I don’t have any Writing Buddies on NaNo. I don’t know what a Writing Buddy is, but I would like one. Would you be mine, could you be mine, won’t you be my buddy?

I’m here. Be my buddy or millions of people will DIE!

Steven Schroeder is bringing out a new poetry journal in early 2008.

From the guidelines:

Either in the file or the body of the e-mail, include a cover letter with your name, contact information, a contributor-note biography of 50 words or less, and a statement of 50 words or less on what you’re against in poetry.

I feel lately like the list of what I’m against is twice as long as what I’m for.

If I read another cutesy sonnet that doesn’t say anything I’ll… I’ll… okay I won’t do anything but seethe.

Makes the baby Jesus cry!

What time is it? WHAT TIME IS IT? *sob*

But look! Nosferatu!

\
8-B
/

Which is good because my NaBloPoMo badge doesn’t work.

To be a NaBloPoMoFo, you just need to post on your blog once a day. A tad easier than the other Nas, and you can have a badge and everything if you’re not me!

I probably won’t be posting any other NaNo excerpts, at least to this blog. It’s so backwards that it drives me crazy. Yeah, if there’s a clamor (ha!) I’ll post to the WordPress blog. It handles the long stuff.

This post is also for NaBloPoMo, for which I am posting at least once a day.

And considering I’m still only about a quarter of the way through my 1000 lines of blank verse, I am obviously silly for taking on more challenges.

And my car is making a funny noise, and my sinuses hate me and hate you and hate everything.

Grr.

Na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na
Hey hey
Goodbye until tomorrow.

I heard the shot when I was halfway down the hill, running toward the fire. I was out of breath already, just from trying to talk and run and keep my balance in the dark.

“Did you hear that?” I said into the phone, gasping. “There was a shot. Get 911. A fire and a shot.”

“But…”

“A fire and a shot!” I screamed. And then there was a woman’s voice on the phone just saying okay and she hung up without saying goodbye.

The trailer was just a square shadow behind the flames, with tarry smoke rolling out like water after a rock got dropped in. I got twenty or twenty-five feet away before the skin on my face made me stop. That was too close. Thick clusters of embers were dancing around me and the air, well, there wasn’t any air there. Nothing to breathe but that smoke and the sparks no matter how I crouched and turtled around looking for a way closer.

I tried to spit on my sleeve and hold it up to my face for something to breathe through, but it’s hard to spit when you’re coughing and gagging and your body is just telling you to run your stupid ass back up the hill. When your own kneecaps know you’re being a damned fool, that’s a bad sign.

I ran to the other trailers. There were three, arcing around the end of the graveled lane, away from me. It was the middle one—Timmy Helton’s trailer, Dale’s trailer–that was burning. There was no space to pass between the fire and the southernmost trailer, so I had to run around it. There was no answer as I screamed and pounded on the door. The northernmost trailer’s door stood open and I went through without knocking, just yelling at the top of my lungs, constantly, like a yodel. No one was home.

I didn’t know how loud the fire was until I tried screaming over it. Part of me knew how pointless it was, acting as if someone could come walking out of the trailers now, answering to the shrill sound of my voice with me saying, “There’s a fire” and them looking back over their shoulders, all startled at the idea. “Oh, I didn’t notice. A fire, you say?”

It would happen that way in a movie. A bad movie, but still.

I didn’t hear the first truck pull in, had no idea I had company until someone clutched my arm and started shouting incoherently into my ear. My eyes were dazzled by the fire but I think he looked like Santa Claus. He pulled me farther from the trailer and then another pair of hands were tucking a blanket around my shoulders and pushing at me. I tried to catch myself but it was only a couple of inches and I was sitting on the tailgate of an old Ford Ranger, watching in the strobing light of the flashers and the flames as a firetruck trundled up the lane toward me, its siren wailing and chirping through the roar.

I recognized the firefighter. “Tom, I don’t live here,” I said. “I’m just a bystander.”

He looked at me in surprise and I realized that Tom didn’t sound quite right. Tim. Tony. Toby.

“It’s Chad,” he said after a second.

“I thought you were Tom.”

“I get that a lot.”

The light was too spastic for me to tell if he was joking. I would have to ask him later. “I don’t live here.”

“Is anyone in any of the trailers?” he asked.

“I looked and didn’t find anyone in that one. But that one’s locked.” I didn’t tell him that I had slammed my shoulder against the locked door a couple of times doing nothing but smacking my elbow hard on the doorknob.

He nodded and yelled at Santa to check the locked trailer and Santa jogged over there much faster than I had managed earlier. He just leaned on the door and did something to the knob and it popped open.

Shown up by a fat elf. At least I was the only witness, and I wasn’t admitting anything.