Please don’t be too critical of what you are about to read. At best, this would be considered a first draft. I would waste too much writing time going back and doing some editing right now. The NaNoWriMo project of getting 50,000 words written by November 30 is more important. Happy reading!

Excerpt:

Daniel looked down at the dying old man and then looked out the hospital window. It was a dreary day and rain fell in torrents across the window pane. This suited Daniel’s mood.

He wondered why his grandfather had called him here and guessed it had to do with the old man’s imminent death and having no living relatives left to see him off to hell, Daniel thought.

Daniel returned his stare from the window back to the shriveled up old man he had never known. A million questions stirred in his head as he watched the grizzled bearded man breath in and out. Why did he want me to come here? Why did he disown my mother? Why did grandma leave him? “Why are you such a mean wicked man?” he asked out loud and startled himself and his grandfather in the process.

The man’s eyes shot open when he heard Daniel’s voice. He clenched a fist and then opened his mouth and gulped the air.

“Daniel,” he rasped. “You came.”

Daniel didn’t know what to say. To him, the man was a stranger. So, he stayed silent and waited. He had cautioned himself on the trip here to not let anything this man had to say get to him. He tried to think of all the scenarios that might be the reason the old man asked him to come. If it was to apologize for being a nonexistent father and grandfather to his daughter and grandson, to absolve himself before his death, well, he had hung his hopes on the wrong person. Daniel would tell him so, too.

A nurse entered the room to check the man’s vital signs, so Daniel looked away once more to the window and rain and beyond.

He did wonder, really, why he was summoned to the dying man’s bedside. The instructions were quite clear. “I am dying,” his letter had said. “You must come at once, I have something important to tell you. You will find the check enclosed should be sufficient for your traveling expenses.”  It was signed simply, S.P. Rawling.

Daniel felt his grandfather’s eyes boring a hole in the back of his head. When he turned to stare back he saw that the nurse was gone. The old man tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He wished he would die soon, but not before he told his grandson what he had to say.

“Water,” he said. It took a few seconds to register with Daniel what the man had said. He saw his dull eyes look towards the bedside table and he understood. The man would need a drink before Daniel could hear the thing he traveled 2000 miles to hear. The sooner, the better, thought Daniel.

Daniel filled the Styrofoam cup with water and held it for his grandfather to take. He quickly realized that the old man would not be able to sip from that cup without help. He contemplated ringing for the nurse as he just wasn’t sure he could get any closer to help the old man take a drink. He leaned in slightly towards the man face. He could smell the  death and disinfectant that surrounded the man. The man turned his head a little to the side so Daniel could put the straw to his lips. He took the smallest of sips and Daniel could see how difficult it was for the man to swallow it. Daniel felt sorry, then. Sorry for harboring this hatred against someone so helpless. Sorry for his mother, now deceased for five years and never making amends with her father. Sorry for himself for never being able to know the man that his mother once adored.

So, here it is. Even though Daniel didn’t feel like forgiving the man for his cruelty over the years, he knew he felt sorry for him for all the things all of their lives were not. All that, in just one sip of water and Daniel knew he could stand to hear what the old man had to say. He knew he could help make the man’s final arrangements, if that was what he was here to do, and knew he could execute the man’s estate, if there was one, although he didn’t want or need any of the proceeds, and he would probably donate whatever he could to charity.

So, as you can see by my numbers (to the left, on my sidebar) I have been writing on my NaNoWriMo project. This is getting increasingly difficult as I am running out of steam already and have so many more words to write!

I am discovering that I possess numerous writing deficiencies important to novel writing. My first problem is with character development. My characters are flat and have little personality! My protagonist, for instance, needs at least one good character flaw to make her more human.  Well, she’s perfect! (I did say in a previous post that she was loosely based on me, didn’t I? Ha, ha)

A secondary, but equally important problem is that I have no plot! Sure, my protagonist discovers something huge on that lake bed. But, what, I don’t know. It could be a treasure, human bones, or, or, what? Arrgh!

And, so, I continue to write willy-nilly with no real plan just waiting for that big “Aha!” to hit me.

If any of you have any ideas, please send them to me!

This is a good time for me to take a break and tell you about how I spent the rest of my weekend. We had a good friend come from out of state for a visit. First, I had to clean out the guest bedroom of all the “Sam is not allowed to have this” stuff and find other places to hide store it. We ate dinner at Captain Kirk’s on Friday night and I made stuffed pork chops on Saturday evening.

On Sunday, after our friend had headed home, we got a call from two other good friends, Mac and Karen, from Tennessee, who were passing through Charleston and wanted to meet for dinner. We met them at Hank’s Seafood and had a lovely visit.

Today is Monday and I have the day off from work. I have our clothes washed and hanging on the line, I am writing, writing, writing, and I hope to make lasagna for dinner if my car gets done at the shop today and I can get to the store for ingredients.

Charlie

Oh, and then there is the new little kitten. We don’t know if all its sisters and brothers were eaten by stray dogs or if its mother deserted it for the good of the litter because of its injured leg, but to our steps it came last weekend. I do not know yet if it is a boy or girl kitty. We named it Charlie, a somewhat gender-neutral name, after Charlie Chaplin. Brian was not going to allow me to bring it into the house, but I don’t think it will survive on its own outside with no mama to train it. So, after a trip to the veterinarian and treatment for ear mites and worms, it just might be allowed to come into the house. I mean, after all, who wouldn’t want four cats and a dog in their little 1500 square foot house?

 Oh, and since I didn’t have enough to do, I started a Facebook account. If you have a Facebook account and want to be my friend, you can find me by searching my name.

This is the boat ramp at Ferguson's Landing on Lake Marion during the severe drought of 2007/2008. Beyond the trees in the background are the remains of the town of Ferguson, normally buried under the lake waters, but exposed for the first time in 50 years during the drought. This location is important to my story.

The Four Holes.  That’s the working title of the novel I am writing for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! Yep, you heard me right.

I am participating in a creative writing project in which I am to write a short novel (50,000 words) during the month of November. This contest is not so much about the quality of the writing as it is about quantity. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Sounds silly, but in reality, it forces the writer to write fast and furiously, worry little about editing and ultimately get something down on paper that may very well be worthy of reworking later.

NaNoWriMo started in 1991 with 21 participants. Each year since then the numbers have grown and in 2008 NaNoWriMo had 120,000 participants with about 20,000 writers reaching the 50,000 word requirement.  

Since this event takes place every year, many people do research and create outlines well in advance of the Nov. 1 start date and although, they are not allowed to start the actual writing until November 1, they are well on their way to plot and character development.

I first heard about NaNoWriMo about a month ago, but didn’t give it any thought as something that I wanted to do. But, I saw a few people tweeting about it on twitter on Sunday morning (Nov. 1) and decided to check it out. After I went to NaNoWriMo’s website, I was hooked. So, I signed up and the rest is history.

I’ve had this vague idea for a novel stirring around in my head for about two years. My protagonist is a brilliantly smart, funny, attractive, fiftyish, newspaper editor of the local small town paper. I haven’t decided on her name yet; it must really fit her personality so I am calling her “Cindy,” for now.  Her dog, Sam, quite the detective and her protector, accompanies her on many of her adventures. I’m not quite ready to give you the synopsis of the story quite yet, but I can tell you that it will of the mystery/suspense genre.

This is a fairly labor intensive project and I suspect that my house will be staying rather messy this month (Thank goodness I cleaned on Sunday before starting this project.) I will keep up with my blogging activities here on Cindy’s Country Corner, so please check back often and be forgiving when you find errors this month.

And pray that Brian survives.

You can read more about the project on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Novel_Writing_Month.

P.S. You can keep up with my writing progress on the sidebar!