NaNoWriMo Fever

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As I was sitting at the coffeehouse late yesterday afternoon, I realized that I was surrounded by others tapping furiously away on their own keyboards, each one comfortably settled at his or her own table. I wondered idly if they too were doing NaNoWriMo.

Sure enough, as I was packing away my things, I overheard one guy begin to chat up the girl sitting at a table across from him. My back was to them so I couldn’t see their faces or body language, but the boy’s interest in the girl was unmistakable.

He: So, how many words have you got?

She: Uhm, about ten thousand [or something like that].

He: Omigod, are you serious? That’s awesome!

She: Yeah, but I think I’m gonna start over ’cause the story’s not working for me. And I just started this new job, too.

He: Whaddya do?

She: Uhm, I work from home. I call these people who signed up for insurance and get information from them.

He: Hey, that’s cool. You get to work from home, huh?

She: Yeah, it’s a pretty good gig. [pause] What about you?

He: [Deep sigh] Ah, I’m one of a dying breed. Not many of us left anymore.

She: [noncommittal sound]

He: Yeah. I program Web sites. Not many of us around anymore. It’s like knitting, you know? Not many people take the time to do things like that. It’s a dying art.

She: [more noncommittal sounds] Hmm. That’s true.

He: Yeah. [More forgettable monologue about the dying art of knitting/programming Web sites. Yackety yack. Blah blah blah]

She: [thinking that she really ought to get back to work so that she can get her word count back up]

And that’s why my back is always to the room when I write at the coffeehouse.

MRA

One thought on “NaNoWriMo Fever

  1. LOL! What fun to read about an overhead conversation. Such is the stuff of fiction, what we writers observe, what we see and hear. 🙂 And right there you have it, why I write at home — I get so deep into my writing that if I worked out in public somewhere, I’d probably grunt like a Neanderthal if anyone tried to talk to me. Heh! That’s neat to know so many writers are doing NaNo — seems like I read somewhere that 90,000 writers are particpating in NaNo this year! That’s a <>lot<> of writers!I hope you have a great writing day today. 🙂

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