NANOWRIMO IS COMING!

well, the site is going to be updated soon so we should start paying attention now.

this will be the third year we participate (we're doing it, right jes?!) but i think it'll be the first year i actually finish. you know, because of all that free time i have between grad school and a slow descent into alcoholism!

in honor of this special event, i'd like to share with you an excerpt from my first year's incomplete piece which i like to refer to as "that time i tried to write the robot story." it's not actually about a robot. well, the robot is a metaphor... okay whatever, the excerpt! the excerpt!

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It was Daft Punk’s Homework. And she had not heard it for quite some time. She had other discs which made daily rotation, among them most of the Ted Leo catalog and the Wrens. Her devotion to the Wrens was nearly as obsessive as her infrequent one track minded projects and her inability to get past broken relationships, but it was at the same time far more innocent and less damaging.

Jenna stopped in her anger and just let the initial thumps of bass take over her. She liked these little wormholes in time, the way songs could just kidnap her and bring her somewhere she would not have otherwise thought to go. She felt her ennui from the day slip through her arms, out of her fingertips and into the open space.

Beside her, the robot was mimicking the motions of relaxation. A robot, for the record, can never look relaxed and there has been much study into whether or not it is able to feel relaxed or feel anything at all. But the thump of the bass through the speakers shook something out of both of them that night.

Jenna turned, sensing the motion, turned. “This? You like this? I love this!” She jumped up and down, still trapped in the memories of her middle school self. “This is amazing.”

The robot stood still in the middle of the fish tank, lifting slightly up and down in place.

“Oh my god, you’re dancing!” Jenna screeched. “That’s amazing.”

She scanned the room for her camera, but then reminded herself there was no one she
could show the pictures to. “Dance robot! Dance like no one’s watching because no one is.”

Released from the rage of the day and the agony of the inimate object, Jenna slipped on the rubber gloves and lifted the robot out of the fish tank. She placed him into the makeshift crib and then stepped inside as well. The robot shuffled away from her, as if in fear. She bent down slowly, but kept her distance. Raising her yellow gloved hand in the universal sign of “hold on one second,” she demonstrated to her feet and then stood. She repeated the up and down motion that the robot had made and then began to dance. She paused and turned to let the robot know it was his turn.

She held her breath, not quite sure what would happen in the next moment.

She had not expected him to actually burst into the robot.

Knowing the moment was meant to be savored, she did the same.

And that was how Jenna finally broke through the language barrier.