For November, This Beautiful Sentence will be slightly different. Instead of focusing on other authors’ words I’ve found beautiful, for NaNoWriMo month I’ll be pulling out four of my favorite passages I’ve written during previous NaNoWriMos. When you’re rushing to write 50,000 words in a month, a lot of that material isn’t great, but every once in a while something bright shines through the pile of rubble.
Last week was from 2020. This one is a comedy passage from 2021’s NaNoWriMo:
Eileen, Richard, Karl, and Colleen were all in the kitchen. All that was missing was the Mystery Machine, which was parked out back with Orion taking his early afternoon doggy nap inside.
Eileen said, “Hey, Karl, what’s that little concrete building at the far corner of the running trail? I’ve run by it a hundred times and still can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be.”
Karl shrugged and said, “Which one?”
“The one on the hangar side.”
“I have no idea.”
“You don’t know what’s on your own land?”
“I only moved in six months before you did. I still barely know anything about what’s here. I know the one on the other side is an old generator-driven wellhouse, but I haven’t bothered to poke my head inside the one you’re talking about yet.”
“Haven’t you been curious?”
“Well, of course. I’ve just been too busy.”
Richard laughed. “Too busy?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a lot on my plate.”
“You? How? You don’t work. All you do is sit around collecting investment dividends and occasionally dropping in on board of directors’ meetings for the free food.”
“You’d be busy too if you had more money than you know what to do with and the attention span of a wind-up metronome.”
“But I do have more money than I know what to do with now, thanks to you.”
“Right, but you have the focus of a laser and the attention span of… I don’t know. Something with an attention span.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“No, but it lets you take one thing at a time. It’s easier for you.”
“Easier?”
“Yeah. Things are always popping into my head. I’m always chasing new squirrels around the yard. I’ll be in the middle of one thing and then something else will barge in. My life is like going to a Montessori boarding school run by meth heads.”
Eileen spit out the milk she had been drinking.
Karl said, “I knew I’d get you one of these days!”
She flipped him off while wiping off the front of her blouse, still laughing.
Richard said, “Maybe you should take up a hobby.” He turned to Colleen. “Don’t you have something that can make him focus?”
Colleen said, “Good luck, morons.”
“What?”
She looked up from her laptop. “Oh, sorry. I was just reading the headline of an article here. Were you talking to me?”
Richard said, “Yeah. I’m trying to get Karl to focus.”
“Well, like I said, good luck.”
Eileen walked over and sat down next to Colleen, intrigued to find out what kind of a story would have a headline like that.
Richard said, “But you’re a nurse. Don’t you have a pill he could take or something?”
Colleen said, “Well, we tried Adderall, but it just made him drowsy. And boring.”
Karl said, “But you wouldn’t believe how much stuff I got done when I was on it.”
Richard said, “Like what?”
“I have no idea. But I sure got a lot of it done.”
“Maybe you should try woodworking. I hear that’s great for concentration.”
“I did. I loved it. I’m the one who restored those carousel horses.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“Fire department.”
Last week: One of my own favorite passages from NaNoWriMo 2020
Next week: One of my own favorite passages from NaNoWriMo 2022
This Beautiful Sentence will be going back to normal on Wednesday, December 4th. The quotation will be by a mystery author. Not an author of mysteries, but an author who is famous throughout the world who you’ll have to guess about!
See the index for what’s been posted and what’s to come.
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