(For those not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it’s the National Novel Writing Month – in brief, slap 50,000+ words onto the screen as a “zeroth” draft of a novel. It’s not pretty, it’s not even a first draft, it’s simply an exercise in “Just – Keep – Putting – Words – TOGETHER!” and seeing what comes out the other side. I’ve done it five times and “succeeded” twice. I’ve decided to be incredibly self centered and foolish open about my process so I’ve put my work up here on this site for the last three attempts. Just do a search to see some of the crap I’ve inflicted on my loyal readers in the past. Actually, that might not be totally true – while being “zeroth” drafts, at least three of them had stories and characters that I actually thought were pretty good if I ever managed to get past the NaNoWriMo stage, finish them, and then start editing.)
I finally pinpointed part of the mental problem I was having with getting in gear again. In big, big strokes, the 50,000 foot view, I know what I want to accomplish next mechanically (get Ed into trouble, maybe some further exposition on what’s going on with him and what’s in that truck) and I’ve got at least an idea of how to get him out of it and where he’s going next (which is useful in a day or two when his chapter comes up again). But in practice, what I was writing was getting bogged down in details and wanting to go back and re-write and looking at making sure I had accurate information about what things weigh and how much a semi can hold and what would make the cop suspicious, blah, Blah, BLAH!
That’s not the point. As pointed out above and repeatedly, the goal here is to do a “zeroth” draft. Throw some freakin’ words at the wall and see what sticks. Those details are what get looked up when this glorified outline is done and I go back and start re-writing to come up with a first draft where the story actually has to make sense (well, as much as a story with non-leprachauns and unseen evil geniuses has to make sense) and the facts have to be believable.
To put it another way, I’m not trying to win this “marathon.” The Kenyans already did that and I’m not even done with the first quarter. The goal is to get to the goal line with something that isn’t totally random text and has some semblance of a story line, characters, and perhaps a touch of my style.
All comments will be welcome.
ANY BAD SITUATION CAN BE MADE WORSE
CHAPTER SIX
“I’m sorry, say again? You want us to do WHAT?”
They had finished checking out seven of the ten seismometer stations set up around the expected eruption zone when their satellite phone had gone off. Perched near the the side of a cliff, hooked into a safety harness that was anchored to the jeep which was parked well back from the edge, checking systems on an automated seismograph base station, Carl didn’t think that this was an appropriate time for joking around. And yet, here was his boss, the seismic investigation team leader, saying something ridiculous.
Sara, belaying the ropes hooked to Carl’s harness and trying to prevent him from plunging to a horrible, painful death, couldn’t hear what Carolyn was saying to him, but she could tell that he wasn’t happy. He listened for another minute, then hung up, shaking his head. He went back to his systems checkout, verified that the base station was functional, and started walking back up the steep slope. Sara started taking up slack, keeping tension on the line.
“What was that all about?” she asked as Carl got back to level ground and started disconnecting from the harness.
“They want us to drive up toward the epicenter of that last earthquake, up toward Eyjafjallajokull. They’ve got something odd they want us to check out.”
“You’re kidding.”
“My sentiments exactly! They’re not. We should be getting some information uploaded to our tablets momentarily, which Carolyn says will explain it better. They’re sure we can get there, for some reason totally lost on me they think that we can do it in relative safety, they think it’s really important, and we’re the best ones to try to check it out.”
Sara digested all of that for a few seconds. “You’re kidding!” she repeated.