I’m currently at 42,567 NaNoWriMo words, after a 5K word blast yesterday and another 1K jolt this morning. I plan two short sessions today with the aim of reaching 4.5K words today, leaving just 4K for the final day.
As for the actual content of the novel: You know how some writers repeatedly explore the same general themes in their work, and how these themes may map to their personal obsessions? Apparently I am obsessed with people hiding in basements and crawl spaces of the homes of their loved ones. I had no idea that this was an obsession of mine — I don’t think about it on a daily or weekly or even monthly basis, or in fact ever — but once again in this novel someone is hiding in a basement storage area. And stealing food from other people’s refrigerators. I swear I have never done these things myself and I don’t know how they keep reappearing in my plots. But there you go.
Also, there is now another dead body, this one apparently killed somewhere and then brought in secret and placed in the narrator’s apartment, while the narrator was not there. Combine this with the chocolate revolver and we see that this book is turning out less like a Raymond Chandler novel and more like Murder By Death.
Incidentally, new working title as proposed by Some Friends over the weekend: The Girl With the Chocolate Gun.
Still to come: The revelation of what the book is about, the big confrontation scene, the protagonist’s facing of fears and overcoming the big obstacle. It’s all still a mystery to me, so it’s exciting to know it has to all come to light soon.
Huh. Have you read “The Woman in the Walls” by Patrice Kindl? (Don’t worry, it’s a YA, wholly without guns edible or otherwise, but it does have a girl living in the crawlspaces of her house.)
Cindy, there is a smart aleck in every audience wondering where a person hiding in a basement and stealing food out of refrigerators actually goes to the bathroom. And today, it is I!!! LOL
Christina, I have heard of that book but haven’t read it. I will look it up. I have read “The Wolves in the Walls” by Neil Gaiman, which is sort of another thing altogether. But maybe my obsession has more to do with my childhood fascinations with “A Wrinkle in Time” and “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” and “Alice in Wonderland” — in all of which these was another world right next to our own. Hmm.
Louise, that is an excellent question, and well-timed as I can probably come up with 1000 words answering it in the book. And I could use those 1000 words today for certain. Thanks for that!