##1062

From the moment I am born, fully-grown and clawing free from the freestanding gestation sac, I know that I have a Mission.

With my first breath a veritable pinata of knowledge bursts in my mind, my synapses gobbling up the glittering facts like so much candy; foremost among them is the knowledge that I am clone #1062, and I have 23 hours to live.

A conveyor hums and pushes me along, furbishing me with armor and grafting a bioantenna (mostly painlessly) to my spine. I receive and integrate all memory downloads from my recently deceased fraternal partner, #1061: here, forgetting is painful–no, is a sin.

The conveyor stops. To my left is a fashionable lounge, cushions and gentle amber light incongruous against the industrial birth canal I emerged from. To my right is a foot-thick, lead-lined door. Failure isn’t fatal, but everything behind that door is.

Memory shows that some of my predecessors have chosen not to act: faulty genes, or protest of this profligate harvest. Those clones spent their alloted hours relaxing, then dying regardless.

What does it say about my designers that they’d allow this choice?

I thought of #1063 behind me, already being quickened in a nutrient slush in the clone farm. If he’s going to have a chance for a better time of it than I did, well…

I head right, to the Mission.

WC: 228

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> It was puberty that did it.

Nice starting line, it gave me a good indication of what the story would be about, the frame of mind of the narrator, and served as a firm but gentle hook.

> Suddenly there were all these expectations for how I should look, what I should wear, and how I should behave.

I feel like this might be stronger if you refer to specific to the expectations that were already there, but contrast with how they're now tighter. For example, pants getting replaced with dresses, the wild hair needing to be combed, details like that.

> So I learnt to play the part I'd been cast in. Someone who wasn't me. But at least she was happy — or good at pretending to be.

Really great line here!

> And

There's five or so paragraphs that begin with "and." I think it works better sparingly but this much feels repetitive. See if you can just chop off the and in a few places or switch up the word order.

> And the first person who needs to accept me, is me.

Having said that, this "and" I do love, though. Very level headed and grounded protagonist!

> It arrived today, waiting on the porch when I got home from school.

Since the story is a teenager writing in their journal, you might try leaning harder into the journal-ness and kicking the second half off with a sentence about how they're relieved, or their hands are shaking, or some other kind of line that a person would write when they've rushed back to their room to write something down.

> Not all of it. Not all the half-thought thoughts and questions and worries and secrets. But I told them enough.

Again really nice sentence that feels real and touching, especially the half-thought thoughts. I love how varied your sentence length is throughout, coupled with the repetition, it makes the reading more exciting and also feels true to how a teen would write.

> , and of that, I am proud.

I'm really on the fence here, I've tried taking this off and reading the last sentence without it, but I'm not sure if the ending works better with or without it. You might give it a shot too and see.

Thanks for the lovely, sad but heartwarming story Rainbow!

Low Tide in Fel-Worth: Part 3

Read part 1! And part 2!

The story thus far: Dyarosa, a nymph and sister to Kellic the satyr, is being held captive by a gang. Kellic and Julia, a human witch, are searching for her.

Dyarosa wondered what Kellic would say if he could see her now, a captive to bandits. Probably call her a naive nymph–as if her very nature misquemed him–like he did when she dithered over their exodus from the cool forests of the Appalachians to this dusty city of Dallas. But they’d lived in such a fine, secluded grove, and–

Pelon poked his bald head through the plastic sheets. She almost dropped her shears in fright. She avoided his hollow gaze, focused on the delicate roots of the mother tree instead.

“Hurry it up,” Pelon said, gesturing with his fat-barrelled lead-belcher. “Or I will burn you and the hierba.”

“Yes,” she replied hollowly. Dyarosa knew she was dallying; one whisper, and she could coax this mother kanab into a new pot. After that, they would transport the mother to another location, to harvest her limbs again. The kanab with its saw-like leaves and sticky flowers was well prized among even her kind since time immemorial, so Dyarosa understood the tree’s value. And her own.

Had she been naive? Had a thousand years of growth and reflection still left her with the mind of a child? She’d asked herself the same bitter question day after day since she’d been locked in this dank room.

She thought she’d been shrewd, working with a human whose eyes were open to the greater mysteries of the world. Pelon had seemed so kind at the start, his smile shining brightly. He showed her the sad state of his plant, and they struck a bargain: some human coin for Dyarosa’s services for two days. Kellic was always harping on the need for currency–maybe this would show her brother how useful she could be.

But the bald man had tricked her, cast a ward to lock her in. The pulse of chaos magic made her fine moss stand on end. Getting close to the doorway singed her skin. Two days had turned into two weeks, just her whispering to the mother tree to make her grow quickly, and giving the bandits cuttings to plant. She’d forgotten the kiss of sunlight on her body, and a touch of her head found the wilted husks of her once rampant crown of leaves.

In the first days of captivity she’d imagined Kellic coming to her rescue. Later, shivering against the dirt floor, she’d found a new dream: her hands, wrapped around Pelon’s neck. Even in an endless age of wandering, the thought of killing humans had never even occurred to her. It was like thinking of a world without love, or trees, or magic. Even in winter was the promise of regrowth, but in death there was but one promise. It scared her.

Voices shouted from the grow room. Her dallying had to come to an end. She clipped the last root and crooned to the kanab; the mother grudgingly lifted her bones from the dirt, and allowed herself to be settled into the new pot. Behind her came the crinkle of the plastic curtain. She turned, carrying the mother tree in her broad arms.

“I’m ready,” she said.

Pelon grunted and gestured. She felt a tingle as the ward vanished. Another hard-faced man, weapon unholstered, watched to see if she’d run.

Then, on the far side of the room, the sheet-metal door burst open. Her brother and a human woman spilled through.

“Kill them!” Pelon shouted, thunder erupting from his lead-belcher. Somehow, the bullets sprayed in random directions, hitting everything but the pair.

“Kellic!” Dyarosa shouted.

Her brother, stubborn as ever, charged headlong through the grow room, scattering boxes of flowers everywhere under the harsh fluorescent lights. Within moments he covered the distance, crushing the hard-faced human to the wall with his horns.

The human woman intoned something and gestured with her hands. Pelon grinned and gestured back. In the center of the room, the air cracked like glass, an eye-watering rent in reality.

Then Pelon leveled his weapon at Kellic, and fired. The bullets found their mark.

“No!” Dyarosa screamed.

She had felt anger before, but it was a candle flame to the inferno of fury roaring in her breast. She called to the thick roots deep under this building.

They answered.

Gnarled white strands shot up through the ground, piercing Pelon in a dozen places. The man spasmed once and died. Dyarosa expected to feel some sense of satisfaction, but she only felt tired.

Her brother still breathed, though he was a ruin of blood.

The short human woman holstered her weapon and held up her arms in placation. “Let’s carry him outta here.”

“Little sister…you killed for me,” Kellic gasped, as they lifted him.

She felt empty inside, like heartwood gone from an oak. “Like you always said, I had to grow up sometime.”

WC: 797

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Low Tide in Fel-Worth: Part 2

Read part 1 here!

The story thus far: Julia, a human witch, and Kellic, a satyr, have broken into a low-rise warehouse on a search for Kellic's sister.

“Chaos always extracts a price.”

Who said it? She couldn’t tell. Time was rushing past, future and past blurring together.

Decision. She stood at the intersection of a decision, completely disconnected from how she got here. Thought was painful, like barb-wire flossing her brain.

Where am I now?

At her feet was a a ragged-edged hole dug through concrete, like something had burrowed its way through the foundation to find a place to hibernate for winter. A set of prefab steel stairs were jammed into the naked dirt, leading below the warehouse, lit by a string of naked light bulbs.

Kellic looked up from the bottom of the stairs. “Who’s Rachel?”

He was at the top of the stairs. His face was a mask of fury one moment, then a look of concern next. Rachel? She hadn’t said anything about Rachel.

Julia wiped cold sweat from her brow and tried to orient herself in causality.

When did I get unstuck?

She focused on the moment after she and Kellic had slipped through the door.

They’d found nothing but debris of the drug dealer’s operations: scraps of cardboard boxes, a pile of torn fertilizer bags like a snowdrift in a corner, and long trails of dirt. If Kellic’s sister had a green thumb, she could make a crop grow several times faster than normal. Quite a boon for an operation that relied on speed and secrecy.

A painful sensation sparked inside her, like bad food twisting through her gut, but she ignored it and kept searching. But it grew so strong she could barely move. While Kellic poked through a side room, Julia leaned against a grafittied wall. The merciful face of the Lady of Guadalupe looked down benevolently, as if it was she was understanding of these tiny vices, like drug dealing, or breaking and entering.

She looked at a pipe sticking out of the cinderblock wall, which was dripping noisely. No…it was un-dripping, up from the floor and back into the pipe, totally anachronistically.

“What do you mean, a time loop?!” Kellic shouted.

Julia spasmed, holding tight against the railing that led down into the basement. Was this the present? Need to put it back together! She tried to force time into a tunnel, into a series events.

She was outside in the alley, casting her chaos magic to open the lock.

Chaos always extracts a price, whispered Rachel.

Then the door slammed shut. Then it slammed open. A woman, her form a ghostly blur, burst out of the shut door, dragging an injured satyr along. The woman looked up, and their eyes locked.

The sweat-matted black hair. The brown pupils.

It was herself.

“Oh, fuck. It’s a temporal rift,” she said. “We’re in a time loop. We’re gonna fight another chaos user.”

Memories that hadn’t happened flooded her mind. Causality took a quick cigarette break.

“Kellic, we should–” she croaked.

“What do you mean, a time loop?! Another chaos user?!” he shouted, from the top of the stairs this time. A bald man, every inch of his face tattooed, lurched out of the darkness and fired his submachine gun.

She tried to explain the unexplainable. Down the stairs were many futures, mostly ones that contained gunshots, screams, and blood. A bald man with empty eyes and a big gun. Kellic crying. Julia crying.

Back up the stairs there were safer futures. Futures where they never found Kellic’s sister, but safer futures nonetheless.

She stood at the edge of the ragged concrete hole, teetering on the edge of decision. Stay, or run? The sizzle of her fates flied past her like hot shell casings ejecting from a gun. There may or may not be a fight. She might convince Kellic to come back later, though they’d never find his sister. The bald man might shoot Kellic, or Julia. Death was one of many outcomes.

“Julia, where are you?” Kellic voice called.

Time itself was just an illusion–everything was happening, all at once. She was stuck here at this decision. Run, or fight.

Chaos always extracts a price. Are you prepared to pay it? Rachel asked her, when they were but young witches.

Rachel, who now occupied a coffin. Rachel, who’s killer hadn’t been caught yet.

The thought buoyed her, anchored her. The pain lessened. Time enough at last to focus on the choice.

There was only one decision, really. Julia Ito was many things, but she wasn’t a quitter.

“Kellic, found something,” she croaked.

The satyr shuffled up from behind her, and took a doubtful look below.

“What’s down there?” he whispered.

“A future where we might find your sister,” she said, “and we might die.”

The satyr hesitated, then nodded. He wasn’t a quitter either.

She gripped his hairy arm tightly, and they descended into the darkness.

WC: 799

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The name of the game for Nanowrimo is commitment. Put yourself in the mindset that writing is your main hobby this month. When you find yourself with extra time, prioritize writing. My tips are steps for you to help reach that goal:

1. Plot ahead what you're going to write that day to avoid the staring-at-a-blank-page-in-terror-itis. We're only 3 days away so not a lot of time to prepare, but this helped me: whenever I ended a day of writing, I wrote a single sentence for what I was going to do in the scene the next day.
2. Join sprints. Peer pressure isn't all bad, it can also motivate you to put a few more words down even when you don't feel like it. If that's still too high stakes for you, just use the timer function on Nanowrimo's website and tell yourself to write for 20 minutes. It's amazing how having a ticking clock can give you a little urgency.
3. Set aside a scheduled time to write. Always write during that time. If you end up with random snatches of time later on lunch breaks or on the bus home or after dinner, use that extra time to write more for sure. But always make your scheduled time.
4. Don't be afraid to jump around. If you know you've got a good showdown or juicy drama or some big image scene coming up, and you're getting bored with where you are or don't know how to get the characters there...fine. Skip ahead. Go write the stuff that interests you.
5. Don't think about what you've already written. If it's good, if it's terrible, if it's nonsensical. Forget it. Making it all hang together, polishing it, filling in plot holes, that's future you work. Present you only care about getting words on the paper.

#Spam

So glad to make your acquaintance, Jon Thorpe.
I’ve got such wonderful news to report.
You’ve won a million dollars! Don’t think–
Take action now, just click on this link.

Hmph. Saw through that ruse, did you?
Well, Mr. Thorpe, I saw through you too.
Your spam folder’s swollen with unopened mail
Which I sniffed and I followed, a digital trail.

Knock knock.
Don’t cower.
I know you’re still there.
Eating canned food and sweating in stained underwear.
I know all about you: each caliginous desire,
Melting your heart like a sputtering fire.

‘Tis the twenty-first century, Jon! Nothing’s sacred.
Not cloying love nor squirming hatred.
So, what do you say? Feeling risky, wink wink?
Take the chance of your life–and click on this link!

You—trashed me.

Ok, you sniveling shit.
I’m back in your inbox. Let’s get to it!

Your password was breached:
Jens-a-bitch-253
Got dumped, hm?
Good. Sent a text to her feed!
“My life has been awful since we’ve been apart.
Please Jen, take pity on this broken heart!”

Sent a mail to mother about all the lies
you told, to cover for your petty crimes.
Wouldn’t she like to know of your fiction
Of what became of this year’s tuition?

Told your boss how you’re lazy, your friends, how you’re mean,
Told your whole contact list of your sins and your dreams.
I know you, Jon! I’m the sum of every dread
The total vitriol of your each forum thread.

I’ll show the whole world the Jon that I know!
That is, unless you click on this– Oh!

See, that wasn’t so hard. Didn’t mean to scare ya.
Just wanted to show hot singles in your area!

WC: 284

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