you don't, send me a link to your profile. I will try to get these up in a somewhat timely fashion.
Secondly, you have to take a break on Wednesdays because that is when I have my Acrophobia on my LOC blog ;)
And the last thing I wanted to mention, everything that I am writing here is rough draft, first draft, zero editing. You will find that I stick notes for myself in brackets so that I can come back and fix something later. What you are reading is not in perfect order nor has it been edited. If you see something in brackets that I couldn't figure out and have a suggestion, please feel free to leave a comment! I love comments :) If you see that something isn't flowing right, again, let me know. I have a tendency to get a few pages in and forget that my main character is a blonde and call her a redhead :)
The point of NanoWrimo is to force out the fifty thousand words, to focus on actually writing and not editing and making it perfect. I tried this last year and couldn't seem to get past the ten thousand word mark, so I am trying harder this year. Bare with me and maybe this little work of fiction will go somewhere :)