And This is What We Did!

By: Loni Cameron

Every November thousands of writers around the world take on the challenge to write an entire novel in one month. This challenge asks that the author writes 50,000 words in 30 days.

It’s fun!

It’s grueling!

It’s intense!

And, you learn about yourself as a writer.

Now that NaNoWriMo 2018 is over, we’ve decided that this month we’ll showcase some of the hard work of our community who participated in either the main NaNo initiative or our Mini-NaNo.

From Val Tobin (Special Events Team):

Her first instinct, when she spotted him propped against a tree smoking a cigarette, was to tear a strip off his hide and consider threatening him with fire ants again. When she registered his shaking hands and sheet-white face, she hoisted her rifle to ready and crept up beside him.

When she spoke, it was in a whisper. “What’s the word, Dog?”

“A body, boss.”

From MJ Moores (Board Director):

As Amber turned onto Mercury Road, her lights glanced over a silver truck half-on, half-off the road on the opposite side of the street – right at the walkway to the river. The driver’s door hung open and a blue dash light blinked.

What’s going on?

She pulled over just past the vehicle and tossed the Mini into park. She looked around, twisting this way and that to see behind her and off to the side.

No one.

Nothing.

Her stomach clenched, but not in fear. Nothing crazy ever happened in her neighbourhood. It was an older subdivision with a lot of young families and retired couples.

Worry compelled her to snatch her cell and check it out. She didn’t want to call 911 and have it be some drunk taking a piss in Mrs. Normore’s bushes. He’d be gone before they arrived. And if that was the case, it was probably Yellena’s Great Uncle. Amber’s old babysitter always had strange stories about her extended family. Amber clicked on her cell phone light as she walked past the truck and beyond the street lamp onto the shadowed path.

She tracked her beam back and forth over the frost-tipped grass. The black cloak of the bushes guarding the way to the river gave her the creeps.

Maybe I should just leave it alone.

Then her beam caught a flash of red just down the trail. Her heart jumped. She trained the light back on the bright splotch and just stood there, squinting, trying to decipher what her eyes were telling her.

 “Holy s**t.”

 A body.

November brought out the tension of the personal challenge and having to rise up to it for both MJ and Val.

We look forward to seeing what the rest of the community has in store for us. Hopefully this jump start helps keep everybody writing, and not just for NaNoWriMo.