Last Hurrah from Wintersland....

The last snippet from Wintersland.

Rough draft--please don't quote or repost.

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The staff rested on her forehead.  A spike of intense cold radiating from the staff wrung a cry of agony from Katie.

"You will say it," Old Man Winter said.

"Get away from her!" Mel screamed.

Old Man Winter whirled.  Katie gave a sobbing gasp of relief as the spike of torture was removed from her forehead.  Her eyes re-focused, and she saw that Mel stood by the Wishing Tree, and that the Pretender swung from one of its branches.  Mel looked magnificent, and Katie had never been more proud of her sister.

"You dare!" Old Man Winter said to Mel.  His power hit her until she staggered, but the ornament remained untouched

done, Done, DONE!

Finished! Finished! (Dancing in the street) I have finished Wintersland, the novel I began writing two years ago, this very month. It came in at around 33,000 words, so, technically, not a novel, but I can already see that, with revision, it will top 40,000, which is novel-length. I was all set to beat myself up for taking two years to write 33,000 words, but when I considered that I had major medical problems, a job change, and a massive re-write sandwiched in there, I think I did alright. The story is rough, and will definitely need revision, but I'm just happy it's done. I dedicated it to my brother, Michael. He would have been 42 today if he was still alive.

It was a long and hot summer....

How hot is it? Not as hot as Texas, but nearly a month of a heat index in the triple digits gets to you. That kind of heat is enervating. When you start praying and dreaming for temps in the eighties, something is wrong. LOL! That's why I posted this snippet. It made me feel cold just to write it.

First draft, please don't quote or repost. Thanks!

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The area was not empty this time around, nor was it even an enclosed room. The area stood open to the sky, ceiling long gone. The floor looked like one sheet of solid ice, feet thick. Cold rushed over her--cold so deep and so thick that she felt as if she could cut through it like something solid. Her breath pushed out of her in visible clouds. As she looked into the depths of the ice, she sucked in her breath in one great rush. Staring back at her were faces in the ice. Some weren't even what she would even call human. Their eyes stared up at the sky with no knowledge or life in them.

Katie's gaze swept ahead, and she saw a dark heap of something marring the shining pool of ice. She hurried toward it as quickly as she could, slipping and sliding with the treacherous footing. The nearer she came, the more the dark heap resolved itself to a figure lying on the ice.
Katie's feet slipped out from underneath her and dumped her on her backside. She got up on her hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way to the huddled figure.

The person lay facing the opposite direction, but a lock of red hair spilled out from the hooded cloak. Katie moaned in despair, and reached her hand to touch Treyga. She pulled down the hood to reveal Treyga's face, blue and still. The other girl was so cold that Katie felt it even through her gloves.

"Treyga!" she said. "Treyga, wake up! You've got to get up!"

She tugged at an arm. She could not move Treyga at all. Katie saw with a sense of horror that Treyga was in the ice itself, partially swallowed by it, as if it had melted then refroze around her.

"Oh my God!" Katie cried. Her teeth were chattering so badly she could barely speak. "This is all my fault, I should never have let you come with me!"

Progress....

I've finally turned over 25,000 words on Wintersland. I don't think the story is going to end up being 60,000 words---more like 45,000 or 50,000---but we'll see.

Here's my Friday snippet early. First draft, please don't quote or repost, thanks!

She must have nodded off, because the fire had burned down when she woke. Katie looked for Hulaf and Treyga, and found them curled up on either side of her, lending their warmth to hers. Both breathed evenly and deeply in sleep. Katie sat up, careful not to disturb them. When she looked at the fire again, she saw Mel standing on the other side of it.

Katie stared at her sister in open-mouthed astonishment. Mel wore a fur-lined red dress with elaborate designs picked out with something that glittered. Jewels? Her hair lay like a swath of darkness against the fur color and the red of the dress. Her lips stood out redly against her skin's pallor, and her eyes were like twin pools of darkness with no glimmer of life in them.

"Mel?" Katie whispered.

Mel tilted her head as if trying to hear a distant, only half-remembered sound.

You shouldn't have stayed. You should go away now while you still can.

"Even if I wanted to, I can't," Katie said in a low voice. "I don't have a choice anymore."

I can't help you any longer.

"Mel, what is the cold place? Where is it?"

At last, a tiny bit of life shone in Mel's eyes. She regarded Katie, and Katie shivered.

I remember. You were always stubborn. Don't forget that I did try to warn you.

Mel turned and walked away. Katie tried to reach out for her, but she felt as drained as if she'd ran a marathon. It was difficult just to hold up her head. Her limbs tingled as if all the blood had rushed to her heart. She lay down between Hulaf and Treyga, heartsick and weary, not even sure she would wake up again if she went to sleep. Mel had become someone she didn't know anymore.

Wintersland Take Two

I'm reaching the point in this story where I had to stop before. In a few days, I'll gallop past this point and head for the finish line. Looking forward to it.

Katie and Treyga are caught out in a snow storm. First draft, please don't quote or repost. Thanks!

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Snow and wind became something that conspired to hold her back no matter how hard she struggled to move forward. Memory of the abandoned town she and Treyga had visited rose in her mind's eye. She could feel the malice in the wind that blew in their faces, nearly drowning her in snow.

The wind whistled and moaned like a live thing. The cold pierced and bit, savage and searing. It became conceivable that she and Treyga and the dogs would die out here, lost, within shouting distance of the Winterlord's Hall.

"Oh, God, somebody please help me," Katie whimpered.

And, in the midst of the snow and the wind, someone grabbed hold of her upper arm and pulled. Katie could see nothing except the snow coating her eyelashes. Katie followed, pulling in turn at the dogs. The tug at her arm persisted for several long moments, until she stumbled onto a set of steps that led upwards into white nothingness.

With a cry of relief that was immediately snatched from her lips, Katie wiped the snow from her face and eyes. When she could see again, she saw a young boy, unmoved by the storm. His eyes were the pale blue of frozen water. As she watched, two tears coursed down his cheeks. The boy stretched out a hand and touched Katie's parka just above her heart. A fragrant odor wafted to her nostrils. Startled, Katie realized his hand touched the sprig of holly in her inner pocket. Without words, Katie somehow knew that she had been given something that would save the life of the little girl that lay near death in the Hall behind her. The boy nodded and faded away.

Katie turned to see Treyga and the dogs nearby. Treyga said something, but the wind snatched her words.

"Steps!" Katie screamed at Treyga.

Treyga nodded her head. She reached down and unharnessed the dogs, moving slowly and stiffly. The dogs stood, heads down, tails tucked, waiting on her signal. She waved them upward, and they sprang up the steps, quickly out of sight.

Moving against a wind that tried to push them off the steps, Katie and Treyga struggled up to the top of the steps, where the dogs waited, and searched for the doors with fumbling, frozen fingers. Eons later, Treyga found a latch and the doors fell inward, dumping them on the floor. The dogs crowded in around them, shaking snow from their fur in a fine spray.

People surrounded them at once. A couple of them forced the doors shut against the wind, and the howl immediately reduced to a low rumble.

"Did we make it?" Treyga asked, confused and exhausted-sounding.

"We made it," Katie said in a hoarse voice.

Wintersland Snippet

A snippet from my current work in progress. First draft, please don't quote or repost. Thanks!

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Katie stood, her feet cold in the snow, astonished at the sight. At least thirty to forty people stood around the tree, dressed in warm fur coverings, leggings, and knee-high boots, and with colorful scarves covered with intricate designs. Most of the people were older--older even than Katie's own parents.

Crunching snow to her left drew her gaze. A girl who looked about seventeen, red hair framing her face, freckles across her nose, approached her. The girl’s expression was open and friendly.

“Hello!” the girl said. “I’ve not seen you here before. Have you come to make your wish?”

“Wish?” Katie repeated.

“Yes. This is the Wishing Tree. Did you bring your decoration?”

“I’m sorry, I --,” Katie began, when her hand closed around Mel's decoration in her pocket. She pulled it out and stared at it.

“Oh!” the girl said. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. Will you hang it from the tree and make your wish? I have yet to hang mine..”

Since the girl had an expectant look on her face, Katie followed. She looked at the decoration in the girl’s hand--a doll--and marveled over the handiwork. The doll wore cloth that seemed to be made of some pliant leather and decorated with the same kind of intricate designs she saw on the girl’s scarf. The doll’s face, that of a young man, was hand-painted and very detailed. Mel’s decoration seemed very crude and primitive by contrast.

The girl hung the doll from a branch, saying, “I wish ---” The girl hesitated. “You go first, if you don’t mind.”

I only want one thing, Katie thought. I want my sister back.

She hung Mel’s ornament on the tree.

An expectant hush seemed to fall over everything. Katie felt the weight of it pressing down on her. The singers fell silent, and the tin whistle trailed away. She opened her mouth, and what came out was altered from what she had meant to say.

“I wish to see my sister Mel again.”

The wind sprang from nowhere, gale-force, flinging snow in faces and tangling Katie’s hair. She heard people cry out. The wind circled the Wishing Tree, which remained untouched.

Snow whirled, coalesced into a visible shape. As Katie watched, Mel looked back at her, an agonized expression on her face.

Katie reached out.

“Don’t!” someone said.

Katie hesitated. The girl grabbed her arm.

“She is a Yule Ghost! Touch her, and you will share her fate!”

“How can I help her?” Katie asked in a trembling voice. Her sister’s visibly tortured features shredded her insides.

“I—I don’t know,” the girl admitted.

The wind slowed, subsided to a sigh. Mel lost form and being, dissipating on the last breeze.

“Mel!” Katie whispered.

Let me go, Katie. Save yourself.

From somewhere the anger boiled to the surface, and Katie screamed at her sister. “How dare you leave me!”

Nothing answered her. No voice, no whisper of wind. She stared at the blank white snow, and the merest drift of snow crystals in the air.

Here's to Spring...

If it would show up. *sigh* I'd really like to post something positive for a change. So here goes. I'm getting better. It's been a long, slow haul, but I'm beginning to improve--both physically and mentally.

Wintersland has been calling to me. I'm beginning to feel as if I could do some work on it. Sitting in front of the computer for long periods of time has been a major problem. I sit at work, so that had to come first, and, since early December, I'd done all the sitting I could do by the end of the work day. And, let's face it, you don't feel like writing when you're in pain most of the time. At least I didn't.

Somehow, it's all inextricably tied in my mind to the arrival of Spring. If Spring would just get here, I feel like I could come alive as everything else does.

NANO--Last Day

I didn't make 50,000 words. Far from it. I clocked in at 20,000, but that's good for me. I'll take it.

This snippet is from Chapter Five. Something is about to get in the way of Katie's plans to rescue her sister from Old Man Winter. First draft, and rough. Please don't quote or repost.

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For awhile, Katie just skated and was pleased enough not to think about all the things that perplexed her. She was content to just be.

A woman screamed. Katie jerked and almost lost her footing. The man and woman down the lake stood, looking up at the sky.

The sun disappeared.

"What--?" Katie began, but Hulaf's grip on her arm tightened to the point of pain.

"Skate," he said in her ear, intense. "Skate like never before."

Katie obeyed. The world moved by in a dizzying whirl as Hulaf drew her on, faster and faster. As they skated, the day grew progressively darker. Katie wanted to look behind her, but Hulaf didn't give her enough time. He nearly threw her up on the bank when they arrived.

"Get those skates off!" he said. "Quickly!"

Katie fumbled with the straps. As she worked, snow whirled through the air and flung itself straight at them.

Hulaf gave a little sound that sounded like a groan. "Hurry!" he said.

The last of the straps gave way and he seized her hand, dragging her up the pathway toward the Hall. "Run, Katie Medina!"

And Katie ran. The fear she heard in his voice infected her as well. She thought she heard something large moving through the air behind them. In near panic, she fought to breathe in the sudden gale. Snow fell in sheets so thick that the Hall became invisible, although it had loomed large before.

Hulaf said something, but his words were lost in the gale.

"What?" Katie yelled.

He yanked her close and shouted, "I'm not sure we're going to make it! Don't let go of me, whatever happens."

Snow and wind became something that conspired to hold them back no matter how hard they struggled to move forward. Memory of the abandoned town she and Treyga had visited rose in her mind's eye. She could feel the malice in the wind that blew in their faces, nearly drowning her in snow.

Now she couldn't see Hulaf even though he held her arm. Nor could she hear him. The wind whistled and moaned like a live thing. The cold pierced and bit, savage and searing. It became conceivable that she and Hulaf would die out here, lost, within shouting distance of the Hall and its people. She reached into her pocket and her fingers closed around Mel's image.

"I'm sorry, Mel," Katie whimpered.

And, in the midst of the snow and the wind, something grabbed hold of her upper arm and pulled. It felt like a helping hand. Katie followed, pulling in turn at Hulaf. He did not resist. The tug at her arm persisted for several long moments, until she stumbed on the first steps of the Hall.

With a cry of relief that was immediately snatched from her lips, Katie hauled Hulaf onto the steps with her. She could barely see him even now, just a dark figure in the whiteness of the air.

Moving against a wind that tried to push them off the steps, Katie and Hulaf struggled up the steps, and searched for the doors with fumbling, frozen fingers. Eons later, Hulaf found a latch and the door fell inward, dumping them on the floor.

Attendants surrounded them at once. A couple of them forced the door shut against the wind, and the howl immediately reduced to a low rumble.

"Did we make it?" Hulaf said, confused and exhausted-sounding.

"We made it," Katie said in a hoarse voice.

She lay and let the attendants take her outerwear and wrap her in a blanket. Warmth began to steal over her, and her numb face and hands tingled awake. The attendants rubbed her hands, giving them much-needed warmth from the friction.

Katie blinked as the room resolved itself into the entry hall. The chandelier hung directly overhead. They had come in the front doors.

Hulaf reached out and touched her face. "Are you all right, Katie Medina?"

"I think so. What just happened?"

"You saved our lives," Hulaf said.

Katie turned her head and saw his dark eyes, blinking and serious.

"If you hadn't found those steps, we would still be within the frost drake's reach," he added.

"The frost drake is here?"

Hulaf stood and gave her a helping hand. "Yes."

Wind rattled the doors. When Katie listened, she thought she heard roaring behind the wind. She shivered. Memory surfaced and she clutched at Hulaf's arm. "The other two people. What happened to them? Where are they?"

"They might have made it," he said, but he didn't really believe it, she could tell. The look on his face said it all.

Katie gave a great, gasping sob. All the pain she'd felt when her father told her about Mel came flooding back and pooled in her chest. She felt like she couldn't catch her breath.

NANO Day 20--Snippet

My God, this is tiring work! It's like a full-time job. You don't "show up", you don't "get paid."

My snippet is from the current chapter I'm working on--Katie has come to ask the Winterlord for help.

First draft, with all its roughness; please do not quote or repost.

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Just when she thought she had overloaded herself with the sights and sounds of the Winterlord's hall, Hulaf stopped in front of a set of double doors. The doors were wood, with high reliefs carved on them. The reliefs depicted an evergreen, its limbs laden with decorations, in the middle of a wooded area. Carved animals and people surrounded the tree.

Katie reached out a wondering hand and stroked the wood. "The Wishing Tree," she murmured.

Hulaf shot her a glance. "Very good."

He pushed on the doors, and the Wishing Tree split down the middle, right where the hidden seam of the doors were. A vast room opened up before her. Light, heat, and noise hit Katie in the face. Conversation and laughter rolled over her dazzled senses.

But just as she noted all the sensations, another took precedence. A cold wind rushed around her legs from behind, pushing into the room and visiting the conversing people and hissing against the fires burning in the multiple fireplaces. People cried out. The fires guttered in the fireplaces. The wind tugged at clothing, blew out candles, and caused tapestries and decorations to sway. Until the wind reached a richly-dressed, imposing man who sat on a dais along with six or seven other richly-dressed folk.

With an exclamation, the man reached for a staff made of wood and banged its end on the floor. The wind scattered into dozens of little breezes that harmlessly dissipated in the vast room.

"Who are you who brings death into my hall?" the man rumbled, his eyes fixed on Katie.

Katie felt light-headed under that gaze. The Winterlord's head might have reached her shoulder, but his own shoulders were nearly as wide as he was tall, and his arms were nearly as big around as her whole torso. He looked as if he could snap a sizable tree in two. His wild dark hair and beard, along with his glare from underneath busy eyebrows, suggested he would find snapping her in two no real challenge.

Nano Day 11 -- Snippet

I probably won't have 50,000 words done by November's end, btw. I'm clocking around a 1,000 words a day, and that seems the best I can do. I'll take it.

Rough draft, may change, please do not repost or quote anywhere else. Thanks!

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Katie stood, her feet cold in the snow, and watched several people decorate a huge evergreen tree on the outskirts of a town, singing while they did it. At least thirty to forty people stood around the tree, dressed in warm fur coverings, leggings, and knee-high boots, wearing colorful scarves covered with intricate designs. Most of the people were older--older even than Katie's own parents.

Crunching snow to her left drew her gaze. A girl who looked about seventeen, red hair framing her face, freckles across her nose, approached her. The girl had an open, friendly expression.

“Hello!” the girl said. “I’ve not seen you here before. Have you come to make your wish?”

“Wish?” Katie repeated.

“Yes. This is the Wishing Tree. Did you bring your decoration?”

“I’m sorry, I have nothing,” Katie said.

“Oh!” the girl said. She reached inside her fur coat and brought out a tiny doll made of sticks and cloth. “Here. I brought her in case someone lost or broke their decoration. You can have her.”

Since the girl held out the doll with an expectant look on her face, Katie took it. She looked at the doll and marveled over the handiwork. The doll wore a cloth dress that seemed to be made of some pliant leather and decorated with the same kind of intricate designs she saw on the girl’s scarf. The doll’s face appeared to have been hand-painted in exquisite detail.

Katie looked up at the girl, lost. “What do I wish for?”

The girl cocked her head. “Surely you must have some desire in your heart.”

I only want one thing, Katie thought. I want my sister back.

The intensity of her expression must have caught the girl’s attention. She reached out and caught Katie’s sleeve in sympathy. "Are you in pain?"

“Just my heart,” Katie said.

The girl let go of her sleeve, and Katie walked forward. The people around the tree parted to let her through. She found a branch and hung the doll from it, smoothing the tiny dress with her fingers.

An expectant hush seemed to fall over everything. Katie felt the weight of it pressing down on her. She opened her mouth, and what came out was altered from what she had meant to say.

“I want to see my sister Mel again.”

The wind sprang from nowhere, gale-force, flinging snow in faces and tangling Katie’s hair. She heard people cry out. The wind circled the Wishing Tree, which remained untouched.

Snow whirled, coalesced into a visible shape. As Katie watched, Mel looked back at her, an agonized expression on her face.

Katie reached out.

“Don’t!” someone said.

Katie hesitated. The girl,again at her side, hung on to her arm.

“She is a Yule Ghost! Touch her, and you will share her agony!”

“How can I help her?” Katie asked in a trembling voice. Her sister’s visibly tortured features shredded her insides.

“I—I don’t know,” the girl admitted.

The wind slowed, subsided to a sigh. Mel lost form and being, dissipating on the last breeze.

“Mel!” Katie whispered.

Leave me, Katie. Save yourself.

From somewhere the anger boiled to the surface, and Katie screamed after her sister's shade, “How dare you leave me!”

NANO - Day Two

Just a shade under a 1,000 words. Blech. Phone calls can eat way into your time if you're not careful.

Probably won't post every day from here on out. I'll let the progress bar do the talking.

NANOWRIMO Day One

And so it begins. 6,000 words.

Happy New Year....I Think

Here is a shining example of what I need to do. It's January 1, 2009. I hereby make a resolution to set down a goal--quite modest in nature---to finish the Wintersland story. No matter how long or short it turns out to be.

The story is intended to be a young adult, which should put it around the 80,000 range--we'll see. The story still feels thin in places, so I may need to develop a couple of characters beyond just the name stage.

I Love and I Hate This Time of Year....

I love Christmas-time, but I hate writing this time of year. Too many demands on your time, too much stress, too much food, too little exercise...

But spending time with family is great. That has to come first.

Brief snippet: First draft, please don't quote or repost.

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The wind sprang from nowhere, gale-force, flinging snow in faces and tangling Katie’s hair. She heard people cry out. The wind circled the Wishing Tree, which remained untouched.

Snow whirled, coalesced into a visible shape. As Katie watched, Mel looked back at her, an agonized expression on her face.

Katie reached out.

“Don’t!” someone said.

Katie hesitated. The girl was again at her side, hanging on to her sleeve.

“She is a Yule Ghost! Touch her, and you will share her agony!”

“How can I help her?” Katie asked in a trembling voice. Her sister’s visibly tortured features shredded her insides.

“I—I don’t know,” the girl admitted.

The wind slowed, subsided to a sigh. Mel lost form and being, dissipating on the last breeze.

“Mel!” Katie whispered.

Leave me, Katie. Save yourself.

From somewhere the anger boiled to the surface, and Katie screamed at her sister. “How dare you leave me!”

NANO--Day Whatever

I'm writing again, but I'm expecting a much more reasonable word goal from myself this time around. I had to backtrack about a 1,000 words and start again. I went wrong, and I couldn't continue until I got back on track.

My brother Mike would have been 39 today. The novel I'm writing is my birthday present to him, and will be dedicated to him once I finish. Here's a short snippet from it.

First draft. Please don't quote or repost. Thanks.

The sound of singing drew her. Katie stopped and listened. The singing seemed to come from somewhere to the right and up a short rise. Brush obscured her vision of what might lie beyond that rise. She hesitated, reluctant to leave the road, the only sign of civilization she’d seen, but the music was like a siren song. She plunged off the road and into deeper snow, picking a way through the snagging branches and uncertain footing to the top of the rise.

The first thing Katie saw was the soaring majesty of an evergreen, at least ten feet in height, perfectly shaped, and loaded with decorations on its lower branches. The next thing she saw was the people who surrounded the tree, placing decorations on its branches and singing a song that seemed full of minor keys but somehow didn’t sound like a dirge. Someone played a small tin whistle that inserted a metallic punctuation to the rise and fall of the voices.

Katie stood, her feet cold in the snow, astonished that anyone would decorate a tree out in the middle of nowhere and sing while they did it. At least thirty to forty people stood around the tree, dressed in warm fur coverings, leggings, and knee-high boots, and with colorful scarves covered with intricate designs.

Crunching snow to her left drew her gaze. A girl about her own age, red hair framing her face, freckles across her nose, approached her. The girl’s expression was open and friendly.

“Hello!” the girl said. “I’ve not seen you here before. Have you come to make your wish?”

“Wish?” Katie repeated.

“Yes. This is the Wishing Tree. Did you bring your decoration?”

“I’m sorry, I have nothing,” Katie said.

“Oh!” the girl said. She reached inside her fur coat and brought out a tiny doll made of sticks and cloth. “Here. I brought her in case someone lost or broke their decoration. You can have her.”

Since the girl held out the doll with an expectant look on her face, Katie took it. She looked at the doll and marveled over the handiwork. The doll wore a cloth dress that seemed to be made of some pliant leather and decorated with the same kind of intricate designs she saw on the girl’s scarf. The doll’s face was hand-painted and very detailed.

Katie looked up at the girl, lost. “What should I wish for?”

The girl cocked her head. “Surely you must have some desire in your heart.”

I only want one thing, Katie thought. I want my sister back.

The intensity of her expression must have caught the girl’s attention. She reached out and caught Katie’s sleeve. “Be careful what you wish for,” she said. “Do not wish for the impossible, for it can only lead to pain.”

NANO Update---Arguing with Myself

Part of the problem, besides the tendonitis issue in the arm, is the subject matter of my new novel. I'm attempting to tackle suicide and its aftermath head-on, and I'm flinching.

I'll get around it. But it may take me a week or two. I am writing--but snails would walk faster on a sidewalk smeared with molasses.

NANO- Day Four - Moderately Upward Trend

Word Count: 580

Total Count: 3,380

Not a sterling word count, but at least it's going in the right direction.

First draft, please don't quote or repost.

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The long howl of wolves broke through her shock. She ran, blind in her panic, slipping and sliding in the snow, trying to find a place—anyplace—to hide. The featureless landscape turned out to be not so featureless. She fell off a rise onto lower ground. She struggled to her feet, sputtering, cold snow finding its way beneath her clothing. Katie floundered in thigh-deep snow. To her left, a low stone retaining wall rose out of the snow, and to her right the land fell away to a deep ditch. She realized with a sense of shock that she stood on a road, and that the howling of wolves drew near on that road.

NANO Day Three--- Ick.

Count: 200 words
Total Count: 2,800

It's obvious the EDJ is going to interfere with the great word count I was getting over the weekend (notice how I've changed my tune about the 1,300 words?--looking better all the time!). Not just yesterday's count--I'm factoring in how I'm doing this evening, even though you don't see that word count yet.

I just can't take a marathon session of sitting and typing after doing that all day for the EDJ.

First draft, please don't quote or repost.

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The farther she moved into the woods, the more strange they seemed. Katie had lost her sense of direction, and it added to her sense of strangeness to see no tracks and no other indication anyone was in these woods but herself. It came to her what a rash thing she did rushing after a unknown figure in the middle of the night. As the thought crossed her mind, she saw the dark figure ahead. Katie stopped. Mel stood there, her dark hair and clothing tossed by an unfelt, unseen wind. Her expression of pain and sorrow tore at Katie’s heart.

“Mel, it’s me,” Katie said in a shaky voice.

Her sister held out her hand, and started to fade from sight.

“Mel!” Katie screamed, and she lurched forward, reaching for that outstretched hand.

NANO Day Two-- Well.

I eked out the same wordcount as yesterday.

1,300 words

Total count: 2,600

Guess that's twice better than nothing, which is what I have been getting.

Little bit of snippet--first draft, please don't quote or repost.
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The crying drew her to the living room. Mel stood in front of the Christmas tree, trying to lift phantom ornaments to hang from its branches. Her long dark hair, once her pride and joy, nearly obscured her face in a tangled mess. She turned to look at Katie, tears running down white cheeks, eyes wild.

“Help me!,” she said. “Katie, help me, please!”

With a cry, Katie woke. A sense of dizzy disorientation shook her when Katie realized she stood in the dark living room near the bare Christmas tree. She turned to see that the rest of the house was dark and still. The hour must have been late. She could hear Dad’s light snore. They were in bed asleep. Katie turned back to the tree, and her gaze focused on the bay window beyond. Moonlight bouncing off the snowpack lit up the outdoors quite well. She had no trouble seeing the dark figure that stood by the barn and looked up at the house.

The breath left Katie in a rush, then returned with her deep inhale. “Mel?” she whispered.

NANO - Day One - Where the Rubber Meets the Road

So I got started late. I've been having difficulty lately with pain in the hips and back. The pain is starting to subside, so I'm hopeful I can spend longer sessions at the computer.

Here's a snippet from what I'm working on for How to Think Sideways. Doesn't exactly meet the NANO qualifications, except that I only put word one down yesterday, but hey, NANO is whatever you make it, right? This is my NANO.

Goal is 1700 words a day. Thankful for what I get.

November 15, 2008: 1,300 words

First draft, certainly subject to change. Please don't quote or repost.

Katie Medina gave Suttonsville a huge thumbs down. She called it Sucksville, but under her breath, where her parents couldn’t hear. The people were dull, and her new classmates uninteresting. Except when they were thinking of new and creative ways to snub her.

She stared out her bedroom window. Dad had brought them to live here—on a farm, of all things! Okay, a non-working farm, but still. Her bedroom looked out over the tangled growth of wood that stretched for miles from the backside of the decrepit old barn she could see to her right if she strained her vision. The woods drew her attention—the depths seemed to change with the movement of sun and shadow and become a completely different place every time she looked. As if it moved while she wasn’t looking.

Today, the woods were quiet. Snow covered the ground, painting the stark branches white on top. The interior of the woods seemed darker than ever against the white contrast of the snow in the farm yard.

Katie turned to her bedroom. Peeling wallpaper, deep casement windows with wood some enterprising soul had painted white, and wide plank floors painted gray. Highly unsatisfactory. The memory of her old bedroom, up-to-date and modern, with apple-green walls and windows that you could raise without jerking and straining brought a kernel of anger to the back of her throat. At least she had the second floor of the farmhouse all to herself. Her parents slept in a large echoing room at the back of the house at ground level.

Restless, Katie took the creaking stairs down to the main floor and through the hall toward the kitchen. The Christmas tree stood in front of the bay window in the living room, still unadorned. Katie passed by, hurt ballooning in her chest. Mel had always been the one to decorate the tree, harassing Katie until she helped. Not this Christmas tree. She realized with a sense of shock that Mel would never see her handiwork in front of this bay window, lit and glowing. Mel would never decorate a tree ever again.