November 11, 2001
My wrists hurt, my brain
My wrists hurt, my brain hurts, and my fingers hurt, but by god, I'm now up over 18,000 words. I wrote nearly 7,000 words in the last two days, about 5,100 of that today. I feel damn GOOD. Lara (one of my MUSH buddies and another Nano'er) and I have been comparing notes today, even to the point of exchanging manuscripts. She liked it! It was good to know that I'm managing to get across what I want to get across. I think I'm going to go fall into bed now. Another short excerpt from this evening's writing. Sara again. She's really taking off in my mind, and I like her a hell of a lot. Here she's been taken by the Host, and is demanding to be released:
"Why should we?" He spoke in perfect, unaccented English, his voice clear and reasonable-sounding, even pleasant.
Sara was taken aback and couldn't answer at first. They'd never spoken directly to her before. "Because! This… this isn't right."
"On the contrary, it suits our needs more than adequately."
"Your needs?" Sara could feel the anger rising up in her again. "I've been a prisoner for two years! Everyone who knows me thinks I'm crazy and that you're just a figment of my diseased imagination. Fuck your needs!"
He stood watching her for a moment, his head tilted slightly to one side. "Interesting," was his only comment. He turned away from Sara and went back to the group. There was a quiet buzzing conversation punctuated by the waving of hands and blinking of eyes.
"Interesting?! Interesting?!" Sara's anger was quickly growing to outrage. "Look, just let me go. Come back and get me tomorrow night. Stick me with needles, whatever. I promise I'll be properly terrified."
The orange haired one turned around to face her again. "You still haven't explained why we should disrupt our plans to suit you."
Sara thought for a long moment. "Because otherwise I'll die," she said finally. "If I stay in that place much longer, I'll wither and die, and then I won't be of any use to you or anyone else."
"Possible," he said, "but a bit melodramatic, don't you think?"
"No, it's not," Sara said. This was quite possibly the most surreal moment of her life. A creature from another planet just called her melodramatic.
Whew. I've written something like
Whew. I've written something like 5200 words this weekend, but I'm still about 1900 behind. I'm going to try and catch up tonight. I think I can do it, or at least I can come damn close. Here's an excerpt, written last night:
The pair stood on the top of the small hill. Crowning the hill was an almost perfect circle of pine trees, leaving a needle-covered clearing in the center about ten feet in diameter. The moonlight shone down into the clearing like sunlight streaming through cathedral windows, light touching holy ground. That sense of the sacred was strong here; many who visited the place noticed it. Some called it peaceful, others called it spiritual, still others said it was otherworldly. Very few saw it for what it really was.
The circle of pines was something of an oddity, its shape almost perfect enough to have been designed. A.J. somewhat abashedly let go of David's hand, and crossed the circle, the moonlight silvering her hair and silhouetting her figure as she moved. Here she moved with a grace she would have thought herself incapable of, and would have laughed had she been told of it. She turned and grinned at David. "Well? Was I right?"
David nodded. "You were right. It's amazing."
"You're not just humoring me?"
"No. No, absolutely not," David answered distractedly, caught up in looking around.
Although there had been no wind all evening, the breeze on top of the hill was gentle and constant, whispering with the pines in a language A.J. could almost understand. The last time she'd been here she'd been alone, and the quiet sanctity of the circle had both thrilled and unnerved her. Now with David here, the unnerving aspects were gone.
"...find this place?" David was asking.
"Hm?" A.J. glanced away from the full moon overhead and back to David.
"How'd you find this place?"
"Oh. I dunno, I just went for a walk one night last month and wound up here. It was like..." A.J. stopped.
"Like what?" David pressed.
"Never mind, it's stupid."
"No, what?"
"Well," A.J. sighed, "it almost felt like I was drawn here."
