Genre: Young Adult & Youth
About ApfelLocation: Richmond, Virginia Home Region: Age:22 Website: http://artfuldodger.livejournal.com Favorite novels: The Last Unicorn, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, White Oleander, Paint it Black, Ender's Game, Enchantment, Hart's Hope, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, Microserfs, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, American Gods, The Dogs of Babel, Bee Season, Wicked, Bird by Bird, Beowulf Favorite writers: Peter S. Beagle, Tolkien, Janet Fitch, Viggo Mortensen, Joy Harjo Favorite music: Tegan and Sara, George Winston, Imogen Heap, the soundtrack to "Amélie" (Yann Tiersen) Non-noveling interests: Polaroid photography, wandering, canoeing, PostSecret, going on epic adventures, Scrabble, having proper tea |
Joined: octobre 27, 2007 This Year: Official Participant NaNoWriMo History: NaNoWriMo posts: 0 NaNoWriMo buddies: 6
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Synopsis: Godzilla Boobs and Waiting Rooms
It all starts in 1997 when Cassie Minnow is cast as the stuffed goose in the school's production of "A Christmas Carol" while her younger brother, Alex, is cast as Tiny Tim. It wouldn't be so bad, in and of itself, but this is just one more blow in a series of hurts that Cassie endures, because of course Alex would get the biggest role -- after all, he's only got one leg. He gets the sympathy vote from everyone. Even the Juvie kids at the school where Cassie and Alex's father teaches end up asking to cast him in their production of the same play...as the same character. Cassie, meanwhile, spends her time backstage at the Establishment idolizing a student there named Sara.
And then there's the bit where she tries to kill Alex. Nothing major. Just some sibling rivalry.
Or perhaps it's something more.
Something deeper, lurking in her sinister heart.
This is, at any rate, what the city of [haven't picked a name] yes is saying about Cassie Minnow when in 2008 there's a school shooting at her and Alex's high school, and she is found separated from everyone else with a coat that matches that of the masked killer in the security videos.
After all, could it just be a coincidence that Alex Minnow was a victim?
A story about siblings, and the relationships that form through disabilities, stereotypes, and aftermaths, all wrapped around a twiggy small girl who really, truly, would just like to go back to her life of trying to find bras that fit that aren't in Pooh Bear packaging.
Excerpt: Godzilla Boobs and Waiting Rooms
This is not a story about my brother.
We used to clamber for the last bench-row of the mustard-colored, grey-mottled, red-splashed, and green-moldy vans that Dad would park in the driveway. They were always different on the outside, but inside they always smelled like a mixture of leather and patchouli. He taught at an Establishment for Troubled Youth, which really meant School for Juvenile Delinquents which really meant Juvie. It was small -- the sort of place where the kids were on a first or nick-name basis with the teachers, who also had to drive the Dodge Ram buses.
We'd rush for the back row whenever it was time for him to drop us off at our elementary school during his runs. Always, no matter which van it was that week, the back would be the best place. Worst springs. Worst words scratched into the seat-back. We'd whisper and chant them, string them over our tongues like rosary beads.
The worst words were our secret.
The kids we'd pick up were covered in safety pins and had black-lined eyes, long coats, big boots. We were their worshipers. They, our gods who leaned back next to us, their History teacher's Good Kids™. Because to them, we were Good.
We stared at them. They tried not to stare at us. Well, at him. Alex. His--
But this is not a story about my brother.
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