National Novel Writing Month: One Author’s Journal, Day 18

by Karen Harrington

November 18, 2007

Much as I had anticipated, the fire is burning out in the writing of my NaNoWriMo Dickensian-foster children in peril novel No Teddy Bears. I hit this slump in the middle of last week. A big Oh Well. I’m feeling a tad Eeyorish about, well, how I feel. I want to go on. Press on. But it is getting tougher. Thanksgiving is a mere few days away and I have a giant vat of homemade Zinfandel Cranberry Sauce to make. (It’s Dee-Lish.) And, I have a leak in my roof. (An actual drywall has fallen off the ceiling kind of leak.) Thus, much of last week, my writing time (generally 2-4 each afternoon when my toddlers nap) was usurped by roofing repair folks with clipboards and business cards who have a lot of questions and don’t care that I have a novel to write. They just want to know if I want 20 or 30 year shingles or ones made out of a product called Malarkey. I’m not kidding. Malarkey. He wrote it down. Arghhh!

Well, about two on Saturday afternoon, my burning ember of inspiration shored up into a full fledged crackling fire when my evil character Ms. Vallop suddenly had an epiphany at the Stop N Shop.

…It was at this moment that a strange fate stepped into the life of Ms. Vallop. There, on the break room table, the American Enquirer stared back at her in all its large type print.

Woman In Trailer Park Wins Texas Lottery

For as long as she could remember, her dream had been to live in a trailer park. To her, it seemed like a small paradise. A house that was too small to get really dirty. A house you could drive almost anywhere. And best of all, a house with such a low payment, she would no longer have to work. Yes, her mind began spinning. She saw how she could rent her house on Bellevue Drive. That income plus the $1372 from the SYSTEM would be plenty to live on and not have to work.

She thought it was a most ingenious idea. So she quickly used the rest of her break time rummaging through the classifieds in the newspapers, in search of her new dream house on wheels.

How did this idea come about? I’m not sure, but I can tell you that I was once a grocery store checker. I always spent my breaks eating damaged, discounted Oreeios and reading the worst tabloid papers. They always featured stories about trailer parks or aliens, or both. (This was back in the 80s so the stories are probably different now, right?) All I know is that as soon as I had a dramatic change of location for this novel, I could finally see how my four foster kids were going to beat the odds and survive in their own scheming way. I tell you, they are going to have to go through a few more knocks before they are rescued, but dear reader, they will be rescued and Ms. Vallop is going to get a nice comeuppance.

As of today, No Teddy Bears consists of about 38,000 words. It looks like I’ll cross the finish line by the deadline. That is, if the roof does not fall in first. Fortunately, the weather forecast looks clear.

Until next time.

Karen Harrington is the author of the upcoming novel JANEOLOGY. Visit www.myspace.com/karenharringtonauthor for more information.