My Crazy Writing Frenzy for #NaNoWriMo

My Crazy Writing FrenzyBetween the sorting through the qualities of sense and sensibility, and the foggy horizons avoiding sea monsters I have been in a crazy writing frenzy with #NaNoWriMo. Now I have always been a writer starting with my first diary at age eight to everything I do now. One of my dreams has always been to write a book. I have started many, but have yet to finish one. So what was I thinking when I accepted the challenge to write one from beginning to end in one month?

Quite simply, I was thinking it was time I wrote that book.

 

Here is an excerpt from the beginning of my novel entitled The Pound.

 

          Mondays suck. They have probably been sucking since the dawn of time. Bet whatever killed the dinosaurs happened on a Monday. Did you know that Monday was named for the moon? You’d think that being a werewolf would make that a good thing, but for me it’s more like some cosmically ironic little factoid that is covered under Murphy’s Law. 

          So why do I think Mondays suck? Let’s see. Could it be that every Monday I am reminded afresh how craptastic my life has become?

          Once I had a family, a mom and dad. I grew up knowing what I was and believing that, though I was not human, I was a natural part of this world and would someday be able to take on the form of a wolf. My parents loved me. I had everything a human little girl would have plus a super cool secret that I loved to keep. I was weird in that one regard. Not only did I love keeping secrets, I was good at it.  Well, for the most part.

          I was seven when my parents died in a house fire. After that I was in and out of foster homes. The house fire had kind of traumatized me, nightmares mostly. As I got older—read puberty—my raging hormones contributed to my being rebellious and easily irritated. Slowly the foster home placements became therapeutic foster home placements then my placements became various therapeutic programs. I’ve been labeled with everything from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to Oppositional Defiance Disorder, whatever that means. I think they were still trying to rule out Antisocial Disorder. They just didn’t understand.

          Finally I ran away. I was doing pretty well on my own…until my first change. I had been thirteen. My parents had said it would happen when I was nearly an adult. I have no idea why I was so fortunately blessed with an early change, and there’s no one for me to ask. All I know is that I couldn’t control it and that is what got me caught. I didn’t tell anyone anything. That was two years ago.

          Now I wake up each crappy day in this military boarding school facade of a research compound that I endearingly think of as the Pound. I’m the only real werewolf here, but I’m not the only teenager. And the scientists are doing things, trying to make the others like me. The first Monday of every month I have to report to the Infirmary for a work up then it’s off to the therapist. The therapist is every Monday regardless. I think school and training are supposed to come after that, but I never make it. Somewhere between the infirmary and the therapist something always happens, and I end up drugged into unconsciousness and thrown into an isolation room. 

 

What about you?  Are you writing for #NaNoWriMo?  What do you think of my story so far? 

 

*Photo: Montmartre by John Althouse Cohen, obtained through Flickr.

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