NaNoWriMo Standings – Week 4

It’s Saturday at the Confabulator Cafe. Many of our writers are participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), so let’s take a moment and give a special shout-out to all our writers who have already crossed the 50,000 word mark! Great job Jessi, Paul, Christie, Jason, and Ashley. Keep writing!

As of last night at midnight, here are our standings:

Jessi Levine (54,598 up from 47,710 words)

Paul Swearingen (52,899 up from 47,599 words)

Christie Holland (50,752 up from 33,473 words) — Municipal Liaison

As we’re lead down more stairs, I want to kill the architect of the building.  I realize that it’s a government building.  It’s a place of business and not a place of entertainment and all, but this is ridiculous.  All the walls are the same color.  And not a color like white, which is boring but at least clears your head.  No.  The walls are an ugly shade of light grey.  It’s a color that drains your will to live and makes you forget what the sun looks like.  Combine it with the floors, an awful grey speckled linoleum, and you don’t even need a torture room for this facility.  Just let someone sit in a room , all by himself, with only the walls to look at, and he’ll be ready to spill his guts for you in a matter of hours.

Ashley M. Poland (50,713 up from 34,239 words)

“They’re really fucking fast,” Rod says. He has wet bits of Val all down the left side of his face. For the first time JQ sees the slash along the side of his neck, and the blood gone dry in the hollow below his lip.

Jason Arnett (50,388 up from 36,805 words)

This is life, Albert. And I’m a badass thief who’s dealt with this kind of person a lot more than you have. I’ve always been successful at this sort of negotiation.

Always? Never had a moment where you didn’t see something coming? Never been surprised?

Ted Boone (43,076 up from 28,061 words)

Einstein’s theory of special relativity had nothing on human emotion when it came to time dilation.

R.L. Naquin (38,179 up from 35,546 words)

“The purifying ritual, technically, is for show. That’s all rituals are, you know. Show. They help the user focus her energy so she can tap into the magic. If doing the chicken dance for five minutes is what you wanted to do first, it would work, as long as you concentrated on it while you did it. You’d look pretty stupid, though.”

“I make the chicken dance look elegant, I’ll have you know.”

She patted my hand. “Next time you’re in a church ceremony, feel free to substitute, then. I’m sure everyone will be impressed by your razzle dazzle.”

I pictured myself flapping my arms during the baptism of a friend’s baby. “You know, sometimes it’s probably best to conform.”

Aspen Junge (36,712 up from 25,630 words)

Sara Lundberg (35,311 up from 24,053 words) — Municipal Liaison

She darted behind one of the heaping piles just in time for another shit cannonball to hit. Shit made a very distinctive noise when hitting more shit, she decided. Something like the sound of taking a dump in an outhouse or portable crapper. The long drop and then the moist, liquidy sound of shit on shit and piss.

Larry Jenkins (34,635 up from 23,716 words)

With a quick flick of my wrist, I sent the blade of the shovel arcing in a semi-circle and brought it down on top of Scott’s head. I’d intended it to be a gentle love tap, more of a warning than anything else, but I am not the most graceful of ninjas.

Kevin Wohler (26,069 up from 21,948 words)

Jack Campbell, Jr. (22,050 up from 12,430 words)

I helped myself to the real scotch. It didn’t burn near as much this time. Old habits came back easy, like riding a bike. You never forgot how to be a lush.

Cafe Management

Cafe Management is run by the administration of The Confabulator Cafe. We keep things running smoothly, post stories by guest authors, and manage other boring back-end tasks.