NaNo Day 11 & 12 - Bricks of description

Yes. I'm cheating by combining two blog posts into one because of: reasons. 

Yesterday was awesome because half my day was free! So the question could be why I just didn't take the time to write my blog? It actually took me all day till before dinner....in which I had to jet out the door and complete some evening meetings about website designs.

Since it's been a week since my last coffee count. I've done writing every day since and had extra during my double-up days on the weekends. The new total is:



29 CUPS FOR NANO!


Ah I feel inspired already :D


DAY 11
During my writing time on, I participated in an exercise of my own creation. For two pages I simply dumped bricks of description onto my scene, building a wall of boring. I was too lazy to have my characters talk or have personality. I just set my mind on zero and pushed toward making my word count for the day. When I was finished, I was at 18.5k. And I had just finished really boring stuff. It was kinda demotivating and I was super hungry.

If you don't have a writing buddy that you can talk to (especially on Skype), go get one now. My writing buddy told me to go eat some cookies and inspired me to continue on! I gritted my teeth with a not-so-rumbling stomach and edited my text to include dialogue and viewpoint, karate-chopping my bricks of boring into more interesting segments. At the end I added an extra 500 words, rounding my wordcout out to about: 19k words!

DAY 12
Now it's a new day and also mostly free! I admit the first thing I'm gonna do is edit (I know, don't say it!) As much as I fixed my wall 'o boring bits, I am still faced with a bad habit. I need to start scene skipping. Basically I describe every action my main character does in order - wake up, get dressed, walk down the hall, have breakfast, leave, enter the room, do some stuff, and 3 hours later its lunch, and....

>_>

Is that interesting to read? I don't know. To me it reads okay, but I'm not sure about what other people would say. I think for the first time, I'm gonna use my strikeout tool. The first time to kill off some of my paragraph children. I think it will be for the best.

WORD SPRINT!
Now that it's 5pm, I guess it is time to start some writing. Just participated in my own word-sprint to as I waited for the dinner's potatoes to cook: I got 274 words in 15 minutes!


...I JUST BARELY made my wordcount before midnight on day 12. Yippee! I finished the day over 20k and clocked in at:  20,571 words!  I'm still on par, but my word buffer is really low :(

EXCERPT

For now I'm only going to post a single, long excerpt. I did a lot of editing between what I wrote yesterday combined with now. So...use your imagination to connect the dots!
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Only the Waymakers were allowed inside the giant conference room. Locals were forced to gather outside and press their noses against the glass. A large U-shaped table sat in the middle of the room, with a chair was placed at its center. The local repairmen stopped what they were doing when the group walked in. A shorter man in a gray sweater and taped glasses clasped Jason’s hand.

“You must be the young mechanic we heard about, Jason Bay?”

“Yes it’s nice to meet you,” he spoke and shook the man’s hand. “Looks like you and your team have this place under control.”

“I believe we do, yes. We took the morning to select the appropriate tools and equipment that you’ll be needing.” The man gestured the chair in the center of the conference table. “You can take the middle chair. We prepared three different workstations around the table for you to use and our men will assist you.”

“Thanks.” The artifact sat in pieces on a white cloth in the center of the table, closely watched by everyone in the room. “I’m guessing this is the navigational device you recovered?” he continued.

“Yep that’s her.” The sweatered man replied. “None of the pieces are missing, I can assure you.”

Jason nodded and tried to look interested at the setup on the conference table. The sweatered man waited patiently behind him, but then left to greet the other Waymakers. It was a good layout – Jason could swivel his chair within the table and easily interact with each set of tools. Judging by the equipment and spare parts, the left side of the conference table was setup for repairing old circuitry. The top station could be used to examine the maps projection matrix, and the pile on the right was for the power systems. Jason was actually impressed at all the spare parts they had. Maybe this could be fun.

It won’t be fun if Shiri decides to leave. Jason’s dark thoughts returned and ruined his mechanic’s spirit. His sister never told anyone her true wish to leave the village and visit the unexplored settlements in search of her birth family. Now her plans were renewed with hope that the maps could lead them there. She couldn’t bring herself to say it to Jason’s parents, because she knew their hearts would break. What about my heart? his mind hissed back.

He yelped in surprise as Shiri brushed his arm. “Hey, don’t look like that. Everything is gonna be fine.” She gave him a thumbs up and a big smile. “I’ll be here the whole time to cheer you on!”

                “You don’t have to stay,” he blurted out

                “Of course I do. I’ll be your moral support!”

                “Why?”

                “ ‘Why’ what?”

                Jason closed his eyes. “Nevermind.”

Before her hand could reach his shoulder, Jason had already turned his attention to the monstrosity laid out before him. Come hell or high water, this day was going to end badly.

The extent of damage on the navigational unit was pretty bad. Parts of the button panel had fallen off and wires were missing. He welcomed the routine of sauntering metal together and testing chipsets. All he needed to do was concentrate on the task before him. He didn’t need to think.

Before he knew it lunch was pushed in front of him. Shoving a cheese sandwich into his mouth, he waved off the other repairman to take a break. If he stopped now, all his will to continue would be gone. The work had been slow, but they made a lot of progress. The only thing left to fix was the projection matrix: the maps wouldn’t be much use unless they could actually see them. Jason snapped the panel closed on the little black box before him. He took a clean cloth and dipped the end of it in some electronic sealant. He rubbed the liquid on both connectors and stopped to inspect his work. It was his black demon.

While everyone was walking around holding a plate and plastic cup, he saw Shiri watching him from her corner. Her eyes were bright with anticipation. He had an idea. He pretended to scratch behind his ear and made a slight finger twitch. Shiri understood the silent signal and walked towards the conference table. She stood over him, both their eyes locked onto the black box.

                “Would you like to do the honors?”

                She clasped her hands to her chest. “Now? Is it…fixed?”

                “I think so. Last thing to do is put the matrix back into the side panel.” He forced a smile.”I think you should do it. It will take the pressure off if no one else is watching.”

                “Are you sure?”

Jason nodded and fought the urge to clench his eyes shut. Shiri picked up the black box and angled her body as a shield from prying eyes. With trained movements she snapped the matrix back into its setting. The navigational device was powered and complete. Her hand sat on the top of the casing. The power button was under her thumb, but she didn’t press it.

                “Let’s do it together,” she breathed. Jason slowly reached over and placed his hand atop hers. A strange sensation flowed through his blood when he touched her. He took a breath and put pressure over her soft fingertips. They heard a click.  

The little machine hummed happily to life and green light burst from its center. Curved lines and patterns danced across their faces as they stared at each other, letting their amazement win over the fear. The room fell dead silent.

                “It works Jason!” Shiri laughed out loud. She flung herself over the table and locked her arms around his neck. The awkward position made them both nearly fall, but he hugged her back. Maybe if he didn’t let go, he wouldn’t have to face the oncoming questions.

                “Get out of the picture, you two!” Shawn demanded. “I want to get a good look at this thing, and make sure it’s legit.”

Shiri apologized and slid back onto the ground. Jason could see his uncle’s grin through forestry mountains and tiny green clouds. He pushed himself out of the three-dimensional vista generated from the map device.  Muffled cheers erupted from the locals outside, as they were all impressed with the floating image.

                “Now that the maps can project, let’s check out how much data this thing has.” Jason said with a hint of excitement. There were three vertical buttons on the right side of the navigational device. Most likely they were used to control the maps’ settings.

Jason pressed the top button and after a click, the machine spit out a blue layer now mixed with the green mountains.

                “Ah I see! This device uses a layering system for different sets of information,” he spoke excitedly. “The green layer we saw first was the normal topography of the region. This blue one…”

                “…looks like the location of cities.” Shiri finished.

                Jason watched her eyes locked on the floating image, then continued. “I remember reading a tech manual about navigational units of this type. If this is a G-27 model, there should be another layer.” Pressing the button again, little orange lines snaked through the landscape and city outlines.

                “Those have to be the old roads!” the Mayor’s voice suddenly echoed out. Jason didn’t even realize the old goon had been standing there the whole time. Now that he thought about it, some of the town watchmen had also stayed in the room the whole time. Two at the back and two by the door. Strange: where they being watched?

His uncle scanned the room and walked over the conference table. “Let’s look at the first layer again. I’d like to find out what region this is and how it relates to our current position.”

Jason pressed the button again and this time the projection was sucked back into the machine. A large block of text appeared in the air with an error message. “Huh that’s strange,” Jason mumbled and fiddled with the display. “I don’t remember this model having an additional layer. Looks like it’s busted though…”

“What if you try switching to a new region?” Shawn suggested. “Then we’ll know if the data is simply missing or if it’s an electrical problem.”

Jason was too busy reading the wall of text floating in front of his nose. The last two lines in particular: ‘…borders beyond the veil…Informational document recorded by Dr. J. Harrington...’

“Jason? Can you do that?”

His attention snapped back. “Do what now? Ah change the displayed region? Yeah gimme a sec.”

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Now I can friggin sleep. Hooray!