adventures of a crazy cat lady

hello everyone!

so, nano. don’t worry. I think zombies have still eaten my brain (or maybe you should worry about that). either way, I’ve got an idea for nano.

years ago when I 1st started nano, I found a dare in the dares thread that I thought was great. basing the novel on the saying, "a picture’s worth a thousand words". so you collect 50 pictures and write 1000 words inspired by each picture, and complete a novel that way. and I always thought this was a neat idea, and that I’d do it if ever I didn’t have an idea. so this year I’m not writing in my universe. I reached 50000 but not the end of my novel last year, so I have no idea where my universe is headed right now. so I decided to do something different. I debated it for a while, and I finally decided to go ahead with the picture idea.

so I’m collecting pictures. which isn’t easy, since I don’t have a digital camera. also, my laptop is so antique I don’t have the memory (of any kind) or the hardware to load that many pictures on to it. plus it would never run Word if I had the picture open, let alone display the picture correctly. so I’m going to save all the pictures to a disk and go to walgreens and get them printed out.

I’ve got a few pictures I know will be great. I even have what I think will be my cover (that picture will also either be the 1st or last picture in the novel; haven’t decided yet). but what I need is more pictures, since there’s only a little more than a week till nano.

so I come requesting pictures. from some people I have specific requests. starandrea, may I use that beautiful sundog pic of Whinnie, please? nikkisilver, may I ask you to setup a picture of lnoe for me please? (if you’re willing, I’ll send you the details.)

from everyone else (and you two of course :) ), send me anything you think would be cool. I’d really like pictures you took yourself (not public domain pictures) because *you* will know the story behind the pictures and I’ll be amused by how far off my own story will probably be. (I may ask you questions about the pictures though.) and I’m trying to use pictures without people in them, so I’m not restricted on my characters (except for Whinnie of course). :)

all I know so far plot-wise is that my novel will involve a warehouse, sports, gaming, and zombies. and beer. I’m starting to think there will be much discussion on one’s perception of reality. nano should be very amusing. *grin*

so at the write-in tonight, I didn't feel up to working on editing anything. so I asked whirlingwhimsy for a prompt. she gave me, "stapler, m&m's, and yoda." I told her I would post it later tonight, so here it is.

it's so not like me to post little snippets I write like this. but I want to get into writing more, and I think it really helps to share. 'cause I should get into the spirit of being less uptight about the whole process. more nano-ish. less with thinking it to death, and more with the sharing.

so here it is. un-proofread. set in my nano universe, it's an Ella & Heather story. which means there are appearances by some of the oddly named secondary characters. the only backstory you really need on that is that Heather knows Ella's problem with names, so she just goes along with calling their friends by Ella's nicknames for them. (not to their faces, but to Ella at least.) also, amusingly I kinda contradict the location of part of my nano. but it's never stated in the actual novels, and I just think it in my head. so I don't think it's really a canon issue then.

on to the story. :)



title: "Tailgating On Dagobah"
universe: my nano universe (Ella & Heather's Earth)
wordcount: 1118 words
rating: PG
summary: a distinctive figure will lead them home, if the weather doesn't take it out first

( Tailgating On Dagobah )