NaNo '13: Day One
So NaNoWriMo has begun and I got out of the gate at midnight and wrote until about 2:30 am. Then I went to sleep, got up, wrote a little more and then was out of the house all day until now. As I started typing the beginning, I felt kind of rusty. Whether that's because I skipped last year's NaNo, because I've basically been working on The Sailor's Daughters for two years, because while I outlined this year's NaNo, I still don't have a handle on my main characters (not in the way I do after a first draft is written, for instance), or because omg!Colin got on the subway because this is a contemporary-set-story-wtf!, I'm not really sure. I hope it feels easier as I go on.
Still have some more Day One Word Count to go, but so far I am at 2034 words. Every Friday in November, I'll be posting excerpts from my NaNo project as part of the NaNo Excerpt Blog Chain 2013 on AbsoluteWrite Water Cooler. In between, I suspect I'll post about how my brain is melting, among other things.
He sees her for the first time from the
stage. He is standing at stage left; she is in the audience. It is still early
in the first act. Karina, the actress playing his wife, delivers a punchy line
that always gets a laugh out of the audience—well, at least so far—and then
they shuffle off to the side while Tom begins singing his first song of the
night.
And then a cell phone blares.
The song Tom sings is a relatively quiet
one, at first, and the high-pitched screech interrupts the spell. Colin, try as
he might, is taken out of the scene for a few seconds. He is already facing the
audience, so his eyes rove over the shadowy figures in the house, wondering
where the culprit is.
One of the ushers is walking down the
aisle in orchestra, toward the stage. Tom, like the pro that he is, keeps
singing, of course. The song is building. The drums start in. They'll drown out
the distraction.
The ring tone pierces the air. Jesus
Christ.
Who is it?
They make announcements before the curtain
rises, for crying out loud!
The lights change as the song changes
key. Lisa, playing Tom's wife, sings a line. Karina sings the next line, to
Colin. They face each other here and Karina's big brown eyes are widened. Colin
reads the annoyance in her eyes, in her slightly tight smile. The phone keeps
going. The audience murmurs.
Colin turns back to the house.
Second row, seats one, two, and three are
turned to the person in seat four. They're all women in that row. Seat Four
rummages through an enormous purse. The usher reaches her on the other side,
admonishing her to find the phone and turn it the hell off.
Ha. And it's only the second week of
previews.
Lisa keeps going. Colin edges upstage,
into the shadows, and watches. Seats One, Two and Three—he can't discern any
details about any of them, except that they seem young and certainly younger
than Seat Four, who has a headful of white hair.
Then Seat One turns back toward the stage
and it's just his luck that the lights change then because her face, bathed in
the white lights from overhead, is so clear. She's scowling. It's an expressive
scowl—that's what catches Colin's attention. Her forehead is creased, her mouth
is turned down. If looks could kill, that one would. She looks the way he
feels.
He checks; Seat Four's face is glowing in
the light of a smartphone. A moment later, the woman drops the phone into that
bottomless purse again.
Seat One's face eases a little. She's
petite looking and wearing a blue shirt, he thinks. Or it could be green, maybe.
She has dark hair framing her pale, displeased face.
Lisa sings the final line. That's his
cue. Colin steps back from the shadows to the wings while the scene changes. He
shakes his head at Paul, the stage manager.
"Ugh," Paul says from behind
his command center, where his call book lies open underneath a lamp. Three TV
monitors show Paul the action on-stage. "There's an announcement before we
start!"
"It's so annoying," Karina
chimes in. She's changed into her next costume. "What you smiling at,
Colin?"
Colin shakes his head again. "I saw
who had the phone—and her rowmates looked pissed. Right orchestra, second
row."
Karina raises a fist. "Orchestra?
Shit, I'd be pissed, too. C'mon, let's give 'em hell."
I see so many people off to a good start. It's really exciting. ^_^
ReplyDeleteWe're always so critical of ourselves, but I think this story sounds pretty good. It doesn't sound like a rusty person wrote it. :) But I'm sure it's different, going from historical to modern like this.
Good luck in the upcoming weeks! :)
Aw, thanks, Krystal :-) It feels easier the more I go on. It's just been a while since I wrote something modern and, um, American lol
DeleteColin and Emma are going to meet today, so that'll be fun ;-)
Nice clear placement of the characters in this scene. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Delete