Well, I did it! I broke 50k today, and I've gone beyond. 56,519 words so far. I wrote 7,330 today, passing my 7,000-word goal.
I'm afraid I've stopped writing with any seriousness at all. The
"Rita" chapter is turning out to be some
Thelma & Louise-esque vacation story in which Angel reveals she's a multi-millionaire and suggests the two of them take a two-month vacation when their husbands are called away on duty overseas.
They've just had makeovers, and now they're heading to something called a "bolt line" which will be some kind of high fashion assembly line.
Anyway, it's bizarre, and a little dark, and a little frightening, and a little lush, and a little inappropriate, so these nonsense chapters will never see the light of day. But it'll get me through to the end of November, and I do think we have a fighting chance of beating Connecticut, so we'll see.
I think I'm taking advantage of this exercise in free-write and free-imagining, which was really supposed to be the point to begin with.
That's
NaNoWriMo for you, though. Learn something new every year.
But I'm really surprising myself, the way my imagination can stretch. I'm such a realist when it comes to creative writing. I never test the conventions of decency, the boundaries of character, or the laws of physics. I respect the world I live in, and I function within it. To this point, I've respected the fictitious worlds I've created, and I've written my characters to function within them. Art mimics life.
But I'm done with that this time. I'm allowing my characters to make selfish choices, to be selfish, shallow people. I'm allowing them to meet strange, eerie characters from whom I'd run screaming if I were to encounter them in real life. I'm allowing myself to create a euphorically materialistic wonderland where everyone is beautiful and the world is an oyster.
And it's fun.
An exerpt:
Miss Francesca returned with the pink-coated girl who greeted us. The girl smiled again and stepped in close to Miss Francesca’s elbow.
“Very good,” Miss Francesca said. “Daily, please see that all my things are in order.”
Daily nodded and made her way to a standing rack of shelves on the wall. She grasped the rack and rolled it across the room to within Miss Francesca’s reach.
Next, Daily poked her fingers into a hole in the corner of the long tabletop. She tugged, and the tabletop opened up to reveal thousands of cosmetic cases lined up in neatly tiered little rows. There were rouges and lipsticks, mascaras and shadows. There were liners of all shades, brushes of all sizes. There were cotton balls and cotton swabs and tissue and sponges. There were false eyelashes and false eyebrows and even tiny cups the size of a fingertip, made of a strange film and in all the colors of the rainbow.
I fought to conceal my amazement, but I suspect Miss Francesca saw it anyway. She smiled smugly and waved her hand over the array.
“This, girls, is the sum of a lifetime’s worth of study. I have toiled away behind the walls of this little shop, and I’ve created the largest and most coveted collection of cosmetics in the world.
“With this,” she waved, “I am able to take any woman on the planet and transform her into a beauty that vies that of even Aphrodite herself. And this is what I shall do for you.”
“You are an artist’s artist,” Angel said proudly.
“Thank you, you darling sweetheart. Daily....”
“Yes, Miss Francesca?”
“Give the girls a good swabbing while I prepare their palettes.”
“Yes, Miss Francesca.”
Daily withdrew a large pink canister and a jar of cotton balls from the table and seated herself between Angel and me. She twisted the lid off and inside was a pink cream.
She scooped up a large portion of the cream and smeared it over Angel’s face, then mine. It smelled of roses and cucumbers, and my skin began to tingle under the thick layer of it. In seconds, the tingling was replaced by a sensation of tightening, and I saw the cream on Angel’s face begin to harden.
Daily tossed the cotton balls into a white wastebasket, and she returned the canister to the table. When she was seated between us again, she watched her watch as two minutes or so passed.
“Alright,” Daily said. She placed her fingers at the edge of the cream on Angel’s face, and she tugged. The cream had hardened to a mask, and Daily peeled it off in one swift but gentle motion.
Again, I was awed. Angel looked ten years younger. Her skin looked as smooth as I imagine it did when she was a child. There were no dark circles under her eyes, no wrinkles at the corners of her cheeks, no lines around her mouth. Her skin was flawless.
Daily turned to me next. I felt her fingers grazed the skin at my hairline, and when she tugged, the mask that was a cream came off of my skin in one sheet.
Immediately, my face felt brand new. The air felt cool against my skin, and my skin felt light.
Angel smiled approvingly.
“Would you like to look?” Daily asked, and she handed pink hand mirrors to Angel and me.
Again, I did not recognize my own reflection. Like Angel’s, my skin was flawless. There was not a line or a wrinkle to be found. The color was fresh and even, and even my cheeks seemed fuller and more youthful.
Daily handed us two warm face towels. “Dab gently,” she said.
We did as we were told, and Miss Francesca turned, inspecting Daily’s work.“Fine work, Daily,” she said, satisfied. “Now, let’s begin.”
