NaNoWriMo 2023, Day One

(For those not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it’s the National Novel Writing Month – in brief, slap 50,000+ words onto the screen as a “zeroth” draft of a novel. It’s not pretty, it’s not even a first draft, it’s simply an exercise in “Just – Keep – Putting – Words – TOGETHER!” and seeing what comes out the other side. I’ve done it five times and “succeeded” twice. I’ve decided to be incredibly self centered and foolish open about my process so I’ve put my work up here on this site for the last three attempts. Just do a search to see some of the crap I’ve inflicted on my loyal readers in the past. Actually, that might not be totally true – while being “zeroth” drafts, at least three of them had stories and characters that I actually thought were pretty good if I ever managed to get past the NaNoWriMo stage, finish them, and then start editing.)

This is insane.

I went looking for what I’ve done for NaNoWriMo in the past and I’m just a touch gobsmacked at the moment.

First, I last did this in 2015. I had no idea it had been that long, but looking at how I was doing the Finance Officer gig at CAF SoCal for five of those seven years, plus working full time, plus moving five years ago, plus EVERYTHING ELSE ™, it’s not that much of a surprise.

Secondly, I had forgotten that I actually “succeeded” in hitting the 50,000 word mark for NaNoWriMo in both 2013 and 2015. Who knew?

Thirdly, when I looked at the 30th day of NaNoWriMo 2015, I had *NO IDEA* what the plot was, who the characters were, what the story was, no idea at all that I had ever written those words. That’s actually a little scary. What’s even scarier is that I found hundreds of research documents saved on my computer for this story. And even looking at them, I *STILL* have no clue what I wrote. I guess maybe in December I should read it. It might be really good!

I remember two story lines, both of which I really enjoyed writing. Those were apparently from NaNoWriMo 2013 (the “cats see weird things that we don’t” prompt) and from NaNoWriMo 2012 (the “Between The Sheets” story). (The 2012 story isn’t published here, it happened before this website existed).

I tried NaNoWriMo 2014 on this site and fell short, although I kinda sorta maybe remember the plot and premise. But the oddest thing was going back to look at the beginning of the NaNoWriMo 2015 story. (Which turns out to be the “Sherman” story.) While I may not remember anything about the story by looking at where I left off on 11/30/2015, I really enjoyed the start on 11/01/2015. I see my style, I see my sense of humor, I like the story.

So, insane or not (it is!), let’s try this again.

50,000 words in 30 days is 1,667 words per day on average. Good words, bad words, nonsense words, words of wisdom? Doesn’t matter.

Warnings:

1) I’m a “pantser,” not a “plotter.” I have no idea where the story is going. There’s no outline, no plan, no plot that I’ve thought about or laid out in advance. I don’t even know how it starts until about three minutes from now. It’s all improv. Buckle up.

2) My fiction might be somewhat more NSFW than my normal posts.

All comments will be welcome.

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CHAPTER ONE

Getting old sucked.

Deb knew that it wasn’t an original thought, or even an uncommon one. And she was well aware that she had it better than most. Let’s face it, for ninety percent of the population the world was going to Hell in a handbasket. A crowded, starving, boiling over handbasket. Deb had been personally sheltered from most of that over the decades and she was grateful.

But having been reasonably healthy for her whole life, she found the contrast to be disconcerting and startling, comparing her current situation against her average lifestyle over the years. On the one hand, she wasn’t suffering any broken bones, no cancer, no COVID (somehow, another bullet dodged) and she continued to be grateful for all of that. But things were trending in the wrong direction and she wanted it to stop!

Maybe she was spoiled. She didn’t think so, but she sometimes considered the possibility. Her parents hadn’t lavished her with her own yacht or aircraft, although they had paid for her to get a pilot’s license. She didn’t summer on the Riviera, or winter in Aspen, although she had seen a fair chunk of six different continents. But those things were more “broadening” and “educational” than spoiling to excess. What was the use in getting an Ivy League education and speaking four languages if you never left home?

Was she corrupt? There was that whole thing about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely. But she really didn’t have any power. That was more of her dad and granddad’s thing. She didn’t object to getting some of the perks from being who she was and who they were, but it was hard to be really corrupt when you worked at a non-profit trying to help folks who truly needed it.

No, she had long ago rejected the notion that she was spoiled or corrupt, although she periodically came back to review the possibility. What she had decided was that she was pissed. The fact that she had much less to be pissed about than everyone else didn’t matter. This wasn’t fair, not what she had signed up for.

“Everyone’s Hell is one hundred percent,” someone had once told her. Those were some wise words to keep in mind. But they still didn’t change things, and some positive change was what she was in need of.

After fifty years of doing pretty much anything she wanted to physically, overnight it seemed that she was nearly bedridden with agony on a regular basis. And it always seemed to happen for no apparent reason. It would be one thing if she was training for a marathon or trying to lift twice her own body weight and pulled some random muscle. But she wasn’t even trying to do anything more exciting or strenuous than getting into her car or out of bed and she was back on pain killers just to breathe.

And that didn’t even count the Spanish inquisition-worthy situation with her teeth. Dentists! Ugh, the worst!

What she also was was frustrated. She wasn’t one of those A-type personalities who were out to conquer the world by lunch, but she got things done. She found solutions. She figured out problems, identified what was broken, and got it fixed. Except now.

She was doing what she could, following the advice of her doctors and whatever online guidance she could find that didn’t sound like total whoo-whoo bullshit. Although the more she got nowhere fast with the traditional medical system, the more appealing the whoo-whoo bullshit looked.

Those few pounds that had snuck on while she wasn’t looking back in her thirties were in the process of being banished, accepting the fact that there was some pain and discomfort involved with that effort. It was good pain, a price worth paying. It was a part of the obvious solution to that particular problem. It was also penance, a payment for letting herself slip into that situation in the first place. Penance and guilt went hand in hand in the subconscious of an old Catholic school kid.

In conjunction with that her diet had changed to smaller portions and everything with taste had been eliminated. Even the healthy stuff that tasted good had been declared anathema. It was a very Puritanical point of view and she was sure that the nuns of St. Mary Magdalene’s would approve, which by definition meant that it shouldn’t be in Deb’s life. Those nuns were sadistic and psychotic. Yet here she was.

So. Falling apart in her fifties. Getting old sucked.

The good news was that it was warm and sunny out on the porch. The part of her exercise routine that she enjoyed the most was swimming and at this time of year the Southern California sun made being in the pool a pleasure. After a few dozen laps of the pool she had retired to the porch to do a few miles on her stationary bike, followed by some strength work with the weights. After a quick dip back in the pool to cool off, she was now hydrating and considering a recovery nap in the shade.

The leprechaun had other ideas.

Deb was surprised to see it. Normally it only showed up when she was really stoned, but she hadn’t touched any recreational drugs in weeks. Nothing but all of those blood pressure medications and cholesterol lowering tablets that didn’t give you any buzz at all. She wasn’t sure that she had ever seen it when she was sober. She didn’t even know its name.

She had been pursuing that recovery nap with her eyes closed, curled on her side in the oversized hammock. There was a sound, something like the buzzing of a giant flying beetle or hummingbird. Deb was going to ignore it, but it kept repeating in a most annoying fashion and getting worse. She opened her eyes to investigate.

The leprechaun was standing just a couple feet away, perched atop a small table that held a pitcher and glasses for serving margaritas. It was an inch or so taller than the blue, bowl-shaped glasses and dressed in some type of forest green jumpsuit. Its legs were abnormally long and spindly and its arms were on the short side giving it a distorted shape, like some kind of stretchy kids’ toy that had been left permanently stretched out. Leaning against the pitcher like something from an old Looney Tunes cartoon it seemed bored more than anything else.

Deb didn’t scream or run away. In some corner of her head she was surprised by this, especially given her sober condition, but absently chalked it up to the fact that she had seen it before a few times. So many critical little facts somehow got swept under the rug for the moment, like how she had always assumed it was a drug-induced hallucination.

What was in front of her now didn’t seem to be either drug-induced or hallucinatory. It wasn’t fuzzy around the edges. It wasn’t blinking in and out of sight or existence. It wasn’t flying, she couldn’t see through it, and it didn’t give any indication that it was going to deliver any Lucky Charms. It was just a bit weird looking, under a foot tall, very thin and gangly, and staring at her.

With its long, prehensile tail flicking back and forth.

That finally motivated Deb to move, at least enough to sit up and let her legs dangle over the side of the hammock. She tried to think back to previous sightings and there was no memory of a tail. Granted, things had been far fuzzier then, but she wanted to believe that she would have remembered a tail. Especially one like that. At least eight inches long, thin like a long strip of wire, flicking back and forth, occasionally grabbing onto the handle of the pitcher it was leaning against.

Idly she wondered how the tail got out of the green jumpsuit and what kind of challenges that presented to its tailor.

Squinting, Deb started to lean forward. Her arm rose and she reached out to poke it in the chest. There wasn’t a lot of clear thinking going on but it did occur to her that she needed to know if it was real.

“Stop. Please don’t do that,” it said.

Deb’s arm pulled back as if she had been shocked. The motion made the hammock swing and she started to fall back into it, catching herself at the last second. By the time she recovered her balance and stopped the rocking, the leprechaun had stood up straight and taken a step forward to the edge of the table. It had its stunted arms crossed and an expression that meant business.

Deb cocked her head a bit to the side and stared.

“I’m not touching you, you’re not going to touch me,” the tiny critter said. “At least, not without permission. Personal space. Boundries. That sort of thing. Okay?”

Deb found herself nodding.

“Great. Now we have things to discuss. Are you feeling up to that or do you need to scream, vomit, or something else first?”

Deb paused for a few seconds before deciding that she was good to go.

“I’m fine. May I ask a question or two?”

“That is acceptable.”

“Who are you?” Deb asked.

“You may call me Bubba,” the tiny green-clad figure said.

“Okay, Bubba. WHAT are you? Are you a leprechaun?”

It was Bubba’s turn to pause. Its head tilted to the side and its eyes half closed, as if it were listening to something Deb couldn’t hear.

“No,” it finally said. “Not a leprechaun. We were not familiar with that particular legend, but we can most certainly understand the misidentification.”

“So, what are you?”

“We’ll get to that later, it’s unimportant at the moment. What is important is that you’re in grave danger and we’re here to help you. You need to listen to me and do what I tell you to so that we can accomplish the immediate primary task.”

“The ‘immediate primary task’? What’s that?”

“We’re here to kidnap you for your own good.”

And with that Bubba took a small vial out from a pocket somewhere on its jumpsuit and sprayed a cloud of green powder into her face. As Deb blacked out the last thing she saw while she collapsed back into the hammock was a squad of twenty or thirty more little Bubbas coming out of the bushes and reaching for her.

“So much for personal space and boundaries,” she thought as everything got dark.