Battie's NaNoWriMo Attempt

[Battooth]

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. This month (November) you sit down and try to write 50,000 words in 30 days (about 1,666.67 words a day). Don't have an idea for NaNoWriMo? So what? No plot, no problem! Just write! No ideas? Just write diary entries for the entire month, pretending to be your character. I've met a couple people who have tried it out and they all say it's a ton of fun.

So yeahs, I'll be trying to do NaNoWriMo this year, and I'm gonna be posting what I've got here. I'll try and update as much as I can over the next month. So I guess we'll see what happens!

(By the way, I encourage you all to try it too. It's awesome, and helps your creative juices get flowing. So I've heard. There's also NaNoEdMo, National Novel Editing Month, so you can edit what you write during NaNoWriMo, and there's NaNoFinMo, National Novel Finishing Month, so you finish it and make it look sparkling clean.)

Anyways, hope you enjoy! A post will be coming at the end of the night.

[>>BLACKiE! ]}]

Coolio!
I'm so excited to read yours! :3
Perhaps I'll give it a shot. ^-^

[Battooth]

11/1/07- NaNoWriMo Entry #1

Every morning started the same for the fluffy female cat. Her owners called it a schedual. She called it a habit. Cats were above such sordid things as scheduals. They did what they wanted on their own time, and if they happened to do the same thing every morning at the same time, so be it.

The cat’s morning started with a flutter of the greenish eyes as they opened, and a huge yawn to reveal sharp white teeth. The yawn was followed by a stretch, a walk across the sleeping forms of her owners (undoubtably waking them up, as she was rather large for a she-cat) and the cat would leap down onto the floor. She would pad into the kitchen and take a few bites of the dry food left over from dinner last night. After a run to the litter box and a brisk wash, she was out the cat flap and into the garden. She would watch the sparrows flitting about until her friend- a calico who lived next door- came over the fence to start a day of what they hoped would be fun.

One morning the she-cat was lounged in her garden, waiting for the tom to come into the yard when she heard scrabbling on the fence. She wipped her head around and saw the calico heaving himself over the side and heard his back claws scraping the other side.

“Getting fatter Eugene?” the she-cat asked, her green-ish eyes glinting with amusement.

“Funny!” the tom meowed sarcastically. He managed to haul his body onto the fence and balance before he leaped down into the garden to touch noses in greeting with the she-cat. “It’s not my fault. My owners have me on an un-diet. They leave food out all the time, so they don’t have to worry about if they remembered to put some down for me or not.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to eat it,” the she-cat pointed out.

“Doesn’t mean you have to eat it,” the tom meowed in a mocking voice as he stuck out his tongue. “Honestly CiCi, you don’t have to be such a jerk. I’ve met bowls of sour milk that have nicer things to say than you do when you decide to be clever.”

The she-cat laughed, flicking her friend with a long, fluffy tail. Eugene shoved her slightly and the two pounced at each other, rolling around in the dirt, caught up in their play fight.

The cats separated a second later and began grooming their coats as if nothing had ever happened. Eugene finished first and looked up at his friend.

CiCi had longer fur than most of the other cats in the area. She had tabby markings covering most of her body except for on her belly, her paws, and a bit on her chin. She was a Maine Coon, and as well as being fluffier, she was bigger than most of the other cats, too.

But because she was different, most cats were rather afraid of her. Well, the cats who lived in the surrounding houses like Stu, Harvey, Do and Mo were fine with her. Just because she was larger, the other cats- the ones who weren’t used to seeing her every day- were terrified. Rumors had spread about her, most of them stupid.

“I heard she killed a dog!”

“I heard she eats cat bones!”

“I heard she eats human bones!”

It was enough to make Eugene sick. He felt she was one of the nicest in the neighborhood. She was kind and was smart enough to be able to tell when someone was joking and when to joke. She was always up for any idiotic adventure her friends had, and was loyal to the last. Best of all, when Eugene was just not feeling up for getting up, scrabbling over the fence into his garden, walking all the way to his house, through that annoying catflap and into the kitchen to eat some of the dry food his humans were leaving out, CiCi was perfectly happy to just get up, stalk around the trash cans for a few moments and come back with a nice little mouse-snack for him to munch on.
The fluffy Maine Coon finished after a few licks of her tail and looked up, stretching. “What d’you want to do today?” she asked in a bored voice.

Before Eugene could say anything, a head poked through a hole in the fence opposite the calico’s. A chubby brown tabby body followed soon after and the tom padded over to sit near his friends.

“I hope it involves me,” the tabby said. “I’m sick of being cooped up in that house. My owners only just let me out this morning after being inside for a few days.”

“Harvey, I saw you yesterday,” CiCi meowed, a hint of puzzlement in her voice.

Harvey shot CiCi a glare and meowed, “I was just using a hyperbole.” As the calico and Coon stared blankly at their chubby friend, he sighed and said, “I was exagerating. Honestly, you two should listen when your humans yowl at you. You might learn something. I felt like it took them days to let me out of the house.”

Eugene snorted. “You’re just impatient.”

Harvey grinned and nodded. “I guess so,” he admitted. “But you both have cat-flaps. I have to wait at the door and yowl until one of those four humans comes and lets me out, and I can’t expect the smallest of the four to help any. She just grabs my tail.”

CiCi swung her tail around and laid it gently on the chubby tom’s shoulder. “Well, she’ll grow up, just like the third biggest did,” she said comfortingly. “But in the meantime, how about we go see if we can’t find Mo, Do, and Stu?”

“Stu’s locked up for the day,” Harvey said. His house was next to Stu’s, on the opposite side of CiCi’s. “I just checked his house and he’s sitting at the window. He sent me the sign when I stood on his fence.”

“Poor guy,” CiCi meowed. “Oh well, we’ll see him tomorrow.” Hopefully, she added silently. Stu’s owners had a habit of being over protective and keeping him inside longer than a cat should be kept in. It probably came of being so small. Stu was half of CiCi’s size and a light brown tabby with a white chin and chest.

“Let’s see if the twins are in,” Eugene meowed, dashing away before the other two could say anything. The calico leaped up and leaped clean over the shorter fence that kept CiCi’s owner’s other pet- a rotund little chihuaua- inside the yard. CiCi heard Eugene land on the other side and raced forward, leaping over the fence herself and landing almost on top of the calico. Eugene just barely managed to scurry out from beneath her.

“C’mon Harvey!” CiCi called.

“I’ll catch up!” the tabby called. “I’ll cut through my yard! They don’t have a fence!”

CiCi and Eugene traded amused glances and ran to the front of CiCi’s house and waited in the front yard next to the mailbox. They waited in silence for a moment until they spotted the tabby strolling along around his house. He paused for a minute to sniff the flowers near his owner’s mailbox, then hurried to meet his friends.

“Careful,” CiCi warned as they walked towards the street and left the mailbox behind them. “Remember what happened to Old Biff down the street.” The three cats shuddered as they thought about the gristled old gray tom and his fate.

“Don’t worry Ci,” Eugene meowed, “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

The three cats watched as a huge car roared by. When no cars came and the cats still hung back, Harvey snorted. “What’re we waiting for? Let’s go!” He dashed as fast as his legs could carry his chubby body, and CiCi and Eugene waited, neither of them breathing, until the tabby sat down on the other side and began to groom his paws boredly.

CiCi laughed. “Let’s go then!” She glanced up and down the street, then darted across when no cars came. Eugene ran close behind.

Harvey stood as the two other cats approached and they walked down the sidewalk, grabbing the attention of a passing car. The driver honked and the cats heard a laugh from the open window.
“Idiots,” CiCi muttered, “I swear, they’re dumbed than mice. They think that three cats walking along is strange, yet they do that all the time.”

Harvey and Eugene laughed and they all bounded ahead, moving towards the house across the street from Harvey’s. CiCi led the way towards the yard and moved through the bushes. “I hope they’re out today,” she meowed.

“Hope who’s out?”

The voice from behind the three friends nearly startled them out of their skins. They spun, bristling, but broke into laughter as they saw two young cats standing there.

“Who’re you all looking for?” one of the two asked. The one who spoke was black and skinny, with a white spot on her head and large ears. She was disproportionate, with long legs and a long tail. “Stu’s across the street.”

“We’re looking for you two,” Eugene meowed.

“Us?” the second asked. The second she-cat was built the exact opposite of her friend. She was thicker than the black she-cat, and was gray, with amber eyes. Her tail was ringed with darker gray and she had two lines leading from each eye to each ear. “Why us?”

“Because Do, you two are our friends, too,” Harvey explained. “Just because I say you and Mo are annoying little pests doesn’t mean we don’t like talking to you.”

Do nodded. “Oh…” she meowed. “Okay! What do you guys want to talk about then?”

Mo piped up. “We caught a mouse today!” the black she-cat bragged.

“You mean I caught a mouse!” Do hissed playfully. “You just ate it!” She leaped at Mo and bowled her over. Just as CiCi and Eugene had done, so Mo and Do scuffled in the dirt.