NaNoWriMo: Day #5

November 6, 2011



Word count: 6,330/50,000
Days left: 25
Hours slept: 20.5
Chocolate bars consumed: 6 (I have been a good girl. Although, there is a huge block of chocolate sitting on my desk, calling my name.)

I have fallen a little behind these last two days, but I have actually been pretty busy with my social life. Why must it come alive in this month?

Anyway, I have been writing away today and I am making up for the lost words. Hopefully I can get on track soon!

On my NaNoWriMo profile, I have included an excerpt from my story which I will share with you here.

I am not going to explain the story or give a synopsis, because it is incredibly hard to explain in such a way that will make you understand. But basically, this girl has been unconscious for 15 years. No, she was not in a coma.

This is from a scene after she has been awakened, and she is locked up in a jail.

“I’d eat this before it gets cold if I were you,” the man concealed by the door called out, his voice travelling through the still open gap at the bottom of the door.
“Eat?” I asked, staring at the tray. I stood up from the bed, the springs creaking as they retracted, and approached the tray. I lifted the lid to find the tray segregated into four.
There was something brown, mushy and lumpy in texture, a few orange cylinders and miniature trees, a cream mound of something squishy, and a clear tub of what looked like water.
Trails of steam rose from the tray. As I breathed in the steam, it left an impression in my nose. I don’t know how to describe it, but it was pretty good.
The man sighed. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”
“I don’t think so.” I replied quietly, poking the creamy mound.
He cursed to himself. “You stick it in your mouth, chew then swallow.”
“Do I have to?”
“If you don’t want to get hungry and die, yes.”
“How do I chew and swallow?”
The tip of a finger poked through the hole and pointed at two long silver things resting on the side of the tray.
“Let’s take this one step at a time. Pick up the one with the four points at the end.” I did as he said. “Now use it to stab one of those orange things. Good. Now put it in your mouth. No, not the whole thing, just the orange thing, you can’t eat the fork.”


I am sorry for any spelling errors, grammar, blah blah blah. It is NaNo, people, come on. I am writing at the speed of light so I may slip up. I have tried to tidy this excerpt though, so hopefully it is void of errors.

If you hadn't gathered, she is learning how to eat. She is discovering the sense of smell and taste as well, seeing as in her 15 years of dreaming, she hasn't had the need to eat or drink in her mind. It was always done for her, and now she is learning how to survive.

Because of her lack of knowledge on how to survive, it is pretty difficult sometimes to express what she feels and what is happening. She is overloaded with these feelings and sensations and doesn't know what they are or what they mean. Staying consistent is probably one of the hardest tasks as of yet.

Another issue is running out of steam and momentum. I have about 5 scene jumps, because things have started slowing down or I am having trouble thinking up how to connect two scenes. Prompts have been really helpful in these situations. I have been exploring the forums at the NaNo site, and I actually used a prompt which was the start to the scene I wrote above. The scene is about 1,300 words in length so far, and I just wrote that all out in about half an hour to an hour. Oh, how I love thee, prompts!

If you have an excerpt or would like to share your experiences so far, let me know! And don't forget to add me as a writing buddy, my name is 'catrionaaa'. If you have some awesome prompts as well, I would love to hear some!

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