55555

My official final wordcount for nanowrimo. The one that will be sealed with the site when it closes at midnight wherever in the world.

And my final excerpt for posterity, so far, is this one:

She thought about Marq. No, she couldn't love him. She could find nothing in him to love. He was good looking, sure, but he had nothing to offer her. Nothing in his soul that excited her. He was simply ...an arrangement. An arranged marriage. And a loveless one at that. Just like before. And he was cruel.
These thoughts startled her. Why did she think he was cruel? She shook herself back to reality, and concentrated on love.
The more she thought about it, the emptier her heart seemed. There was nobody. Nobody she did love, nobody she could love, and the lovelessness stretched into eternity. Did she even love herself?
She looked into her own blackness and decided she didn't. Not much to love there. It left a bad taste in her mouth, a taste of betrayal, and hatred, and revenge. Ugh.
She had to sit down. The shock of that blackness was too much for her. Whatever locked and blocked that heart of hers had long since smothered love and all its vestiges.

Also, on this last day, I'm a wrimo of the day. Along with someone else in the Netherlands, someone in Toronto with whom the Netherlands has wordcount and postcount wars, and we do a lot of crossposting, and someone in the Geezer thread where I've also been posting.

Hmmm. Looks like the coincidences and psychic phenomena in my novel are spreading into real life. And here I was thinking it wasn't autobiographical.

Winner?

So I got my sticker. But the book's not finished yet. I will keep on writing, as soon as I've unscrambled my novel again.

It's not so bad. I did have a backup.

Well, she was confronting Satan now. Now, she could see him for what he was. So he possessed her, did he? This fiend who had so little use for her love? Oh he was too right. The bastard. She would show him how much he possessed her, all right. He was going out right now, bag and baggage, and he could be as charming as he liked, there was no coming back.
And now she knew exactly how to get rid of him.

I wonder how many of these excerpts will actually make it to the final draft?

Nearly there

Yesterday was catching up day, and I think I mostly did, thanks to all the good writing karma from Christina, Lannie, Isiyanka, Dado HV et al. It was high quality karma, and lasted me right through 5,618 words. Current total 47,584.

This was too much for Ada, who stayed up all night to make sure she got to 50k before me. And made it! Hope she can sleep at work today.

At the moment I'm not writing in any kind of book order. I'm basically taking individual characters through a long train of thought. Oh, and I am making backups.

So what did I write yesterday in these 5,618 words? I won't give them all to you:

"And then what happened?"
"Nothing! She stood there, all the time we sang. Absolutely nothing happened."
"But I thought you said something did happen?" Arina shook her head. She didn't understand the story.
"Well, the fact that nothing happened is something! She should at least have sunk to her knees from all that power, but she just stood there. Even when they released her after the final amen, she was still ...standing."
"I think I begin to understand. Something should have happened, but didn't, and this is important?"
"You have it exactly!" Nancy clearly didn't understand how little sense she was making, nor did she pick up the sarcasm in Arina's statement. "Then Greer looked at them and said they should try again. She even kneeled. So they linked hands again and tried to touch her, but they couldn't get close."
"So still nothing happened?" Arina prompted.

40k and pausing

Blogger ate my post yesterday. As I write them directly onto the Internet, this can be a problem, because I don't have an original I can cut and paste.

Of course, I have forgotten now what I wrote. But it was something about having a friend stay for the weekend so I wasn't doing much writing.

I am catching up today. I have already caught up the 300 words I was short on Thursday, when friend arrived. Now I've started on the 1850 I'm short for Friday.

So while I get back to that, here's something for you to think about. What would your reaction be if you suddenly discovered that your own daughter is the reincarnation of a truly evil witch that you yourself cast a curse on in a previous life?

Here's Arina's reaction:

Oh my. Oh my oh my oh my oh my.
No. This was no time to be polite. Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!
Arina sat bolt upright in bed. She wanted to scream. But Dirk snored gently by her side, a gentle reminder to take control.
She slipped out of bed. Her feet fumbled for her slippers and she found a dressing gown to cover herself. Her mouth felt dry. Her stomach felt dry. Her whole body felt dry. In fact, she felt sick to her very core. Deeper than her very core.
Please God, let me die now.
Oh damnation, hell, damnation. Spawn of Satan. Demons rule OK.
Your betraying eyes will identify you forever. She had said that herself, watching those evil eyes turn from blue to grey to blue to grey. At the time she didn't know what made her say it, except she felt she needed a reminder through the ages.
One big reminder that was.
Her own daughter. Eyes that turned from blue to grey to blue to grey, depending on her mood.
Oh God, please let me die now.
She padded downstairs and switched on the lamp. The dim glow did little to warm her soul. She felt weak, shaky, nauseous. She wanted to spend the rest of her life vomiting. She wanted the rest of her life to be one minute long.
Your betraying eyes will identify you forever.And she hadn't made the connection. She herself had placed that curse, a little curse yes, but a curse nevertheless. And she hadn't mde the connection.
Her eyes fell upon the drinks cabinet. She walked across, found the brandy, found a goblet. She poured herself a generous measure, and glugged it. This was not a time for gracious, feminine sipping. She almost vomited as the neat spirit hit her dry stomach.
She poured herself another. This was not the best way to cope with a shock like this, she knew, but it was the only way open to her right now, and for now, it would have to do.
Sip. And think. She rubbed her forehead.

Sudden inspiration

You know, something just dawned on me.

I'm writing a book about reincarnation, aren't I?

So at some point, I have to tell the reader about all the past lives that are involved. Otherwise the story will never resolve.

That will certainly add a lot to my existing 36,050 words!

The only thing here is I have to find out something about pre-Viking Ireland. And Celtic magic. This is where all those past lives happened.

Time to email my mother-in-law, I think.

"You wanted to know how the Priests do healing now. You said yourself you were sure that it was not just the laying of hands."
Now it was Greer's turn to nod.
"Faith is a great healer, yes, but it's not the only healer. And throughout time, since the Church was founded, we have provided schools and hospitals for our own. Throughout history, in times of war, we have taken pains to preserve sacred books. When the Troubles began, we took pains to preserve medical and scientific texts. Priests downloaded entire websites and burned them to compact discs, printed them out, and hid them along with the computers needed to read the discs."

Week Two blahs

Chris Baty warned us about the week 2 blahs. Our regional Municipal Liaison sent an encouraging email to get us through them. Me, being late for everything as usual, was late for the week 2 blahs. I got them yesterday.

In two hours I managed to write about 267 words. And it was crap. Pathetic stuff. Repetitious and boring. My internal editor had somehow woken up.

I went back to bed. I had lunch. I hopped around the forums. No inspiration anywhere.
I did the laundry. I cleared the dishwasher. I went shopping for vegetables for supper.

An MC has already had a sandwich. I have named characters and places after people in the regional forum. Finally I did what worked last time. I jumped now to the end of the middle, and wrote that. I know how the book is supposed to end. I'm just stuck on how to get there.

It worked. As soon as I began the confrontation with Satan, the middle became clear.
Suddenly I knew what I had to do.

So I managed another 2,000 words. And being sleepless in Fagotstreet last night, I decided to put the time to good use and added another 850 or so.

That puts me now at 34,037. I can certainly reach 35,000 today. Maybe, if the muse pleases and Jonathan sends me more good writing karma, I can reach the 3/4 mark.

Greer listened.
"All his bastards."
And that odd look the maid had given her when she said "Count Luce has already gone, my lady."
It all made sense, now.
He didn't love her. She was just another notch in his belt. He had already gone because someone else was after his head. Someone else with a blue eyed, dark skinned baby.
The bastard! He had deceived her! He had ruined her life, and for what? For years she had been carrying hatred and revenge in her heart, souring life after life, because of him. He was destroyer of souls. Why?
Luce. Listen to the name. Luce.
Lucifer.
Of course. Just like Gaetan Dugas. Saetan Dugas.

27039 and more to come

I wrote 301 words yesterday. But at least I wrote some. There were just too many other things to do. Now I have to go and sew a ballgown, but I have done some catching up.

Firstly, I took time to go back and read what I've done so far, because I lost the plot. At least the thread of it that was in my head. As I did so, I saved all the sections into separate files and created a master document. This seems like an incredible waste of time, but it had a productive end result. I was able to pick up the pieces and carry on writing.

I've been writing out of sequence, mainly because I just didn't know how to start the beginning of the middle, so I followed a sub-plot for a while. Today's exercise got me back to the beginning of the middle, and I wrote my favourite piece so far:

Greer wanted to repeat the triangle she had made before, to pull Marq and the soul mate together.

She sat down and straightened her spine. She began breathing through her crown. But when she tried to bring the silver cord into focus, the hatred just welled up inside her. It was no good. That hatred would send both T and Marq running.

She pulled back and cut off the link. This was no good. If she couldn't conquer this hatred somehow, she wouldn't be able to communicate with them at all.

What had the lightworker said? Meditate on green light, as a start. And find someone to love. Who would have thought it could be so hard?

How did one meditate anyway? Weren't you supposed to sit on the floor with your legs crossed in an anatomically impossible position, turn your fingers into circles and chant? That didn't sound like her cup of tea at all.

She brought an image of the light workers heart chakra into her mind. The clear deep green colour of the unfolding blossom. It was strange that these chakras had petals, but she could see them quite clearly.

She couldn't see her own chakra. She tried. She looked in the mirror, but just saw a body. She looked at her physical body, but couldn't see her own light.

She tried visualising the chakra instead. Tried to get an image of the blackness. How open was it? She settled for the same image as Carst's chakra. She tried colouring it black. OK, that worked. Now what? She tried draining the blackness out, but where would it go? If it drained out, it would drain into her other chakras. That wouldn't do.

She tried seeping it out the sides, but then it seeped into her aura and made her whole aura black, the way white clothes got soiled when you washed them with something black that wasn't colourfast. That wouldn't do either.

She pulled all the blackness towards the centre again, so it wouldn't contaminate anything else. How was she going to remove that dark evil that was tainting her very soul? What could she do?

Then she visualised green light coming down the centre channel. It came through the upper chakras cleanly, leaving no trace of its colour, and settled in her heart. The black acquired a greenish hue.

Ah, she said out loud. And breathed out blackness.

That wasn't what she meant, but she observed it with interest. She had meant to say, Ah, that's how you do it.

But now she saw her solution. She had a mouth.

She sat in her chair and straightened her spine. She put her feet on the floor, side by side, slightly apart. She rested her hands on her knees, open. She breathed in white light through the crown of her head and saw it flowing down her spine, through the chakras, aligning them nicely. She centred herself. She felt calm.

Then she breathed in green light through the crown of her head. She felt it touch each chakra in turn as it came down the path, then settled it in her heart. She breathed as much of that light in as she could, filling herself completely until her lungs were fit to burst, and then breathed out the blackness through her mouth.

She visualised her chakra now, becoming greener all the while. She concentrated. She thought about nothing except breathing in green through her crown, breathing out black through her mouth. Green in through the crown, black out through the mouth. Green in, black out. It became automatic, green in, black out, her attention entirely on her breathing.

She saw the child again. That child was part of the blackness she was breathing out. That child was the source of the evil within her. Oh how she loved that child! She could feel her black heart ache. But it was not a universal, selfless love. It was a selfish love, a love that turned her heart black. Green in, black out. Green in, black out. Not love at all, really, she could see that now.

Green in, black out.

Where did that love come from, she wondered?

Green in, black out.

She saw him. He was beautiful. A man with blue eyes that danced and flashed. He smiled at her, a smooth, dark, dark skin, a wide mouth revealing perfect teeth, sparkling white. He was tall, his body was well-formed with toned muscles, though not rippling power.

She trembled. She loved this man. She wanted this man. She wanted him badly. Every cell in her body screamed for him. It was all she could do to concentrate.

Green in, black out.

He reached out and touched her. She could see the desire in his eyes, she was the most beautiful woman in the world and only she could give him what he needed most. She could feel his hot breath on her skin, the touch of his lips against hers as his hand traced the outline of her spine, following the line of the chakras, following the rhythm of her breathing.

Black in, green out.

She moaned in quiet ecstasy. Yes. Yes. This is what she wanted, this is what she had been waiting for all these years. His touch, his love, it would change everything.

Black in, green out.

One week and 20080 words down.

Wow. This book of mine is making progress. And I'm having such fun. I've invented a new religion. The AIDS cure is on track. Greer has met her sister Nissie, but doesn't yet know her real name is Tanis - the T of the soul mate's name. I'm sure you've all worked that out by now though.

The Dutch word for cat breeder is poezenfokker. This is a word you can use in polite society. However, the word for well-bred is welgemanierd, and not mooi opgefok.

Having learned this, one of my fellow writers has challenged us to include a poezenfokker in our stories, using any sense of the word we like.

Today's excerpt:

"I thought you might ask." Greer handed over a wedding photo.
Nissie studied it with interest. Then she signed. "It's hard to say. Humans are so interbred you can't predict what the children will look like. And the photo is a little small. You do look more like your mother, but you're picking up some of your Dad's colouring. I must say, I do look more like your mother in terms of colouring. Only a DNA test could prove anything though, and they're hard to come by now."
"You're interested in science?" Greer's interest was tickled. That was more than coincidence, surely?
"Genetics mostly, not science generally. I breed cats. I try and predict how the kittens will turn out based on the colourings and traits of the parents. We need cats on the farm, I'm trying to breed good mousers. But the physical looks are interesting too. I copied Mendel's experiments with peas, and have tried other plant experiments too. It's fun, and productive. We're getting good yields now. But I think animal genetics is where my heart lies, and where I'll make my career path."
Ouch.

Wordcount 13569

The house is a mess. Flylady wouldn't be proud of me. My hotspots are on fire. My sink isn't shiny. My laundry is getting wrinkled in the dryer - the laundry that made it to the washing machine, that is. Never mind the overflowing washbasket. The ironing board is piled high. The spiders have taken over the corners of the house again. I can't even find the broom to sweep. Mind you, I didn't look very hard.

I've managed to make the bed and load the dishwasher. There is food in the fridge. But I can't for the life of me think what happened to all that chocolate I bought on special, "2 stuk naar keuze 99c" of which I bought a good deal more than 2 stuk.

It doesn't matter. I've added 7,500 words to my novel in just two days.

Today's excerpt:

There had to be a simple, rational explanation for being able to reach out and touch someone in that way, to find out if they were real, alive and present.
It had been a very simple communication, granted. Probably like the very first telephone call. In fact, probably earlier than that. Alexander Graham Bell had been trying to build a telegraph line that would transmit multiple messages at the same time when he realised that you could transmit sound.
How could she build on that simple communication to talk to T, without wires, without even knowing her wireless telephone number or whatever you wanted to call it.
Had T heard her? Had Mark heard her? Well, heard was not the right word, really. Felt was more like it. She had definitely felt them. Not as distinctly as if they were in the same room, granted.
Or was she just developing an over-active imagination?
There was an easy way to find out.
She called Mark.
"Hi Mark." Suddenly she felt foolish. How was she going to explain this. It made a lot of sense to her, but it would certainly sound like gibberish to him.
"Hello Greer." He did have a lovely, mellow, telephone voice. His tones stroked her silkily with a taste of chocolate and honey. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Hi Mark."
"Yes?"
"This is Greer."
"Yes, hello Greer." His tone was less silky now. He sounded a bit irritated, or was it bewildered? She didn't blame him.
"I had an idea, but it sounds too silly now that I have you on the phone."
"Yes?"
"Do you think people can talk without telephones? Not face to face, but over a distance. A long distance."
A long, long silence stretched between them.
"Mark, are you still there?"
"Yes, I'm still here."
"If I talked to you without a telephone, like now, would you hear me?"
"I already did. Is that why you phoned?"
"What did you hear?"
Another long silence.
"Mark?"
"I'm here."
"What did you hear? Please tell me."
A pause, and then he continued. "It wasn't so much hearing. It was more like a feeling. And she was there too, wasn't she? You've found her, haven't you?"
"Not exactly. But I'm working on it. I need time."
"Yes. You need time." His voice sounded very flat, as though he was trying to keep it under control. All the silkiness and chocolate and honey was gone now. "I'll see what I can do."
"Umm..."Greer hesitated.
"Yes?"
"Do you remember exactly when I spoke to you?" She had to be sure that his imagination wasn't overactive too.
"It was yesterday sometime. I didn't make a note of the time, I was... distracted."
Yes! It had worked!
"OK. Thanks Mark. Bye."
She hung up.

Up to 6171 words

Lost pace yesterday. That comes of going out. Shopping. Concerts. They all take their toll out of writing time.

Yesterday's excerpt:

Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. Tanis was feeding the chickens when she felt it. A little knock on her soul.

She listened. She pulled into herself to find out where it was coming from.

The chickens stopped their clucking and scratching and watched her, dead quiet, as though in a spell of stillness.

Tanis listened. Someone was trying to contact her. That was clear. But who? And why? It made no sense.

She looked around. Nobody nearby. Not on the farm, then. It did feel quite far away. But wait. She relaxed into the feeling, to strengthen it. There was more than one. And the second... She breathed a deep sigh. A feeling of such longing and such desire filled her soul. She stood silently, among the super naturally quiet chickens, just bonding, just feeling, caught up in a wave of love that engulfed her.

The feeling slipped away, slowly, carefully. The chickens erupted around her. She scattered the last of the broken bread, then left the coop, carefully closing the gate behind her.

Only then did she cross herself and fall onto her knees. She felt such a sense of loss when the tap left. Dear God, what had just happened to her? Was that an angel talking? Or was it the worst temptation of all? No, she thought, with that love and that longing it must be the touch of Christ. It had changed her, though. She felt unsettled. Her safe known world was suddenly shaken. She struggled to control the unreasonable panic rising in her.

What did Christ want of her? She did the only thing she knew. She went into the house and opened her Holy Bible, randomly, praying for guidance.

The words burned on the page in front of her.

"Thus a married woman is by law bound to her husband while he lives, and when her husband dies, she is freed from the marriage law." Romans 7. Verse 2.

A chill shivered through her body, raising goosebumps. What could this mean? She wasn't married. She couldn't marry. If it weren't for the healing hands of the priests and Christ's eternal love for her, she would be long dead.

And yet she suddenly felt bound in marriage. To Christ? To someone dead?

She wrote out the text carefully, in an ancient calligraphic script, treating the words of God with the respect they deserved. But she drew the initial T, large and ornate, with flowers and birds decorating the square which held it.

T.

That mysterious tap had called her T.

Tuesday - 4448 words total

To be honest, I feel a bit left behind. It seems others are shooting ahead in the race to reach 50,000. At least three people in the Dutch forum have over 10,000 already. One of them says she has to start with a fizz, because she fizzles out as the month progresses.

We'll see.

I seem to be writing at the same pace as one Rachel from Toronto.

We had a postcount war before the start of Nanowrimo. Toronto won. Now we're having a wordcount war. And one or two personal wars, I think. It's all motivational. Seeing her ease ahead of me yesterday did send me back to my keyboard.

So what did I write yesterday? Here's another excerpt.

And what did Greer mean she said that the five cups were a coincidence. Upside down too. She pulled.

Mark's face came into focus. And then, a laughing girl, with black hair and sparkling brown eyes. She knew that girl, but who was she? Mark ran up to the girl, embraced her, kissed her. He was younger now, much the same age as the girl, but still him. Golden hair, blue eyed, but still Mark. Or was it Maddoc?

And then they were both older. Mark as he was now. A girl who looked like ... Greer. But not quite Greer. They were embracing as a silver cord wrapped around them. A great happiness settled over the image. Reunion.

She looked back at the Skeleton and pulled.

She saw an old crone. Evil rose from every pore of her body. She too looked like Greer, but not quite Greer. An old Greer, bent by sorrow and ... Revenge? She saw herself, tying a silver cord around the Greer crone and the young not-quite Greer and Mark.

And then the Greer crone began straightening her bent back. Her nose unhooked. She straightened up. The years fell from her face. She became younger and younger and younger. And then she was Greer, and the three of them, the Greer, the not quite Greer and Mark were standing there, still bound in the silver cord.

And then the newly-young Greer freed one hand from the cord. She pulled at it, but it would not loosen. She freed her other hand, and pulled more, but the cord became tighter and tighter. The three were locked together.

Greer looked at the couple bound in with her. She put a hand on each of them, and then kissed them. The cord dissolved,

"Arina, are you alright?" Dirk's voice cut through her concentration. "You seemed to be glowing! Almost on fire!"

Wordcount yesterday: 2200

The first Nanoday got off to a slow start. I only started writing at eleven. My first sentence was:

The five of cups. And it was upside down.

This is not the first sentence of my book, by the way, it is the first sentence of what I am writing during Nanowrimo. I am not starting Nanowrimo at the beginning of my book, mainly because I'm using Nanowrimo to finish a book once and for all. Though I would have to write a good 80 000 words to finish it. 50 000 will be a good goal for a month, and I'm hoping to acquire the discipline of writing every day by doing this thing.

So, the first sentence of the book, for those who are curious, is

Greer had been weeping for days.

I've joined my regional forum, which is Continental Europe: Holland and Belgium, a very lively forum. We've all been posting our first sentence and excerpts, and I've been having some fun trying to guess the genre from the first sentence or even the excerpt.

So my excerpt from yesterday's words:

She looked at her notebook. She had written down the cards and their sequence from her own failed reading. She studied them intently.

The question: The skeleton. The card of death, Madame Zaza had said. It had certainly looked like death. But her question hadn't been about death, it had been about Mark's soulmate. Was the soulmate dead, in fact? Her heart sank. Suddenly she felt very, very cold. And then just as suddenly, she felt certain that Mark's soulmate was very much alive.

"Tea, Greer?" It was her mother, smiling, holding a tray.
T. The soulmate was alive and her name began with T. Greer was sure of it. The thought held her too long for her to realise her notebook was still open.