The whole world knows November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), but I’m at a juncture where I don’t need another month’s worth of first draft. On the other hand, I really could use some time to fix all my busted-ass first drafts and get them ready for publication. I therefore declare November to be my own personal Busted Novel Repair Month (BuNoReMo).
I’ve got baling wire, elbow grease and gaffer tape all lined up on my bench in the woodshed. Wish me success!
Here’s what I’ve got up on blocks:
Boggle and Sneak
This story was formerly known as Troll Story, but the Folklore Enforcers tell me the eight-inch-tall creatures in the story most closely resemble imps or bogles (which is a bit of a disappointment: I was sort of hoping to be able to call them boggarts). They bust into houses and bogotify stuff, i.e. leave stuff on the fritz.
This is really coming together (thanks to incisive reads by Ryeon Corsi, Josh Ferguson and the Bisco Kid) and may just need a push over the finish line.
Pismo
A family of compulsives tries to escape certain death in a car that only turns left.
This is mouldering in manuscript. Once I type it, somebody can read it and let me know how it looks.
Lime (That’s the working title because that’s what’s written on the cover of the first notebook in the stack.)
The CIA’s Directorate of Operations is outsourced to a reality show.
This has a beginning and a middle, but no end.
The Derby Ram
On a visit to the Minnesota State Fair, ten-year-old Al runs off from her parents. Lost, she wanders into the Coliseum, where she discovers a twenty-foot-tall ram about to be slaughtered before a roaring crowd. She frees the ram and the two of them make a run for it– following the Burlington Northern tracks west-northwest toward the mountains, pursued by the furious Butcher and his thirsty knife.
Again: A beginning and a middle, but no end.
Over the River (a ghost story for October)
It is the hottest night of the summer. Nick is parked at Porky’s Drive-In on University Avenue, pretending to tune his 1928 Model A Roadster Pickup (which doesn’t need tuning). Suddenly a rangy, weather-beaten woman rides up on an impossibly-cherry 1914 Michaelson Big Twin, grabs him by the penis, and drags him across the Mississippi to the Underworld.
October spilling into November.
Comment on this post.
Hi Fritz. I just published a Minnesota novel (Hopes and Dreams: Stuck on AutoDrive). Two scenes take place at the Minnesota State Fair, so I’d like to suggest an ending (at no charge) for your Derby Ram story.
The ram was asking to get slaughtered. It had rearranged all the 4H animals. It had exchanged the cabling between the bungee jumping ride and the Skyrail. It messed up the boxes of Pronto Pups and corn Dogs.
It put holes in the fences and stood out on Como Avenue scalping tickets to last year’s fair. It replaced all the lights on the Mighty Midway with strobe lights. It cheated at Whack-A-Mole; it used its horns.
Crossing the Dakotas and laughing its horns off with story after story of the trouble it caused, the ram is ultimately returned to the State Fair, where everyone has forgotten the trouble it caused.
What do you think?
Hi Eric,
I like it!
Unfortunately, though, I’m already fully enslaved to the lyrics:
“The man who killed this ram sir was drowned in the blood / The little girl who held the bowl was washed away in the flood.”
So you be knowin’ nothing good is going to happen on the bank of Two Medicine River.