NaNo 10,000 words and counting

Stage one of NaNo is going well, I have figured out a great way to tell the story in the Red Book Expose.  The story will be told in first person, present tense, and from a single narrator's perspective, which is very different from my normal style writing. I thought that it would be difficult to write in this style. Strangely,  I am finding it refreshing. I do not feel like I have to get into characters head's and hearts to tell the story.  However as I re-read the story it seems a little flat to me. 

Another decision I have made is that each chapter will be a story unto itself.  Meaning  there is always a beginning, middle and end to each story ie chapter.  What I am still working the kinks out one is how to tie the separate stories together.  For me this has come down to really defining my narrator,  for people to get a feel for her, how she thinks feels and what she is going through, in addition to the experiences she is relating about working as a front desk agent. 

However, the big problem for me is deciding if I am really meeting my goal, which was to write people,  mean, strange, crank, rude, self centered people.  Or if the characters are still coming off as beautiful, relatable and with a reason for what they are doing.  I keep asking myself, how can I make the person seem as mean as I felt they were in that moment I was experiencing this,  or how my friend said they were made to feel. 

Looking at the girl like she was an escapee from the local asylum, “Where are those books?” As I guest walked up to the counter she point towards the back.  I wander, into the back office to look for the manuals.  Finding them on the rickety shelf that seems about to fall off the wall I take the two that seem the most helpful,  Opera training guide, and front desk daily operations manual.  Then I hear a shriek, like the cross between a cat being killed and a pigs squeal.

Running to where the horrifying sound had emanated from,  I find the other agent standing about a foot back from the counter,  and this 18 year old girl,  with silky black hair that falls to her waist, saucer sized brown eyes,  hold a phone out in front of her shaking it furiously in the air.  It almost seemed like she is fighting for the phone with an invisible assailant, and it sounds like it too.

Walking to the agent’s side, I whisper, “What is wrong.”

Looking down at me as she is almost six feet tall, “I have no clue,  she came up here screeching and waving the phone about.”

The sound of the dying cat pig squeal draws my attention back to the disturbed girl.  She tosses the phone down on the counter,  frustration and anger rolling off her in waves.  Looking at each other, the other agent steps back.  I Point at the phone,  “Can I look at your phone.” 

The girl,  screeches at me,  in a language I am unfamiliar with,  as it is not based in French or Spanish.  But I take her gestures and squawks as a yes.  Picking up the phone,  the screen is cracked,  well more than cracked shattered really.  Seeing the damage, “So you broke your phone,  well we have an apple store about half a mile from here.” 

The girl looks at me confused,  and shouts one word, “NO!” 

Looking back at the other agent, then back to the girl, “No, you do not want the Apple store.”

“No!.” She cries again. 

“Okay,  No you did not break the phone?”

“Yes.” She wails in delight.

“Who broke your phone?”

The girl begins to bounce up and down pointing at me and the other agent frantically then back towards the hotel.  Then with a stamp of her foot,  she screeches what is clearly the story of what happened to her phone.  Standing there stunned and confused.  The girl begins to walk away from the desk,  leaving the destroyed phone with me,  as she frantically waves for me to follow.  Seeing no other options.  I follow the crazed girl into the bowels of the hotel.  Finally,  we arrive at room 234,  which is on the second floor of A wing,  she pushes open the door, exposing a housekeeper who is making the bed.  The girl screams in rage and points to the girl cleaning the room.  On hearing the howl the girl looks up, a smirk on her face.

Neither of the girls could have been more than 18 years of age, and though the housekeeper spoke English, she also spoke the girl's language.  I stood there as the two girls screamed at each other, the argument ended when the guest flew at the housekeep,  grabbing hand fulls of hair she draging the other girl from the room into the hall. 

Once out in the hall, a number of other housekeepers and guests came out of their rooms, to watch the commotion.  Finally as I am trying to pull a apart the two squabbling girls,  a women walks down the hall, and in a commanding voice, she shouts in the language of the two fighting girls, which bring the fight to an end. 

Exert The Red Book Expose.

Now I have to decide if I like this style, or want to scrape what I have written so far,  and try this another way.  Is it in sanity to be contemplate scrapping over 10,000 words because you do not think you are writing the characters, vicious or mean enough.  

 

Part two of this years NaNo challenge is kicking my butt.  I have wrote and re wrote the same introduction now 4 times today,  and do not think any of the changes are right.  But what is right, what is wrong,  maybe I just hate the intro.  I am  currently, thinking of putting it aside  the intro and diving into chapter 1.  Normally the idea of doing this would make me want to pull out my hair, as I tend to write from start to finish. But looking at this project,  I am having spurts of ideas about what to change in no particular order.  Maybe what NaNo will teach me this time around is that there are many ways to do things. 

 Unfinished projects:    3

Word Count: 10,328

Words Edited: 750  <--sort of :( still not happy with them