The End is Where We Begin

That's a really good song by the way, but I'm not doing a blog post about it. But I thought I'd use it as the title, since I've really done very little posting about The Dynamic Duo, and now here it is, the first draft is finished. So, the end is where I'm beginning your serious exposure to it.

This was the first ever attempt I made at doing Camp NaNo, and I didn't except it to go very well quite honestly. I did end up lowering my word count goal, but that turned out just fine because I didn't have enough scenes to make it any longer. The finished product ended up at 23,544 words long- pretty short for my first drafts, but also very long compared to what I usually get wrote in a month. And I'm not worried about it being a 20K word YA novel, because I can already see where I'm going to add more scenes. And a lot more grit. It needs more nitty gritty, and I need to bring the theme out a little more strongly at points. Overall though, I'm absolutely thrilled with how it turned out.

*spoiler alert* There may be some spoilers in this next stuff. I will leave out any names on the big stuff, but if you don't want some plot points spoiled, better to just skip down a ways.

I made my word count goal (20,000) about two or three days before camp ended, but I really wanted to try to finish the whole draft. I almost didn't make it, when the last day I was debating if one or two characters should die. I had been asking Minion 1 for weeks and she kept pushing me off telling me that I wasn't that far along yet. Then she told me
"The reader side of me says let *** live, but the John Green side of me says kill them all."
While I really loved the quote, that didn't help me, so I decided to let *** live. On the last day, I told her my decision and she got mad. Like she literally huffed, and crossed her arms and said "Fine."
So I finally got her to tell me for certain what she thought would be the best ending and I went with that. The last few pages of the story are written so sloppily, but at the bottom of the page I did get The End scribbled out, and according to the note I made, I finished it at 11:14 PM on July 31st.

*throws confetti*

*End spoiler alert*

 

 

Would you guys like a few more snippets? If not, you can close the tab, cause that's what I'm posting.

 

 

"Aren't you going to ask about talking to Leslie?"

Anthony spun the spatula around. "No, I wasn't going to. But since you brought it up, how was your lunch conversation?"


The corner of Mark's mouth curled up. "It was good. She's easy to talk to. She rolls with whatever and doesn't make things too awkward."

Anthony flipped the eggs carelessly. "Not too awkward. That's always a good thing."

 

 

"You're getting into dangerous water there boy. You sound like a fourteen year old."

"Fourteen year old yourself." Mark chuckled. "I'm not the one who's afraid of women."

Anthony hung up in the kitchen doorway and pointed his fork at him with a grin. "I'm not afraid of them. I've just washed my hands of their scheming ways." He slid his plate into the sink with the others and came out. "Besides, you of all people should know that I'm not any older than ten."

 

 

"I mean, why'd you have to pick the crazy chick?"

"She's not crazy." Mark huffed, folding his arms.

"She's from Colorado."

"You know that doesn't make any difference."

"She's got pink hair." Anthony countered. "And has weird taste in music. And smiles all the time."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "You're really desperate aren't you?"

"She smiles about everything."

 

 

Voices met her as she walked in. "The only colors I can find are black, yellow, and blue. I guess we'll have to draw bumble bees flying in the sky."

Leslie almost laughed at the absurd sounding comment.

"Anthony?" Mark asked, his voice curious as he moved into the living room. Leslie followed him in. Anthony looked up from his sprawled position on the floor. A little boy was flopped down next to him with a notebook, gripping an ink pen, highlighter, and permanent marker in a pudgy fist.

 

Anthony watched Shane munch on the french-fries and glanced up when Mark came in. "Thanks for supper."

Mark nodded and knelt down next to the recliner. "If I'd known ahead of time I would have brought a kid's meal."

Anthony nodded. "Yeah, the toy was sorely missed. We've been playing with sock balls and State Farm magnets all day."

 

 

"Was she pretty? Did you see her?"

Anthony didn't know why Mark always had so many questions. Even the prettiest woman was no reason to leave your kids stranded in a sludge hole. "Yeah, she came. She was fine, if you like fake baked ashtrays."

 

 

"I'm thinking about dying my hair again. I saw this color online that was like dark brown with crimson highlights. Do you think that would be cool?"

Mark nodded and she felt a strange surge of happiness. He was willing to talk about hair color. He was the one. Tumblr would say "Marry that boy".