Novel show-and-tell!

I'll start, for good measure! Here's something fun/odd:

MEMORANDUM

DATE: November 2, 2007
TO: All departments
FROM: Steve
RE: Movement towards a revised, enlightened paradigm of capitalization

It has come to my attention that there are some discrepancies as to the capitalization of titles, conflicts occurring mostly in articles. I realize that capitalizing all of the words, except those odd ones like ‘and’ and ‘to’- little ones, prepositions or pronouns sometimes, is the general paradigm. However, I constantly find myself confused over which words should, and should not, be capitalized, and at times it nearly doubles my workload, which I find extremely unfortunate, and overall unproductive.

I propose, then, that we adopt a new paradigm in which only the first letter of a title is capitalized, unless it is a proper noun. Here is an example:

1. CORRECT Man says pants too small
INCORRECT man Says pants too small
INCORRECT man says Pants too small
INCORRECT man says pants Too small
INCORRECT man says pants too Small
INCORRECT Man Says pants too small
INCORRECT Man says Pants too small
INCORRECT Man says pants Too small
INCORRECT Man says pants too Small
INCORRECT man Says Pants too small
INCORRECT man Says pants Too small
INCORRECT man Says pants too Small
INCORRECT man says Pants Too small
INCORRECT man says Pants too Small
INCORRECT man says pants Too Small
INCORRECT Man Says Pants too small
INCORRECT Man Says pants Too small
INCORRECT Man Says pants too Small
INCORRECT Man says Pants Too small
INCORRECT Man says Pants too Small
INCORRECT man Says Pants Too small
INCORRECT man Says Pants too Small
INCORRECT man says Pants Too Small
INCORRECT Man Says Pants Too small
INCORRECT?? Man Says Pants too Small
INCORRECT man Says Pants Too Small
INCORRECT Man Says Pants Too Small
INCORRECT man says pants too small

There are a couple missing in there I think, but you probably get the point. With the commonly accepted method, which is to capitalize some of the letters, there is a huge margin for error. My method decreases confusion by about 3000%..

1/30ish + .0300ish…
.0300ish is like 3%
No, wait.
30ish/1 = 30.
30 x 100% = 3000%

-S.M.

Oohkay, here's part of the excerpt I posted on day 1--the opening of Chapter 1. I'm having a blast writing this one so far.

Loneliness. A twisting, writhing entity; consuming happy memories and contentment within a mist of discord and despairing illusion. A phantom that sits one bolt upright in bed at night, lifting the veil of dreams so they no longer offer blessed escape. A breach in the promise to blur the lines of self, loneliness is the domicile which harbors the fate of tarrying overlong in a well of deep thought and regret.

Dream Ballantyne cast a line into just such a well, fishing for answers as she lay in the arms of empty paradise. From the glassed-in walls of the second floor loft, she stared out to where a glistening sea whispered and beckoned. Today, however, the majestic swells held no enchantment for her piercing brown-violet eyes. Today was lost to anything reverent, unifying, coalescent. Today was the first of June.

With a sigh her eyes fluttered closed, and her head fell back against the padded leather cushion. Even in this pose Dream knew every inch of her surroundings--the sparse black and tan furnishings; the way the geometric pattern in the throw rug fooled the eyesight because it lay slightly askew; how the overhead track lighting cast thin shadows along the length of the rear wall in the evening. Though elevated and set back from the waterfront, she imagined she could hear ocean waves crashing to shore; moving ever upward, straining to reach her in the upper level of the abode left to her by her parents two years before.

Exactly two years before.

June first marked the beginning for many; another summer with bubbling laughter and badminton and sand between the toes, June brides, school graduates . . . yet for her this day marked nothing more than a pair of headstones in the cemetery three miles from where her parents had wed. Grace and Stephen Ballantyne, both thirty-eight, both dead on June 1. “Beloved parents to their Dream.”

She'd been so named because she'd been their biggest dream come true, Mama always said. This house was second. Now they were lost to both, pulled out like the tide when their car plunged over a cliff. Dream was supposed to have gone with them that day. Though she would never tell a soul, on occasional nights her thoughts whispered to her that perhaps she'd be better off if she had.

Lisa Logan
2006 NaNo: A GRAND SEDUCTION http://fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook66572.htm
Writing in My Wildest Dreams at http://lisalogan.net
Take the Green Writing Challenge! http://squidoo.com/greenwriter

So I love writing for Ashley. I love making her this very very sweet girl, who cares for her family and is the Mama-Hen despite the fact that she's the youngest and if you look at her physically she doesn't look like she should be that way. Plus... she's the youngest of a family with a set of twins (one being my protag) and she doesn't have a mom. The set up is every chapter I focus on one person and flashback into a moment into their puberty.

Anne was lucky. Anne was pretty and nice. When Ashley was ten she was sixteen.
Ashley knocked on the yellow door.
"Go away!"
"Anne! I need to talk to you."
"Unless you're on fire I don't care."
"Please! Something weird is going on!"
"Are you on fire?"
"No!"
"Is there a bone sticking out?"
"I don't think so."
"Then see this, this is me in my room and you outside whining. It's gonna' be that way."
Ashley stomped her feet and kicked the door. The door flew opened and Anne stood there mad. She wore her denim overalls and a red tank top. Her hair was barely chin length, was pulled into a ponytail.
"Look you have to the count of three to go away."
"And what if I don't?"
"I'll tell Dad."
Ashley let out a groan. "You suck!" She stomped downstairs.
"Shut up Ashley!" Andrew yelled.
Ashley ran to the kitchen, where Andrew was sitting with a giant sandwich and a glass of milk. The kitchen was a nineteen twentys Craftsman kitchen with very little remodeling. Andrew was sitting at the round kitchen table.
"I'm bleeding and Anne is being mean." Her voice was full of panic.
"What are you talking about bleeding? Where?"
Ashley pointed to her crotch. "There."
"What?"
"There. I am bleeding there and I didn't hurt myself."
Andrew started to laugh. "Anne! Anne Lucille Baxter get your ass down here!"
"Bite me!"
"No serious. You need to come here. Y're gonna' laugh!"
"This is serious," Ashley started to cry.
Anne thumped down the stairs. She turned the corner and walked into the kitchen.
"What the hell is your damage?"
"Ashley is bleeding."
"Where?"
Ashley pointed to her crotch again. "And it won't stop."
Anne started to laugh. "She is ten."
"And she's bleeding from down there."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I dunno'. You're a girl."
"So?"
"Stop fighting and make it stop."
"And I was thirteen when it happened. Not ten. No one starts at ten."
"Well apparently they do, cause Ashley is."
"Should I get a bandaide? I applied pressure and it didn't stop," Ashley cried and rubbed her tears with the back of her hand.
Andrew started to laugh harder. "What did you do when this happened to you?"
Anne shrugged. "It wasn't that long ago. I had sex ed already. I just used my allowance to buy pads."
"You didn't tell Dad?"
"No. I think he just figured... I mean. I don't know."
Anne looked at her sister. "Should we just wait for Dad?"
"I don't know... you're a girl."
"I am thinking wait for Dad."
"Shouldn't we have figured...?"
"She didn't get boobs." Anne said purely in her defense only.

The small dark creature was breaking the rules by visiting the Others. In the myths of the Others he and his kind were called Watchers, but among themselves they were the tapouri. The Watcher knew the odds of getting caught weren’t great and he was willing to risk whatever his punishment would be for a look at the child. He scaled the edge of the cradle and perched there, tail wrapped around the railing and peered down on the newborn babe. The baby was swaddled in brightly colored fabrics and looked quite small in the battered wooden cradle. The Watcher caught his breath and fought the impulse to hop into the bed and wake the child. At this age, no good would come of the encounter but he felt the urge nonetheless.

The baby made a small mewling noise and moved a bit. The Watcher sat still and held his breath. The child looked so small and helpless. Far too little to be much of a threat or to hold much promise. Yet. But if the tales being told were true, this child could hold the key to unlocking the ancient scrolls. But such omens had occurred before and nothing had happened.

‘Hurry up and grow,’ he whispered after a long pause. ‘Hurry.’

Diann

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ML in Temecula, CA

I was going to post my whole first chapter, but that turned out to be almost 1700 words, so I just took a little chunk out of the beginning. So, here's mine:

Chapter One

“And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” -Elie Wiesel

When I opened my eyes, I knew I was dead. It’s a funny thought to have cross your mind, but in my case I knew it to be true. There was no white light to follow, no overwhelming sense of calm. Of course, that could be due to the fact that I’m a bit cynical when it comes to that stuff. Well, was cynical. I had opened my eyes and just felt...off.

Not that I could actually feel anything anyway. I knew there was a metal table beneath me, but I couldn’t feel the cold surface. I knew there was a white sheet covering my body, but I couldn’t feel the fabric itself.

I sat up, the sheet pooling at my waist, exposing the incision that was on my chest. Well, at least I knew now that there had been an autopsy. I looked around the room that I was in. It was small, and didn’t look anything like how I imagined it would be, but most of my imagination was fed from television shows, so my perception was a bit skewed. Small medical instruments, like the ones that I had always feared, lined a table on one wall. There was a door behind me, with a small window pane in it, and in front of me, a desk, with a metal cabinet hung above it. One side of the cabinet was open, revealing books on one shelf and files on the one above. The desk itself was neat, with only one file on the surface, accompanied by one pen. ‘This guy and I are going to get along great,’ I thought to myself. ‘We both like order.’ Well, I had liked order. Man that was going to be hard to get used to.

The light in the room was low. There were two grimy windows located above the desk, but they didn’t let in much light. There was a large light hanging from the ceiling, but it was off. The main source of light came from a lamp on the desk that had been left on.

I heard a noise outside of the room and I quickly laid back down. I grabbed for the sheet to cover myself back up, but my hand couldn’t grasp the fabric. Again and again I tried to grab the edge, but I gave up as I heard the door swing open.

I put an excerpt down onto my own profile, but this is from later on (or earlier on?) in my story. Comments welcome!

****

"Ian! Put the axe down!" Felicia hissed.

Caden looked at Ian, who was still avoiding his gaze. Despite his mother's demand, Ian simply stood there, his hands white-knuckled on the handle of the bloody axe.

"I found the axe in the ground," Ian said. Felicia remained where she was. Caden could see her hands shaking, still balled into fists. "Caden, Paul threw it at something. There were three after him." Paul slowly shifted his grip towards the head of the axe, moving his hand towards the blood.

Felicia gasped the minute Ian's fingertip touched the blood. Ian cringed, as if he had been hit on the head hard.

"The creature pulled the axe out, threw it to the ground," Ian turned his head to the side, eyes closed, trying hard to keep his inner-vision clear and connected. "The other two were already after Paul." Ian opened his eyes. He stared at the axe for a bit, and set it down next to the kitchen door. He looked at his mother, then looked at Caden, then his eyes fell on the prosthetic leg on the table. Ian wordlessly reached out and started walking toward the table when Felicia blocked him.

"Ian, no--"

Ian reached up with both hands and took his mother by her shoulders, gently moving her out of his way. She held onto him as he moved by her, as if clinging to him would change his mind. He looked at Caden while he sat down at the table.

Ian closed his eyes and put his hands over the leg. Again, he cringed as his fingers touched the metal, as Caden imagined he had just been overwhelmed with a series of images that none but Paul and his pursuers could recall. Ian spoke through clenched teeth, as if he was reliving Paul's moments before his leg was torn off.

"Paul tried to run," Ian said. "He came inside, he was looking for something. Something in the kitchen." Ian slowly shifted his touch across the prosthetic limb. "A knife, he was using the knife he found, but he was looking for something else..."

Caden spun around. He started rifling through drawers madly, discarding contents and kitchenware that did not obviously fit his search. Upon pulling open yet another drawer, Caden found the stack of letters Paul went through before they left for Nihon.

"Caden," Ian said, eyes still shut, still gently feeling the surface of the limb, "he fought his way to the light tower. He stabbed something-- it looks like, like a man, there were three... A wolf head, a... Is that a fox? And... A snake... They all had bodies like big men..."

Felicia started walking towards Ian when he raised one hand to her, keeping the other hand on the leg. "The monsters... They chased Paul up the stairs-- they... They clawed him," Ian was cringing more. Caden shut his eyes, wishing that his blindness would make him deaf. Felicia seemed as if she wanted to rip the leg from Ian's grasp and throw it far away.

"They didn't stop, Caden. They just kept coming, kept after him," Caden opened his eyes and saw Ian clutching one of the longer rods of the leg. "He got through the portal... Tried to close it... Something, something clawed his hand and he backed away..."

Caden saw tears staining Ian's cheeks as he kept hold. "He got outside the gallery, he wanted to get to the outer escape... Oh, oh no... No, don't! Stay away from him!"

Caden wrenched the leg from Ian's grasp. Ian opened his eyes and got up, reaching out for the leg-- only to collapse on the kitchen floor. Caden put the leg on the counter behind him and went to Ian's side where Felicia rushed over.

"They pinned him, Caden! They pinned him, and they..." Ian was flushed, pointing at the counter behind Caden. "They tore that off of him!"

****

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
--God

P.O.

My intent is that we all continue posting as we like. I love reading all of your excerpts, and hope you don't get thrown off by the fact that all mine seem to involve completely different characters and situations!

Ok, excerpt 2:

Wednesday afternoon, P.E. was especially brutal. The theme was swing-dancing, and the where-are-the-girls choir was wailing more than usual. Mr. Rick, the instructor, who was also the wrestling coach, was waiting for a few stragglers from the locker room to begin, leading the rest of the boys in the regular series of stretches.

“Ok, it’s time for the butterfly. You know this one, Tom.” Mr. Rick sat down on the floor in front of the boys, who were positioned in a grid-like format, a sort of seating chart and method for keeping track of them. He touched the bottoms of his feet together, and his legs went out like, well, a butterfly. He grabbed onto his feet, and flapped his legs up and down. “Alright, the butterfly…” he trailed, looking at his own legs, as they truly were doing something unprecedented, or something he couldn’t control.

Tom had chosen to sit in the front row, like he enjoyed Mr. Rick in some way. On the first day of class, Tom was twenty minutes early- confusing, considering that all fifth period classes ended at the same time- and Mr. Rick was sitting to the front of the gym, in a fold-down chair, reviewing his attendance policy. He didn’t even see Tom come in, but when he looked up to rest his eyes, Tom was sitting directly below him, cross-legged, with his head in his lab.

“Oh, hello!” Mr. Rick had said, suddenly flustered, hoping Tom wasn’t dead. Tom didn’t move. “Are you a new student?”

Tom’s body curled upwards until he was making eye contact with Mr. Rick, it curled upwards with an intentional labored roll, like he a true yogi. His movements were slow, but never sluggish, and demonstrated the sort of superior control he had over his body. His speech was slow- intentional, perhaps- as well.

Mr. Rick was a bit worried. “Are you alright?” he asked, leaning in.

“I’m Tom,” Tom responded, sitting up straight now, and stretching his back, still cross-legged.

“Well, hi, Tom.” Mr. Rick leaned further into extend his hand. The fact that they could reach each other from where they were sitting was telling; they shook hands. Tom’s was unhumanly dry. Mr. Rick shivered.