I thought it would be fun to post our first 500 words for our Nano works (hopefully this is okay). I'd love to read what others are writing. This is not a critiquing post, just something fun in hopes to keep us all on track for Nano. Feel free to include your Nano nickname if you want more Nano friends too.
Good luck everyone!!
NANO - Post your first 500 here
NANO - Post your first 500 here
~Kristie
-: Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read - Groucho Marx :-
http://www.BKRivers.blogspot.com
-: Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read - Groucho Marx :-
http://www.BKRivers.blogspot.com
Re: NANO - Post your first 500 here
Genre: YA Contemporary
Title: A Horse Named Penelope
Nano Nickname: kristielee
My name is Natalie and I’m already dead, it seems. If not dead, then invisible – that must be it. But how do you know if you’re invisible? You know you’re invisible when you walk past a hundred or more students without so much as a bat of an eye. Especially when you’ve gone to school with most of those said students your whole life.
Today is no different than any other, I wake up, do what’s necessary to get myself to school (which usually includes missing the bus because the bus driver doesn’t see me). After walking the mile and half to get to school, I arrive just before the final bell rings. Typical morning.
First period drags on and gradually ebbs into second period. Handing in my calculus homework is always interesting. I sit in the back row and tap my homework on the back of Marcus Nelson until he swats it away, mistaking it for a pesky fly. When he realizes it’s my homework he fumbles over his shoulder with his bear-paw hands until his fingers find the paper. Usually he crinkles my homework so that by the time it reaches Mrs. Evan’s desk, the – what should be a neatly stacked pile of homework – is ruffled because of my crumpled paper. Thank you Marcus Nelson.
Third period Botany is even better. My teacher Mrs. Wilson, paired off the class at the beginning of the school year, of course there are twenty-five students in the class, so I am without a Botany partner. I do the work of two people and get half the credit. I don’t even think Mrs. Wilson knows I don’t have a lab partner.
Fourth period drags on so long I have to pinch myself to stay awake. By the time lunch rolls around, I’m itching to get out of here. Away from school and all these people that pretend I don’t exist. I feel like I’m wearing Harry Potter’s Cloak of Invisibility everywhere I go.
I eat lunch in the girl’s locker room, nibbling on saltine crackers and carrot sticks. I’ve tried sitting with some of the girls in my class but they act as if I’m not there. I politely laugh at their jokes, smile when appropriate, but I’m not part of the conversation. So, instead, I eat alone and devise ways I can become noticed.
I could sprout wings and become a faerie. Or perhaps if I shaved all my hair off and pierced my nose in three places like Simone Harris did our freshman year, I’d get noticed.
I guess I should say that I don’t really want to be noticed, I just want someone to see me. Maybe have a friend or two. I’m not weird, at least by my standards. I dress like most of the girls here. I have a full head of mousy brown hair that hangs quite straight to my shoulders. I’m average height and thin, maybe a little too thin. You’d probably say I’d never grown any curves. And that would be pretty accurate. I guess that could be part of my problem. I hardly need to wear a bra and most of the other girls here sport at least at c cup.
Maybe I should get a boob job!
Title: A Horse Named Penelope
Nano Nickname: kristielee
My name is Natalie and I’m already dead, it seems. If not dead, then invisible – that must be it. But how do you know if you’re invisible? You know you’re invisible when you walk past a hundred or more students without so much as a bat of an eye. Especially when you’ve gone to school with most of those said students your whole life.
Today is no different than any other, I wake up, do what’s necessary to get myself to school (which usually includes missing the bus because the bus driver doesn’t see me). After walking the mile and half to get to school, I arrive just before the final bell rings. Typical morning.
First period drags on and gradually ebbs into second period. Handing in my calculus homework is always interesting. I sit in the back row and tap my homework on the back of Marcus Nelson until he swats it away, mistaking it for a pesky fly. When he realizes it’s my homework he fumbles over his shoulder with his bear-paw hands until his fingers find the paper. Usually he crinkles my homework so that by the time it reaches Mrs. Evan’s desk, the – what should be a neatly stacked pile of homework – is ruffled because of my crumpled paper. Thank you Marcus Nelson.
Third period Botany is even better. My teacher Mrs. Wilson, paired off the class at the beginning of the school year, of course there are twenty-five students in the class, so I am without a Botany partner. I do the work of two people and get half the credit. I don’t even think Mrs. Wilson knows I don’t have a lab partner.
Fourth period drags on so long I have to pinch myself to stay awake. By the time lunch rolls around, I’m itching to get out of here. Away from school and all these people that pretend I don’t exist. I feel like I’m wearing Harry Potter’s Cloak of Invisibility everywhere I go.
I eat lunch in the girl’s locker room, nibbling on saltine crackers and carrot sticks. I’ve tried sitting with some of the girls in my class but they act as if I’m not there. I politely laugh at their jokes, smile when appropriate, but I’m not part of the conversation. So, instead, I eat alone and devise ways I can become noticed.
I could sprout wings and become a faerie. Or perhaps if I shaved all my hair off and pierced my nose in three places like Simone Harris did our freshman year, I’d get noticed.
I guess I should say that I don’t really want to be noticed, I just want someone to see me. Maybe have a friend or two. I’m not weird, at least by my standards. I dress like most of the girls here. I have a full head of mousy brown hair that hangs quite straight to my shoulders. I’m average height and thin, maybe a little too thin. You’d probably say I’d never grown any curves. And that would be pretty accurate. I guess that could be part of my problem. I hardly need to wear a bra and most of the other girls here sport at least at c cup.
Maybe I should get a boob job!
Last edited by klbritt on November 1st, 2012, 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
~Kristie
-: Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read - Groucho Marx :-
http://www.BKRivers.blogspot.com
-: Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read - Groucho Marx :-
http://www.BKRivers.blogspot.com
Re: NANO - Post your first 500 here
Hey why not? Sounds like fun. Your story is cute so far, klbritt!
Genre: literary fiction
Title: (untitled at the moment)
She teased the upper corner of the page with her right fingertips as she scoured the text for that elusive phrase: gravitational singularity. It always managed to hide itself between the other long words, preventing the hungry minds of physics students from finding it. But alas, her darting eyes landed on it, and she snapped the tip of her pencil’s eraser—which had previously been being anxiously nibbled upon by her front teeth—onto the phrase, letting out a quick and exasperated, yet hushed, “Gotcha,” before wildly scribbling in her already half-filled notebook the jumbled series of derivatives dictated to her in the fine print below the words.
Derivatives, derivatives, how derivative; the thought passed through her mind like a swift breeze blowing a haze of stardust into her line of vision. Why do we need derivatives if it just comes out to zero in the end? She quickly waved the thin veil of thought away with the flip of the textbook page.
The rumbling of an approaching car invaded her concentration, and she looked up, out the front window and into the pitch dark. A pair of headlights swiveled into sight, illuminating the black driveway and the sharp green blades of the lawn for a few seconds before disappearing as the car halted and the rumbling ceased. Removing her feet from the coffee table, she closed her cosmology textbook and slipped it into her navy blue backpack, zipping it up tight. As she tucked the pencil behind her ear, taking a few strands of tangled blonde hair with it, she watched as the lumbering figure approached the front door of the house. A jingling of keys, a clanging of keys as they missed the keyhole, and a frustrated gruff mutter all signified to her that his three-hour tardiness was not due to complications at the funeral parlor but to a pint or two sipped drearily at the nearby bar.
The door creaked open and Wayne cleared his throat, eliciting a surly noise that matched his surly exterior. “Hello Jan,” he said quietly as he closed the door behind him.
“Hello,” she answered in a hoarse whisper, a hushed voice that came out almost as rough as Wayne’s had. She could feel her cheeks flushing; how awkward it was—this was her least favorite part about babysitting, the parent-coming-home part, when she was forced to relate the uneventful events of the evening to the parent who simply wished to go to bed, and meanwhile she desperately wanted to leave, but social conventions required that they both stand shiftily in the living room chatting about the child and how she refused to eat her peas, how she whined at bedtime, and how she was good—as usual—despite those flaws.
Jan stood, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and assuming a solemn expression. She could think of nothing to say, and so she waited for Wayne to speak. It took him a moment, as he was preoccupied with placing his keys into the dish on the side table next to the door while avoiding eye contact.
“How was she?” he asked once he had completely and successfully entered his home. He glanced down the hall toward Grace’s bedroom, the darkness and silence of that half of the house evoking some sort of passivity in his surroundings—but then again, Jan realized, his surroundings had been carrying on without him after all. She noticed his drowsily darting blue eyes, watery perhaps from his drunkenness, though more likely he had become drunk in order to mask his watery eyes or use the drunkenness as an excuse for having them.
Genre: literary fiction
Title: (untitled at the moment)
She teased the upper corner of the page with her right fingertips as she scoured the text for that elusive phrase: gravitational singularity. It always managed to hide itself between the other long words, preventing the hungry minds of physics students from finding it. But alas, her darting eyes landed on it, and she snapped the tip of her pencil’s eraser—which had previously been being anxiously nibbled upon by her front teeth—onto the phrase, letting out a quick and exasperated, yet hushed, “Gotcha,” before wildly scribbling in her already half-filled notebook the jumbled series of derivatives dictated to her in the fine print below the words.
Derivatives, derivatives, how derivative; the thought passed through her mind like a swift breeze blowing a haze of stardust into her line of vision. Why do we need derivatives if it just comes out to zero in the end? She quickly waved the thin veil of thought away with the flip of the textbook page.
The rumbling of an approaching car invaded her concentration, and she looked up, out the front window and into the pitch dark. A pair of headlights swiveled into sight, illuminating the black driveway and the sharp green blades of the lawn for a few seconds before disappearing as the car halted and the rumbling ceased. Removing her feet from the coffee table, she closed her cosmology textbook and slipped it into her navy blue backpack, zipping it up tight. As she tucked the pencil behind her ear, taking a few strands of tangled blonde hair with it, she watched as the lumbering figure approached the front door of the house. A jingling of keys, a clanging of keys as they missed the keyhole, and a frustrated gruff mutter all signified to her that his three-hour tardiness was not due to complications at the funeral parlor but to a pint or two sipped drearily at the nearby bar.
The door creaked open and Wayne cleared his throat, eliciting a surly noise that matched his surly exterior. “Hello Jan,” he said quietly as he closed the door behind him.
“Hello,” she answered in a hoarse whisper, a hushed voice that came out almost as rough as Wayne’s had. She could feel her cheeks flushing; how awkward it was—this was her least favorite part about babysitting, the parent-coming-home part, when she was forced to relate the uneventful events of the evening to the parent who simply wished to go to bed, and meanwhile she desperately wanted to leave, but social conventions required that they both stand shiftily in the living room chatting about the child and how she refused to eat her peas, how she whined at bedtime, and how she was good—as usual—despite those flaws.
Jan stood, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and assuming a solemn expression. She could think of nothing to say, and so she waited for Wayne to speak. It took him a moment, as he was preoccupied with placing his keys into the dish on the side table next to the door while avoiding eye contact.
“How was she?” he asked once he had completely and successfully entered his home. He glanced down the hall toward Grace’s bedroom, the darkness and silence of that half of the house evoking some sort of passivity in his surroundings—but then again, Jan realized, his surroundings had been carrying on without him after all. She noticed his drowsily darting blue eyes, watery perhaps from his drunkenness, though more likely he had become drunk in order to mask his watery eyes or use the drunkenness as an excuse for having them.
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