NaNo, Part II
Nov. 24th, 2011 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glorious_spoonWell, I have successfully written 50k, which works out to about three quarters of the story. I only really developed a plot around the last 5k, though, which means I pretty much have to go back and re-write the entire rest of it.
...at least it's something to do.
Also, I'm considering finally sitting down to catch up on SPN. Can anybody advise if this is a good idea? Or will I just want to beat my TV to death when I'm finished?
An excerpt from my MASTERPIECE:
It's quiet down on the east side of the waterfront. The river slides by black and oily under yellow streetlamps and on the opposite shore college bars are still spilling boisterous crowds onto the street, but here it's quiet. The looming concrete buildings are eyeless faces with shatter-glass teeth, and Marie's steel-toe boots sound like a horde of tap-dancers clicking through the dirty night.
There. The alley ahead, a dark, narrow crevasse between two windowless buildings. She pulls out the gun, flips the safety off, and slows her stride.
She's expecting it, but the horrible screech, abruptly cut off, still makes her flinch, and she hugs the wall as she approaches. The alley is angled away from the streetlight, and even with her eyes adjusted to the darkness, all she can see it a pitch-black hole. She turns on the flashlight, and something scuttles back into the shadows, away from the beam of light.
There's a dead tom cat lying on a pile of fast-food wrappers with its throat torn out, and blood seeps into the cracks in the pavement. She can smell it, over the sour stench of cat urine and rotting garbage.
"Cats?" she asks, quietly. "Seriously?" She nudges the animal with the toe of her boot. Definitely dead.
Whoever--whatever--is crouching in the shadows makes a guttural noise that sounds almost like language. A rustling noise; it's moving back. Marie squints, but still can't make out anything more than the vague shape of a human figure. She lifts the light a little more, and it leaps back, quickly. Too quickly, and Marie swears quietly under her breath.
"Just what I needed," she mutters. And then, as gently as she can manage, "Hey. Look, I know you're probably really scared, but I know some people who can help you. Just--"
That's all she manages to get out, because her next step forward brings the flashlight beam up to illuminate the creature, and she manages to get a confused impression of white skin and yellow cloth and a bloody, snarling mouth before it springs at her.
The gun comes up, metal warm in her chilly hands, and she snaps off two shots before her mind has a chance to take over. It's all over in seconds, and then she's standing over the prone body with the smell of cordite in her nose and her ears still echoing from the pistol's report.
"Fuck," she mutters. "Fuck." The cops are anything but conscientious in this part of town, but even here they'll show up for a report of shots fired. Hopefully nobody heard anything, but her luck hasn't been so great lately that she wants to count on it.
She rolls the vampire over. It's the girl from the news, all right; her yellow party dress is hanging in shreds and there's blood smeared all over her face and hands. Her mouth lolls open, displaying freakishly sharp canines. Her eyes are swollen and slitted shut, and she isn't breathing. Further investigation reveals that the bullets both caught her in the left leg, ripping open the thigh muscle and blowing the kneecap to smithereens. Holes that big should be gushing, but they aren't, although the exposed flesh is wet and raw. The bite in the girl's neck--her death wound--is still bleeding sluggishly, though. She'll survive. Vampires, even newborns, are hard to kill.
Great. Just great.
...at least it's something to do.
Also, I'm considering finally sitting down to catch up on SPN. Can anybody advise if this is a good idea? Or will I just want to beat my TV to death when I'm finished?
An excerpt from my MASTERPIECE:
It's quiet down on the east side of the waterfront. The river slides by black and oily under yellow streetlamps and on the opposite shore college bars are still spilling boisterous crowds onto the street, but here it's quiet. The looming concrete buildings are eyeless faces with shatter-glass teeth, and Marie's steel-toe boots sound like a horde of tap-dancers clicking through the dirty night.
There. The alley ahead, a dark, narrow crevasse between two windowless buildings. She pulls out the gun, flips the safety off, and slows her stride.
She's expecting it, but the horrible screech, abruptly cut off, still makes her flinch, and she hugs the wall as she approaches. The alley is angled away from the streetlight, and even with her eyes adjusted to the darkness, all she can see it a pitch-black hole. She turns on the flashlight, and something scuttles back into the shadows, away from the beam of light.
There's a dead tom cat lying on a pile of fast-food wrappers with its throat torn out, and blood seeps into the cracks in the pavement. She can smell it, over the sour stench of cat urine and rotting garbage.
"Cats?" she asks, quietly. "Seriously?" She nudges the animal with the toe of her boot. Definitely dead.
Whoever--whatever--is crouching in the shadows makes a guttural noise that sounds almost like language. A rustling noise; it's moving back. Marie squints, but still can't make out anything more than the vague shape of a human figure. She lifts the light a little more, and it leaps back, quickly. Too quickly, and Marie swears quietly under her breath.
"Just what I needed," she mutters. And then, as gently as she can manage, "Hey. Look, I know you're probably really scared, but I know some people who can help you. Just--"
That's all she manages to get out, because her next step forward brings the flashlight beam up to illuminate the creature, and she manages to get a confused impression of white skin and yellow cloth and a bloody, snarling mouth before it springs at her.
The gun comes up, metal warm in her chilly hands, and she snaps off two shots before her mind has a chance to take over. It's all over in seconds, and then she's standing over the prone body with the smell of cordite in her nose and her ears still echoing from the pistol's report.
"Fuck," she mutters. "Fuck." The cops are anything but conscientious in this part of town, but even here they'll show up for a report of shots fired. Hopefully nobody heard anything, but her luck hasn't been so great lately that she wants to count on it.
She rolls the vampire over. It's the girl from the news, all right; her yellow party dress is hanging in shreds and there's blood smeared all over her face and hands. Her mouth lolls open, displaying freakishly sharp canines. Her eyes are swollen and slitted shut, and she isn't breathing. Further investigation reveals that the bullets both caught her in the left leg, ripping open the thigh muscle and blowing the kneecap to smithereens. Holes that big should be gushing, but they aren't, although the exposed flesh is wet and raw. The bite in the girl's neck--her death wound--is still bleeding sluggishly, though. She'll survive. Vampires, even newborns, are hard to kill.
Great. Just great.
