Shards and Phractures

In honor of Nano this year, I'm posting a series of snippets from my past attempts at Nano.  This one is the opening pages from 2007.   -=ad=-   He stepped onto the mountain top just as the first gleams of sunlight appeared on the horizon.  He had hiked in the dark for nearly five hours to reach this point, to prove to himself that this was the spot he wanted; and for that, he had to see how it looked as the sun rose.  He had barely made it. Exhausted, he dropped his duffel, collapsed onto a rock, and let his eyes take in the surroundings as the dawn light illuminated them.  There were rocks and boulders galore, with a few patches of snow decorating them, the last survivors of a long, cold winter.  Further, beyond the cliff face, he could see for miles, and there wasn't a single sign of civilization. A bright flash of color caught his eye.  Not ten feet from where he sat, an early bird of a spring flower had forced it's way through a patch of snow....

In honor of Nano 2009, here's another snippet, another dream scene from Tangler.   -=ad=-   ...he was sitting in class, and the clock was frozen...fifteen minutes until the end of class, and the clock hand just didn't seem to be moving. The teacher was droning on in his usual fashion, and Joey was trying desperately to take notes; the teacher was moving much too quickly for him to get everything, but he was at least trying to keep up. "Node line intersections are points of great power," he wrote. "Interstitial connection lines, conversely, are hazardous to traverse." He let his pen travel across the page on its own, and let his eyes travel to the window. The drone of the teacher's voice faded as he looked out at the sun-swept playground. It would be so much nicer to be there than here, he thought. With a sigh, he turned back to his page. He looked, but he couldn't find the sentence he had just written. What was on his paper now was "Man, this...

In honor of Nano this year, I'd like to offer up a few tidbits...a random sampling of the random dribblings that trickle out of that word-generating subsection of the grey matter in the back of my head. This piece is from the beginning of my very first shot at a Nano challenge. -=ad=- There was blood on his knuckles, but not on his face. The school bully was on the ground in front of him, eye already swollen shut, blood running from his nose and lip and tears streaming from his eyes. Beyond the bully, Joey's little brother Mick was getting to his feet, brushing the dirt from his clothes and face. He looked up adoringly to his brother. And beyond him-- ...beyond him was the green-eyed girl, and the look she gave when their eyes met was electric. The bully got to hands and knees, and looked up at Joey with raw, undisguised hatred. His face was long and narrow, with thin lips below ice-grey eyes and greasy curly black hair. He got to one foot, and Joey put his hand...