A Taste of The Collective NaNovel

Posted by limpetfan | Posted in nanowrimo, writing | Posted on 04-11-2009-05-2008

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It is four days into NaNoWriMo, and I’ll be honest – it’s not going well. I’ve already contemplated quitting several times. My word count is OK – 6,041 words so far. That’s the good news. The bad news is, I’ve already decided I hate my novel, and I hate my characters even more. I don’t identify with any of them, and for me, identifying with my characters is pretty much the only way I can write about them.

So, I’m a bit depressed. NaNoWriMo has never been this way before. It’s always been loads of fun, with this great sense of “we’re-in-this-together” between all the people I know who are participating. But something is just off this year – and it was not supposed to be this way! This is The Collective NaNovel year (which you can read about in Post 1, Post 2, and Post 3 of the Collective NaNovel Reveal series), it’s supposed to be awesome… and FUN.

It has not been fun at all.

I am trying to push through all the angst, hoping that in a week or so I will decide I love my novel and my characters and the whole concept of NaNoWriMo again. In that spirit, I present you with the first excerpt from The Collective NaNovel. It’s rough – and by rough, I mean not in any way something I would normally present for public viewing, or that I would ever consider representative of my skill as a writer. I’m sharing it anyway… try to be kind!

Excerpt From The Collective NaNovel 2009

Stan was drunk; he was not going to deny that. But even in his drunken state, he was pretty sure his life would be a hell of a lot different if he had never laid eyes on Darlene Hinkley.

The day Stan Knutt first met Darlene Hinkley was burned on his brain more permanently than any tattoo was burned on Moe’s skin. It was the first day of eighth grade, and it was recess time. The whole middle school was outside. Most of the boys were running around, engaged in one sport or another, while most of the girls were clustered into large circles, whispering to each other about who was wearing what and who had developed the most cleavage over the summer.

Stan was at the far end of the school yard with four of his best friends, planning how they would sneak out of their respective houses that night for the start of their first annual fight club tournament. Just as Benny Bonkman was explaining his grand scheme to climb down the drain pipe between his parents’ condo and the trailer next door, she walked by. She was new to the town – her parents had bought a trailer towards the south end of town sometime during the middle of July. No one had gotten a good look at her over the summer, though, she was always inside tending to her sick mother from what various snooping kids could tell by peering through the trailer windows. They had finally learned her name that morning during roll call, when the teacher called out Darlene Hinkley and the tall girl with the mousy brown hair, bright blue eyes, and unusually large breasts for a thirteen year old raised her hand.

Darlene had smiled tentatively at Stan as she walked by the fight club gathering. He seemed out of place – the only skinny kid in the group. It seemed to her that he was trying hard to fit in, but was not quite accomplishing his goal. She thought they might be able to be friends, which was comforting because not a single girl in the class seemed interested in talking to her. Darlene was attempting to screw up the courage to walk over to Stan when the school bell rang, signaling the end of recess. As everyone headed for the door to return to classes, Stan caught up with Darlene. She started to smile at him, but before he could see her face he had reached up and yanked out her red hair scrunchie, running off to the front of the line of kids, holding her hair tie over his head as his friends pounded him on the back for his great move.

Darlene was crushed. She bit her lip to keep from crying and kept walking, determined not to be the new girl who cried at the drop of a hat. Stan glanced back at her and felt a twinge of guilt when he saw her blue eyes blinking back tears.

That was the first time Stan knew he really liked Darlene Hinkley.

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