Kick off the Literate Season
Well folks, it's finally here!
NaNoWriMo 2013 has finally crept up on me and I'm pumping out the words with zest already. I will admit though that I'm feeling a tad under prepared despite all the preliminary writing I pulled a couple of months ago. I just need to wrap myself back up in the story though and shuffle through the voice memos I've had sitting waiting for transcribing for a few weeks now.
Procrastination, as with all things, is still a prominent trick of the trade no matter how much I might love to write. I'm actually procrastinating right now as I amp myself up with the Rabbit Hole playlist I made to get me in the mood for the story.
NaNo is never all that easy, even if I love it. There are a lot of late nights ahead of me this month and I'll have very little time to read all that much, and it's going to weigh me down a little from time to time. I'm going to turn into a scatterbrain with too much happening and what seems like way too little time to do it in. I'm even going to have some awful moments of writer's block, that dark enemy, that can only be overcome by a break and something totally unrelated but always with my DVR on-hand or a pen nearby.
Let the games begin! You can follow me on the NaNo site here:
But I'll be blogging all about it anyway. Best wishes to everyone else embarking on the NaNo rollercoaster with me this year and I'll see you all 50,000 words richer on the other side!
For now, here's a little teaser from what I've kicked off the season with:
The Trial of the Tart Thief.
The courtroom was swathed with
people all vying for a better view of the man that they called the Tart Thief.
He wore grey trousers, a coat,
waistcoat and a bright red cravat that many had sworn could only have come from
the other Throne. He was dressed so
smartly that many in attendance would have been hard pressed to think of him as
a thief at all and would have thought him much more a scholarly man than the Georgie Porgie he had been caught to be.
The Queen had been livid. Tarts
made from the finest and ripest gooseberries had been specially prepared within
the royal kitchens earlier that morning at the request of her short king but
had never quite made it to her table much less her lips.
The accused, a Mr Dodgson he
cried, had swooped in much like a blackbird and stolen the tarts from the sill
of the kitchen’s largest window and made off with them before they’d even
cooled.
The angry Queen offered only one
solution: “Off with his head!”
“Now, now, my dear,” soothed the
little King. “That is not the answer to everything; shouldn’t we ask the
defendant why he stole the tarts?”
“I was hungry!” The accused
cried, the chains around his wrists rattling as he used his hands to explain.
“I’ve been wandering through this heart maze for days since I was invited for
tea!”
“And that gives you the right to
steal my tarts?! Cards, off with his
head!”
“My dear, shouldn’t we ask
witnesses? How is a trial like a trial when we don’t adhere to justice?” The
King shrunk back when his wife turned, red faced to scowl at him.
“Bring in Madigan Hatsmith and
Morrissey O’Hare,” She shrieked into his face. “He who invited this knave to tea.”
An advocate of the law as always,
our queen.
The witnesses were shown in and
to the stand, passing the whiskering and twittering of the jury as they went.
Hatsmith and O’Hare were as wild
eyed as the rest of us, too much tea to the brain one would have said. Each a
little mad, neither meant to stay in the Red Kingdom as long as they had.
“Your majesty!” Madigan Hatsmith
called to the queen with a flourish, his top hat an odd shade of green that
offended the eyes. “Why have you put our friend on the stand to lie to you? If
you don’t want the hungry to eat your delicious tarts then don’t make your
mazes so big! You do have far too many!”
“Mazes?”
“No, tarts!” Chirped O’Hare with
a befuddled grin.
The Tart Thief could only gasp in
dismay at the faulty witnesses they had called.
“What!” Stormed the Queen. “So
many tarts?! Off with their heads!”
The Cards were assembled and sent
in the direction of the scholar on the stand, pursing him as he began to shake.
He rather liked his head on his shoulders as it was.
The courtroom erupted into chaos
with shouts, jeers and catcalls (those from I) coming from every which way
until a small chirping drew the entire room and everyone in it to a silent
halt.
“I say, Milady Queen!”
The voice had come from one so
small, but so commanding that even his size and the squeak of his words carried
his intention right up to the ruler’s table.
The Queen stood up and leant over
the banister of the table, looking down to find the source of the voice that had
dared to interrupt what she’d been sure was going to be another good beheading.
“Who is it? What are you?”
From amidst the rabble a tiny boy
emerged and twitched his furred ears.
“Gregory Dormouth, Majesty.” He introduced
himself, and both Hatsmith and O’Hare let out a whoop of pleasure. “I can tell you
the truth of it and you’ll be sure to let the man go!”
The Queen capitulated with a grumble
and waved a regal hand. “Then do so, Mouse, if you must deny me sport today. But
hurry on with it!”
The boy bowed and launched immediately
into his tale, eyes lighting up like twinkle stars at the memory; “You see I was
dozing on a tea cup, Majesty, as Hatsmith and O’Hare were celebrating a rather important
date...”
Sam xox
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