A Note to the Reader

Every year, starting on the first day of November, thousands of insane individuals around the world band together to start a single joyous undertaking, that of writing, each and every one of them, a fifty thousand word novel by the end of November. We call this undertaking National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, or NaNo for shorter.

To explain the "National" part, when the undertaking is clearly international, I have two possible explanations. One: The original NaNoNuts had no idea at all that this thing would even continue for more than a year or two, let alone bewitch writers around the globe, and so thought too small, or Two: The original NaNoNuts, being American, have no concept that the rest of the world is not part of the United States, and so believe that "national" is the correct description. It doesn't really matter. InNaNoWriMo (for InterNational Novel Writing Month) would be just too ridiculous to say, so let's just leave well enough alone, and call it NaNo, like everyone else does.

The novel I wrote this year isn't fit for publication, and won't ever be, no matter how much I edit, because I've quite liberally, and without any guilt whatsoever, borrowed from the copyrighted works of others. So if you're reading this, consider yourself amongst the privileged (or perhaps unlucky?) few.

I learned a lot this past November. I learned that writing, even when it's not going well, not only can be fun, but should be fun. I learned that I'm not a tortoise. I'm a hare. I need to sprint like mad some days, and rest my brain on other days. I've learned that two days of sprinting per week will produce a word count that's higher than that of most of the plodding tortoises out there, and that if I can continue with at least that many sprints per week, I can realize my dream of becoming a professional novelist.

I've learned that my house doesn't have to be messy, and my kids don't have to eat take out, and the laundry doesn't have to pile up to the ceiling for that dream to come true, either. I've been keeping up with (and even catching up with) all the housework I need to do, and it all happens on my sprint days, not on my "off" days. I'm focussed, I'm happy, and hopefully, by this time next year, I'll have another novel or two to show you.

Some of my friends started their month with detailed outlines that meant that all they had to do this month to produce the desired word count was fill in the blanks. Others started with a vague understanding of the characters, setting and plot that would become the novel. I started with a dare or three.

There's a whole thread up on the NaNo forums, where people dare each other to put random and sometimes very silly things into their novels. Like, "Have a character killed in a freak trombone accident," and, "Have the conductor of an orchestra hold her breath so that she passes out, and nobody but someone sitting in the string section notices it, and goes to poke the conductor with her bow," and, "Start your novel with the sentence, 'Where the hell are my pants?'"
And there you have it - the entire plot of my novel, such as it was, on the first of November.

Of course, I did have a wee bit of an idea how to proceed from there. First off, as my boss (who just happens to play both trumpet and trombone) says, I have a thing against brass players. Particularly trumpet players. Particularly trumpet players who sit behind the viola players and, when the conductor is trying to talk to the rest of the orchestra, talk to each other, or worse, play little ditties on their trumpets while I am trying to listen to the conductor. So the freak trombone accident became, "Death by Trumpet," and I never looked back.

The second thing you need to know is that I've inserted, at random points, the names and characteristics of some of my writer friends who frequent the Absolute Write Water Cooler. It was a dare on our very first NaNo together, and it's remained a tradition: they're in my novel, and I'm in some of theirs. It helps that this year, one of my friends 'outed' herself as a conductor, and that the ferret, the Chihuahua, and the bunny make wonderful villains. You also need to know that over the past year, many of us at the Cooler have developed a lolcat addiction, to the point where some of us are actually followers of Ceiling Cat. (The ferret is staunchly anti-lolcat, and so does the bidding of Basement Cat without even being aware of it.)If you're from the Cooler, and you read this and find you're not in my novel, don't worry. I'm not about to stop writing. :) You'll end up there next year.

This story is about two ordinary people (and two not-so-ordinary people) who find themselves thrust into fantastic worlds. It began, for me, as a fun way to get past my writers' block, and turned into a voyage of self-discovery. For the characters, it turned from a random series of events into an adventure that would change their lives. I hope it will do that for you too, if only in a small way.

And now, without further ado, I give you Death by Trumpet. Enjoy!