Highlighted excerpts from NANOWRIMO with drawings

“Where the hand does not work, there is no art”-- Leonardo Da Vinci. An armless tenor comes to mind as rebuttal, but by and large, how true.

For the National Novel Writing Month, I wrote around 10,000 words and drew some 5 drawings, and if a drawing is equal to 1,000 words, then let’s say that I totaled 15,000– just shy of the goal by 35,000 words.

I ditched the idea of writing a novel very early on. A 50,000 word novel can be written in a week if there was enough motivation to see it through.

I had a few short stories that had potential to develop including one titled A Girl Named Sulfite. The first story was totally open– I couldn’t see a thing past rhyming each sentence. I’ll start there in sharing some of the more salvageable spew.

Of all the words that came from the prompt, one sentence has sure potential for a song. The rest proved to be good brainstorm for ideas, but might be a bore to share it.

So, here’s the beginning of the short story that started, but will never be more than this. It’s called Jim and Jane.

Jim and Jane

It was a cold and dark night, and she was a sight for sore eyes. Her light-blue jeans were torn at the knees and her keys hung out of her right pocket. The full moon was just-born, trees cast shadows over the dusty road, and the sun had left an orange smudge on the hills after laying low.

“Aren’t you glad it’s Friday? Here, I brought you a banana,” I said. She denied me reply and stared blankly. “The ants got to it, but there’s still a couple bites left.” She ignored, and turned her gaze to the haze in the hills and the remaining daylight got caught in her eye.

“Anyway,” she sighed, “you ready to go?”

“Ah, you know…” I opened the car door and noticed a full box of Black and Mild’s on the floor. “Can I have a cigar?”

She nodded before sitting behind the wheel and handing me a lighter. I had an orange lighter too, though mine was brighter and glowed in the dark.

I had been at the park all day with a bottle of water and a gray backpack, reading a text-book and looking over notes from class.

The remanding bits:

That’s it. Then I started and stopped as the mood or inspiration suited. Each of the following sentences are not necessarily related to any of the others. I’ll use bullets to clarify this.

• I don’t remember where I read it, but art has been so subjective—and I don’t recall the alternative, but it was some artist that mentioned it.
• It’s different when bands have a purpose beyond breaking songs—where the music is made intrinsically. That’s hard to come by.
• 4 paragraphs and I feel terrible. I would like to throw up or something. Surely there’s a way to get my voice in here without putting myself in here.
• Belly bloated. Blue corn chips and bean soup. Delightful but making me gassy.
• Coffee beans smell good—I like to grind em in the juice maker.
• Done being dormant. Don’t want to be a doormat either.
• Good habits are hard to keep grounded, giving way quickly to impetuous flights of fancy. If I could get my ambitions to coalesce, take their cue to queue up throughout the day, and drag me along.
• Gots to use the language to keep from forgetting it.
• Gotta find a place to rent a standup bass.


Mouthful of Pennies

• Step out of yourself. Look at the world around you. Past the desk. To the street. To the hill. Over the fall-leaved trees. To the bleating goats on the cheese farm.
• ‘Jo no se. Jo no se.’
• The edge gets dull in time. Human spark is the same. The vigor of youth. Bringing on winds of change. Kick the can. Don’t give in. Stay in practice and stick with the trade. As we say in church, keep the faith, run the race.
• I like those artists that make treasure out of other people’s trash.
• So, I’ll be one of them music boneheads doin’ it for life.
• POP saving the world.
• Don’t remember where I read it—(overextending norm?—is that a blog?) 180 million hours are spent a weekend watching television ads. What if 180 million people spent 2 minutes updating Wikipedia?
• Is my head really this empty?
• Let’s bullet the blank.
• Dubliner Irish cheese leaves a stink in the mouth. Even more so if you eat it, as it starts to mold around the edges.
• Everybody’s lives updating in a status, or in 140 characters or less. Facebook. Twitter. My cat is sick. My mom died. Our team lost, they didn’t even try. We must say these things—we must update everyone in REAL TIME—we expect people to care and respond! What the hell happened? It’s still strange to think about it.
• Evolve. Evolve. Evolve. Resolve. Resolve. Revolve. Revolve.


Gaurds for Mind and Mouth

• Color-sound through Violin, Soft Perc., Whistling. That’d be a quick description of Andrew Bird.
• We found water on the moon yesterday. If Celine Dion really wants it, it is now possible.
• ‘journaled’ isn’t a word I’m seeing from spellcheck—nor is spellcheck.
• Man, every time they cut, the director pulls out the thesaurus and barks a new word at the actor to try.
• Do your words add any illumination on the music or do they fluff it up with adjectives about your feelings?

Next Year

Maybe, I’ll feel differently about the endeavor and have some genuine inspiration and characters I’ll be itching to write about. This was fun nonetheless.

Alright.