Writing Like Crazed Banshee

Daily Stats
Words: 1600
Nanowrimo Novel Word Count: 6904
Caffeine: morning cup (so far...)
Evil Calories: massive amounts of chocolate
Reality TV: suspended due to Nanowrimo

Ok, I know I was poking fun at all those Nanowrimoers who were doing word sprints yesterday, but after the amusement faded, I saw it as a really good idea. So, I'm going to give it a shot today. So, instead of gracing you with my glorious wit, I'm just going to post the first few paragraphs of my first chapter. It's rough and in desperate need of editing/revisions, but remember, the whole point of Nanowrimo is to just write and never look back.

Anastasia Greene is a forgettable girl.

So forgettable that she’s been hiding in the ladies room on the 23rd floor of the Hugo R. Cranker building on 4th Avenue in Seattle’s trendy Belltown district for exactly two hours, twelve minutes and eight seconds now without anyone running in frantically to see if she’s fallen in. Just muffled voices drifting past the bathroom door conversing about random things such as bad reality TV or the receptionist’s horrid new perm. Topics of the utmost urgency, of course. Things much more vital than, “where on earth is Ann, she’s been missing for hours.”

Anastasia lets out a sigh as she sits propped on the toilet seat with her feet tucked safely underneath her so if anyone were to come in they would be oblivious to her presence. (Yes, she wished someone would come looking for her, but that didn’t necessarily mean she wanted to be found.) She stares at the dingy stall door painted the color of smokers skin, pinkish-grey and morbidly dull. Why on earth would anyone choose that color, she thinks to herself. But then it occurred to her that perhaps the point is to move people through quickly. Paint a bathroom a warm, soothing color, and perhaps she wouldn’t be alone.

She buries her face in her hands and focuses on the hissing of the florescent lights overhead, trying to drown out the tiny voice in her head relentlessly egging her on. “They chose you. They chose you. They chose you.”

Her eyelashes tickle her palms as she looks at the world through the gaps between her fingers. How much easier would it be to face things just like this? She could walk right out of here and straight to the conference room and suffer through the meeting only seeing a sliver of the world, a corner of an ear or a single nostril of the brooding faces that are delivering her fate.

Anastasia likes to hide. It’s an innate response she caters to whenever possible. Once, when she was in fifth grade, she hid in the supply closet outside Mrs. Cobb’s class for most of the day. She’d just gotten braces, and though she’d already prepared herself for all the “brace-face”, “metal-mouth” comments her sister warned her about, she wasn’t prepared for the potential wardrobe malfunctions, and without thinking, tried to wipe her nose with her sleeve and got a strand from her sweater caught in the wire on her front tooth. Trying to pull it out only made it worse, and she ended up with half her sweater unraveled. No one ever came to look for her, though. No one ever discovered her wound up in Kelly green yarn, crying of embarrassment and so hungry she actually nibbled on the end of an eraser.

Like I said, Anastasia Greene is a forgettable girl.