BEWARE THE NANO BEAST

Today marks the halfway point for Camp NaNoWriMo. You've made it this far, so I know you have the strength to survive fifteen more days of this madness. BRING ON THE CAFFEINE.

It's 10:00pm as I write this (and now after 1:00am as I edit this). I may have completely forgotten about my blog post until now. So I decided to throw together a lil' flash fiction featuring NaNoWriMo, and use this opportunity to try out second person! So here goes nothing. It might be a little rough, but... it's NaNo. xD

You are writing.

This isn't anything new -- you are always writing. It is night. You are hunched over your dim screen, fingers flying across the keyboard, the faulty space-bar key partially handicapping your speed. There is a burning candle beside you, and it smells faintly of pine trees and oranges. There's soft music in your ears, fuzzy socks on your feet, and a giant blanket wrapped around your legs.

All of this is normal.

But what isn't normal, is your writing location. Tonight you are not typing in silence with fear that you might wake your sleeping family. No, tonight you are at a camp, and not just any camp.

You are at Camp NaNoWriMo -- where your days are spent discussing with other writers, bettering your plot, squealing over characters. There are endless amounts of food, purely for the sake of "fueling creativity." When night falls, you retreat back to your one-person cabin. You leave the window open in hope that a group of writers will pass by and you can chat with them.

But tonight no one comes. Tonight you are alone.

You resort to your characters to make up for the lack of human interaction. The words are coming along fine, but as your mind wanders around with the plot, something begins to feel amiss.

Thump, thump.

The noise is quiet at first, and you almost mistake it for the drums in your music. You choose to ignore it and keep writing. (bad decision.)

It sounds again, and louder this time. You pause the music and it continues -- thump, thump, thump. Wind slides into the cabin through the open window, and battles with the flickering candlelight. You think back to a conversation with some of your fellow campers. They spoke of terrible monsters -- NaNo beasts and creatures that will let nothing stop them.

Thud, thump, thud. 

The sound is coming from outside your door. Do you dare explore the noise? You don't have a weapon, so instead you grab the biggest book from your shelf and creep forward.

Your heart is pounding loudly, mixing with the mysterious sounds from outside. What if this is the end? What if you're just one of the unfortunate few to fall prey to this hideous beast?

You place your hand around the doorknob, gripping the book with your other. The door creaks as it opens. Your mind flashes and fantasizes with different, horrifying, possibilities: 

-- towering, snarling, murdering monster. blood dripping from fangs. razor-like claws. scratches oozing with green liquid. ready to attack, ready to capture, ready to kill --

You look out.

Nothing's there. Just the wind and the trees and the quiet tap, tap, tap of clicking keyboards.

But that can't be. You definitely heard something. You peer out, and, finally, before heading back inside, lower your gaze.

It's a bunny. 

A bunny, foot thumping on the ground.

You almost let out a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. To think that you were making all this fuss over a little rabbit?

This bunny, however, is different. As you bend down and stare into its eyes, you realize they're red. It's teeth are a little longer and a little sharper than normal bunny's teeth would be. Before you have a chance to protest, it jumps into your cabin.

Whispers sound, and you see a crowd of campers forming.

"Oh... that poor soul."
"Never going to recover from this."
" -- Until the next one comes."
"Mid-NaNo Crisis in three, two..."

"It's the dreaded plot bunny!"

You follow the bunny into the cabin. "I don't want you!" you try to scream as it jumps into your lap. "I already have my story. I don't need you!"

But the bunny just smiles -- a seemingly evil smile for such an innocent creature -- and makes itself comfortable. Resistance is impossible. You're trapped with one of the writer's greatest enemies: the plot bunny.

Frantic, you bolt to your bookshelf, pulling out your NaNo handbook. You find "plot bunny" in the glossary. 

Definition: a story idea that refuses to go away until it is written.

You read a little farther, and to your great relief, find that there's a cure.

Cure: another plot bunny.

And so your life of a writer officially begins... and may never end.

-

(I know this ends rather suddenly and feels incomplete but I feel like it's applicable to a writer's life and the struggles with the ever distraction plot bunnies #writerslife)

This short story was partially inspired because a couple days ago I had my own plot bunny wander up to me. -.- I'm actually very thankful -- I had been struggling with the characters and this new plot line will help the story immensely. It will also just involve lots of rewriting. xD

Happy NaNo-ing!

<3,
katie grace

how's camp going?

are you one of those writers with endless plot bunnies?