Hello from Jasper County

Hey there in Jasper County....

Porter County gives ya a winken anod.

John
(Jay)

*waves to the north*

Good luck to both of you! Hope you do well with this year's challenge :)

Oh, I see we have defined it as a "challenge," huh?

Well, we shall see, my Duckie ... we shall see ... just how much of a challenge it poses.
I have, after having started 252 novels, regurg-ed about 13 into something else and back-burnered all but a dozen others, see no challenge on the horizon.

I also see no hope.

CHAPTER ONE
T'was a dark and stormy night.

*waves to Porter County*

Sounds like you'll meet the challenge, Valpo. What genre?

Looks like my time will be a bit tight again this year. New client just popped on my screen... I'll have to do at least 4,000 to 4,500 per day to make the Nano goal. Maybe I should change my genre for this so I don't get caught up in the teckno-speak part of sci-fi.

*waves and handshakes to all*

4,000 a day!!!!

You might try writing a few paragraphs you really like and do a cut/paste about 50 times.
I try to aim for about 1,500 a day.
Then I spend a lot of time philosophizing and describing the big elm tree.

That is not the challenge.
It's the solitaire that I play between transition breaks that is the challenge.

CHAPTER TWO
He looked at her with a stern voice, causing her to mete out fresh instructions.
In the distance, a horse whinnied.

"Then I spend a lot of time philosophizing and describing the big elm tree."

Hmmmm... now if the big elm tree grew a face which turns into a giant smile as its roots do a great impression of a tap dance... it could segue into a great sci-fi subplot, whereby the elm tree is the actual cause of why the horse whinnied in the distance.

Add a little rain and thunder controlled by an evil scientist (who is, by the way, the man secretly responsible for the nano genes inserted into the tree) then turn the tree's smile into a frown as lightning strikes nearby...

*Hahahahaha!*

I've already got a chapter in my head contemplating your elm tree.

Methinks you are right about the goal. Perhaps 1500 would be more attainable. If I keep little rewards available on the sidelines for achieving or surpassing it, I might even be able to reach for 2,000 per day.

Speaking of rain and thunder, hope you faired okay in Valpo through yesterday's weather. We lost part of a giant maple tree in our back yard.

Sorry for my tardy reply but I have been held hostage since Thursday by a band of albatross beetles who insist that the map to the coveted pirate loot is not lost at all but merely "stashed somewhere safe." I remain bewildered.

Naturally, major storms bypass Valparaiso, although one of your maple trees is in the middle of my street.

CHAPTER THREE
The owl spake softly of besodden times, long long ago and not all that distant.
Below, the hapless vole meandered across the moon-streaked pavement in quest of a kernel of corn.
And the sea rose like taxes, roaring and quenching the abominable thirst of the smitten sandy beach.
"Harken," sayeth the calamity, "raindrops do moisten the leaves of eternity. Shall we?"

It is a pleasure to hear the battery from the south did not harm Valpo Village.

Two sandhill cranes shall be dispatched posthaste to retrieve the maple.

Their names are Christine and Calvin.

Christine can be a bit antisocial but you will find Calvin to be quite amenable to speaking with strangers. Toss a few kernels of corn his way and he might even be persuaded to clear the leaves for you, too.

We've been smitten by the rising sea of taxes of late and now find ourselves to be the highest in Hoosier Land. My husband has been hearing stories that we must soon build an Ark and start the tedious task of collecting all animals two-by-two. I'm hoping we are not put in charge of this mission, since I've been hearing rumors of a much more pressing matter at hand...

There are new rumors being bandied about that soon we shall be invaded by all sorts of ghosts, goblins and ghouls with voracious appetites. We've been told to keep plenty of sweets on hand. I find it difficult to believe that we could win this new battle by pelting them with candy, however we remain ever hopeful.

To be safe, we are carving a rather angry face into a large pumpkin and shall light it to keep evil at bay.

You might want to send word to your village leaders, for I hear this new army shall be headed your way as well on Hallow's Eve.

Back to the matter of the Ark and regarding the horse you heard previously; could it possibly have been white with a small horn protruding from its head? My husband has been searching for this elusive creature to make sure it is not missed during the gathering of animals.

He does not know its name. Perhaps we should call it an unihorn... or maybe unicorn would be a better fit considering we are surrounded by corn fields in this region.

CHAPTER FOUR
He stalked the corn, machete unsheathed. There, lurking in the geebled masses of leaf, came the foreshortened sound of the winnowed waterlust, a bird of some significance.

Beyond the bay, the lurch appeared, casting a generic shadow across the beacon. In the distance, the clumping feet, perhaps those of the village elder aboard his trusty one-horned flying creature.

Music blared from aloft.

At first the music appeared to be vibrating from the corn itself, but a strange disc-like object rose ominously from behind the cornstalks.

'Twas a sight like none had seen before, nor would they ever see again; for as the music rose to a crashing crescendo, brilliant flashes of light sprayed out from the craft, scorching everything in sight.

Deer fled in panic. Sandhill cranes took flight. Acrid smoke permeated the air, choking all creatures left behind.

Although it felt like time stood still, it was all over in minutes, when silently, and with the speed of a comet, the strange disc flashed out of sight.

Far off into the distance, a lone coyote cried into the night -- it seemed all was lost; but for a very brief moment, through the veil of smoke, a silhouette was impaled by the pale moonlight.

Could it be the one-horned flying creature?

CHAPTER XIS

Left in a time warp, Jay discovered he had dropped his Chapter Five on the other thread and while deciding to not retrieve it, instead promoted the probability that he could conceivably create the longest sentence in the history of nanowrimo, owing to the creation of the comma, its supportive devices and an ongoing probability that phrases, conjunctive reasoning and the attachment to motivation could drive the reader to still further heights, lofty reaches of the peripheria where even spelling errors can sometimes be overlooked.

Then again, who would read it?

He shook the fuzz from his noggin and dispatched his trained team of experts into the field, looking for evidence of the one-horned critter. Sandhill cranes were silent. They'd be of no value in court. All that remained were tracks.

And he realized at that instant: "I know who is behind all this. It's ... it's (gasp) none other than the evil, dastardly and insidious Enigmatic Squash. I thought we'd finished him off last fall."

WHOMP! A large ream of paper falls from the heavens onto our hero's head, slamming him to the earth.

For the briefest of moments, the land swirled about, tossing him to and fro.

At long last, his vision began to clear. Faint letters took shape... deep, dark, sinister... they danced before his eyes. Like a strobe light searing into his very subconscious, the glistening white of the paper served to emphasize the ebony ink swimming like evil eels on pages too numerous to count in his befuddled state.

What was this? What angered the Gods such that they would hurl tombs of paper at him ...in the middle of a corn field, no less? What insanity is this?

Shaking his head, the letters lined up, marching in procession to form the ominous clue...

Chapter Five?

But what clue is this? What could it mean? Was this the missing chapter in his life's journey? Those missing years none who knew him dared speak of at family gatherings?

At once afraid and yet tortured by curiousity, our hero moved to turn the page...

Slowly. Carefully.

WHACK!

A dangling limb from the nearby enchanted elm, now charred, had finally broken free, choosing that precise moment to tumble directly onto our hero.

Voices call out in the distance. "There he is. I see him... Yes! It is he..."

Everything fades to black.

Possessed by a maddening charm and a pocket full of receipts from Speedway, he picked up the wayward tree limb, tossed into the trunk of his newly refurbished 1949 Chrysler and fumbled for his keys. "Drat, lost them again," he muttered. "Must be over there next to the Kaleidoscopic Princess."

There she stood, picking up sheets of blank paper, crushing them into tiny balls and murmuring the song of the ages ... "another missed plot, another missed plot." Then she found one that was slightly different. "Hmmmm ... Chapter Five. I think this one is out of place."

CHAPTER SEVEN

The tendrils of time lashed out at the oncoming wind, chinkling its chimes and directing the motivated heartbeat.
The moribundity of the ministerial breathing hastened as the crows gathered to roost above the vagrant herd of benign cows, whose unifonic lowing presented still new challenges.

She adjusted something and waited for him to notice.

As he drew near, she flicked the hidden switch. The noise was deafening as a Binford 9000 Leaf Blower blasted him skyward.

For a brief mili-second, time stood still, as his body reached its highest point on its journey skyward. Then, with tremendous glee, Gravity went to work reeling him back down to earth.

The ground raced toward him at a frightening pace -- when suddently, the one-horned flying creature appeared...

*she takes a sip of her peppermint tea*

He flicked his his own switch and smiled. "It's not the long fall that hurts," he opined, "but the sudden thud!"

Little did she know that he'd laced that tea with something a little more zippy than peppermint. She'd notice soon.

"Ouch," he said. "Those Binfords were never much fun."

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Held together with magnets, the walls of the protrusive device seemed glued into an eternal strangle-hold on prosperity. Noah had come across a new and exciting way of transporting one-horned creatures, but alas, only one remained and its attention span was diverted to the blissful fields of peppermint that shaded the overburdened dandelory plants that had come to earth in a fallow fickishness.

"Crutando zubinsk?" the alien queried.

All were astonished at his adroit behaviorisms.

Out cold.

Was it an hour?

Was it a day?

Had a full week passed?

*she shakes her head as time flies by at lightning speed on the backs of great winged creatures*

Less than 24 hours left, and now we have these aliens to deal with. They've been secretly stealing time from our universe to recharge their own dimension. Something had to be done fast before everything ceased to exist.

Flipping open her cell phone, she made the call.

In a field far away, the Great Pumpkin rose up. Shouting a single command into the darkened night, a scarecrow caught his signal.

The scarecrow raised its scruffy arm and pushed the giant red Easy button...

EPILOGUE

The moon ran away with the dish, he was told.
"But that's not important now," he said. "Did they live heavily after dinner?"
"Ever after."
"Yes."
She shook her head. "Did the one-horned critter find its way back to the stable?"
And so went the Spinach Inquisition.

The end.

Whew! Did it!