This is one entry of the story I am drafting — and sharing — during NaNoWriMo. It’s my first real go at writing fiction, and it’s fast paced without looking back. Read accordingly. It is not planned, but continues to reveal itself as I write. I hope you are as thrilled reading it as I am writing it.

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When Declan awoke, he took from his pack the journal he had packed, a blank journal he had stopped at a Target to purchase, with the hope that he might write within the pages of the journal his way to healing, to grieving, and ultimately to assuming the best he could find within himself to begin his new life together with his daughter.

He pulled it into the bivy sac with him, along with the pen he had also packed with it. He opened it to its first page, and on the blank, open white, non-ruled inside cover, Declan wrote:

“For Amber. For Emma Kate. For Myself. For Us”

And then DEclan set himself to write. And he then found he couldn’t write. Something about the blank white page stopped him. It’s blank canvas intimidated him, and as he tried to write, he discovered that there was something more permanent about trying to write this down. There was something about transribing his thoughts the paper that made him gfeel it must be more processed to finalize it to paper, more thought out than a simple stream of confused thoughts. If he wrote it, it was there. If he thought it, he could let it go. If he wrote it, he might have to face it again. If he only thought it, he could forget it, possibly. If he wrote it, he felt Amber deserved more than a bunch of jibberish in textual form, scribbles pretending to be something of meaning, of value to her, to them.

And Declan continued to stare at the blank paper.

“Come on, Declan,” he said to himself. “Just write what comes. You know this will be, could be good. You just have to write what comes. Process it.” Declan continued staring at the empty first page. Damn it, Declan, he thought to himself, damn it.

He looked back to what he had written, took a deep breath, and spoke, “For Amber. For Emma Kate.”

—-

Previously:

It was a warm, mildly humid day. The sun, its heat having broken the mild cloud cover that was previously above, was dropping from its apex above where they stood, looking out over a plush green valley of trees, a collage of evergreen and deciduous trees. The light of the sun seemed to sparkle across the valley where it reflected upon newly fallen rain, bouncing from its arc it traveled through the sky to their eyes. The freshly fallen rain already began its fresh ascent back into the sky, slowly pressing in on the air all around in the August heat, like it was trapped inside a container yet continued to to expand.

Declan and Amber stood there, looking out it all, each taking it all in in each their own way.

“Amber?”

“Yeah, Dec,” Amber replied.

“Will you love me forever?”

“Yes, I will. You can’t stop me either.”

“Me, too.”

“You, too, what Declan?”

“Me, too. I’ll love you forever.”

“Good. You don’t really have a choice.”

“I know. But you do, don;t you?”

“Hmm… I don’t think so, Dec.” Amber replied. “I’m pretty sure you’re it, there, Baby Cakes.”

“Baby Cakes. That’s a new one.”

“Yeah, I figured mid-sentence I’d give it a try. Thoughts?”

“None. I’ll accept whatever you’ll call me.” was Declan’s reply.

—-

Come on, Declan, he said to himself, jsut write whatever comes to your mind. Don’t worry about what it says or what it means or how ready it is to be a n expressed thought. Just express. Express.

Declan began writing:

Amber, on this rock where we once stood

I now lie, and I hide from the good

that is within myself, that I may find to be true,

and that I won’t allow myself to know to be true.

I miss you. I miss you. I miss you so much.

“Thi

#No, this isn;t it. Scratch this. Something else. But dafted words are drafted words in NaNoWriMo ;-)#

Declan longed to be a writer, to be a published writer, to be a writer that made a living off of writing. This nowledge was the long, slow growing realization of a seed planted as a child. Declan had loved stories. Loved telling stories, and when he could, loved writing stories. One day his grandfather had told him, “You, my Declan, are a storyteller. Tell the world your stories. The world needs them.”

Declan had spent so many nights throughout middle and high school writing, crafting stories, writing about his days, writing essays about his views of hte world, his takes on various affairs. Whatever. If it sparked a thought in Declan,he had written it. If it was important to Declan he wrote more about it. If it wsn’t, then it became a breif mention in his daily journal. Bt either way, Declan wrote, always, all the time, everyday, without fail, always writing, always putting pen to paper, always thought to text, always expressing and allowing words to freely give shape to the thoughts from his mind.

Yet Declan never thought himself to be a writer, despite people along his path telling him otherwise. His eighth grade English teacher was one. She often encouraged him to continue his writing, had spent extra careful time supporting his development. Mrs. Peters, a high school intern English teacher, had encouraged the writer within, had seen a gift within him and told him this, clearly, outright, often.

Yet Declan never thought of himself as a writer, never realized the pssiblity of being a “writer.” Even when Amber had read some of his stories, had told him repeatedly that he should try to enter them for publication, for writing contests even. How many times had Amber, over the previous seven years, tried to get Declan to “write like you used to.”? And how many times had Declan thought about writing, but didn’t. What had happened? What was it that stopped him from doing so. It seemed harmless enough. Time to do something? Why not write? Simple.

But not so for Declan. Yet neither he, nor Amber, nor the few other friends that Declan had previously shared his writing with, none of them could convince Declan to do something more with it. None of them.

Why?

#I don’t know. I just know that it seems like some other compelx character point to make here at this point in this “story” that I am trying to write for NaNoWriMo, but which I keep finding myself stumped on in terms of where to go from here, or from there. Thus I speak as a storyteller telling the story of an aspiring writer aspiring to write, to discuver without any plans the essense of story through fifty thousand words. And as these current words approach forty thousand, I can’t help but wonder if breaking the fifty mark will then, maybe, setme free to finish this, without the crunch to race through it. Still time, one might say? Yes, there is, but not as much as it seems. This must be done for me by early next week for I travel to visit family Thanksgiving weekend, and can not promisemyself the time and space to write freely during those days. Thus I’ve set a goal: 50 K by mid-to-late week this week. Yet I have little idea where to go with Declan, with Mr. Jacobs, Haley and her parents, or Reggie. And no, Declan is not me. Declan’s writing background is the one I wish I had, for I wish I had written so much when I was younger. I always loved writing, but never “jsut wrote”. I did have teachers who encouraged myw riting, who told me I had a bit of a gift for writing, which I am not so sure iscomeing throgh in any way through this text, this attempt at frleshing out some imitation of ficton, of a story. Can these words even count for my word count? They’re not fiction. OR are they? Huh? Huh?

What is this is Declan thinking about the characters he’s written about, while writing ficitonally about his life if it changed directions, if his wife had died after he left, having said, “Fuck you!” before leaving, when in fact she had not, and perhaps he hand’t even said that but had owndered what would happen if he did.

Could the “novel” flip upside down to be a first-person telling of a fictional character, Declan, trying to find thewriter within himslef? This, this could be somewhat autobiographical, or not. So, here’s a new take, a new character, wth the hope that they somehow might merge or might not, but in some way be part of a novel, or not. Does it count if it’s 50,000 words of fiction while trying to write a story? I think so, right? So here goes, a first-person, fictional narrative of an aspiring writer…Besides, I really want to try some first-person writing. Oh, and I will not count these 400+ words in my word count. They’re not fiction. They’re my notes.#

My name is Ryan, and I want to be a writer. I don’t yet know what that means, exactly, to be a writer. I just know I want to be one. Badly. With all my being. I can’t quite say exactly why, but I just know I want to. To write. I want to write. And, well, if I could find my lottery ticket in the form of a best seller, then that would just be peachy keen, and then some. And if not, well, then… Well, I would have to accept that I didn’t find my lottery ticket, then, I guess. That would suck. It would really suck, because I want to be a writer.

When I was in seventh grade, I had to write a short story. I was free to write any story I wanted to write, but I just had to write one. I struggled to do so, but once I did, I loved it. Here, I’ll see if I can find it in my bin of old stuff, the one I consoldiated my stuff from my parent’s home to just before it foreclosed on them, when I was twenty-five. Yeah, I don’t have much from my childhood. There wasn’t much to hold onto, or worth holding onto, that is. But I have what I have, and I think that is one of the things I have. I’m not sure, though, because I hven’t looked into there in a number of years. Wait, I’ll be right back.

Okay, guess what? I found it! Holy shit, I can’t believe I have it. It’s right here. Okay, listen, and I’ll read it to you.

There was a guy named Joe. Joe was a video game master. He could beat Super Mario Bros. right into the third world. And Joe had beaten the first world of The Legend of Zelda three times, and the second world two times. One day, Joe was playing a simple game of Donkey Kong on his Nintendo when something happened. Joe felt a rumble from downstairs. Then Joe felt another rumble from the attic, and all of a sudden, Crash! Boom! Bam! a huge barrel came crashing through the ceiling almost above Joe and his bed that he was sitting on while playing his games.

I really liked this idea I came up with. It was fun. Oh, ok, yeah, the story. I’ll get back to that. Ready?

“Joe jumped out of the way just in time, before the barrel destroyed his bed, splintering its frame into a million little pieces.”

You know what’s crazy? I remember my teacher helpng me change that word to splintering. I had written something like “the wood cracked,” but she helped me choose a single word to convey the meaning more clearly anc concisely. She was a good teacher like that. Okay, here’s the story again.

When Joe jumped, he crashed his body into his desk and the shelf that sat on it. This caused all the stuff on it to fall. And the barrel rolled toward his wall and crashed throuhg tot he outside, where it continued to fall and roll, all the way down the street. It knocked over the Uprights’ mailbox along the way.

The Uprights were our neighbors then. Our neighbor on the other side called them that because any time they drove by, they were always sitting up really straight, and they never looked at or waved to any of us other neighbors. I know, I know, get back to the story. Okay.

“Joe looked out the hole from his room which was two stories above the ground. He couldn’t believe what was happening. All of a sudden he heard another rumble from above. He turned, looked, and down came another huge barrel. It turned in midair and before he could move its open end went right over him, trapping him in the barrel. It tipped and Joe screamed, “No!” Now Joe was falling with the barrel, while he was inside of it. When it hit the ground, he thought he was going to die because the hit was so hard. But he didn’t die.

Joe started to roll around and around, and he was getting dizzy. So he pushed himself out of the barrel and came rolling out into his yard. When he tried to stand up, he fell bac down because he was so dizzy. After a moment, he was able to stand. He looked up, and he saw what was happening.

Somehow, Donkey Kong had come to life above Jim’s house. And Donkey Kong was throwing barrels down at Jim. Jim couldn’t believe his eyes. But Donkey Kong was definitely throwing barrels down at him. As Jim jumped to the side to avoid being hit by the next barrel, he saw someone next to Donkey Kong. It was a girl.

“Help, Jim! Save me!” It was Wendy! Wendy didn’t know it, but Jim was in love with Wendy. And now, for some reason, Wendy was trapped by Donkey Kong above Jim’s house. Jim knew he had to do something. He looked around. He dodged another barrel. Then he ran toward the house.

Once back inside, he ran into the kitchen and grabbed the bunch of bananas that his step-mother had bought. He then ran with those up the stairs. He dodged another barrel that came crashing through the ceiling and then through the floor next to him.

“That was close!” Jim yelled. He kept going up the stairs, and he pulled down the ladder to the attic. “I’m glad he didn’t bust these,” Said Jim. Just as Jim got up into the attic, a barrel came straight down at him and smashed the ladder he had just climbed.

“Whoa!” Jim said.

Jim looked around while continuing to check through the holes in the roof for Donkey Kong’s next throw. Then he saw how he could get up to the roof. The roof boards had made a ramp to the roof where one of the barrels had gone through. Jim started to climb those, and he peeked his head out of the roof toward Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong was looking down the other holes for Jim.

Jim unpeeled a banana and tossed the peel out onto the roof between him and Donkey Kong. He unpeeled another one and threw it, too. And another. And another.

Wendy was looking for Jim, too, and saw him and what he was doing. She smiled at him. He smiled back. Then he tried to look tough for Donkey Kong.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” said Jim. “Hey, you big baboon! Want a banana?” And Jim held up the two bananas that were left. As Donkey Kong stomped toward Jim, he threw them up into the air with as much strength as he could. Donkey Kong tried to reach for them. When he did he didn’t see the banana peels. One more step and Slip! Slip! Donkey Kong did a Charlie Brown up into the air and fell down the side of the house, just past where Jim had climbed to the roof.

“Jim, you did it! You’re my hero!”

Jim ran up to untie Wendy from the roof board that Donkey Kong tied her to. She reached out her hands, hugged Jim, and then she kissed him. And they lived happily ever after.

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