Mia took this as a lesson to back up her own novel, and she did back it up that night, sending it to her own email account and backing it up on a flash drive she had found in her bag earlier. Nothing would get between her and her novel, she told herself as she fell asleep that night.
Well, nothing except the twenty-seven thousand words she had written. Mia tried to calculate how many words she would have to write per day in order to succeed, but she gave up. “I’ll figure that out later,” she told herself as she got up on the twenty-second morning and walked around Wrimonia. The Wrimos were crowding in the square early that morning.
“What’s going on?” someone asked.
“I hear the pep talk is going out early today,” a Wrimo named February replied.
This Wrimo was right, and sure enough, the voice of Chris Baty filled Wrimonia. “Good morning, novelists, and welcome to week four!” Chris Baty said. “We’re on the dawn of a new adventure. So far you’ve survived ups and downs. Some of you have already crossed the fifty thousand word line and have earned your green bars. Congratulations! Others of you are right on track to get that lime bar that will eventually turn a delicious shade of grape when Dan and the rest of the tech team finish upgrading the robot verification systems. Congratulations to you too!
“But others of you, like me, are behind. We’ve struggled on this adventure. We’ve had our share of struggles. Some of you have lost your entire novel to the elements. Some of us have chosen to start over again. Yet others have succumbed to the power of procrastination, choosing to wander the forums and the other corners of the Internet instead of working on our novel.” At this moment, many Wrimos looked down at their laptops. They had been caught.
“I don’t come here to shame you!” Chris said. “No, because I’m just as guilty as many of you here. Just know that the month isn’t over yet. You still have nine days including today to catch up. Right after this pep talk is over, I want you to go write for fifteen minutes straight and see what happens. Just write anything in your novel. It doesn’t have to be quality. Remember, editing is for December.”
And at that moment, the battalion of marathon runners yelled, “Editing is for December! November is for writing!” They pumped their pencils in the air, and Mia spotted the marathon runner who gave her the pencil last week. Mia felt in her bag for that pencil. It was still there, unused. She still hadn’t figured out a use for it yet.
“But you still have to write those fifty thousand words, and that time begins now,” Chris said. Everyone cheered. “Now go write!” Everyone ran from the square and began to write. Mia was going to settle on the nearest eraser bench but found that it was already taken by a Wrimo who was writing on an iPhone. She ran toward another empty bench and sat down, finally opening her laptop and starting to write.
Amy and Coffee Shop Guy had finally started to like each other, and Keith (not Coffee Shop Guy, Mia had to tell herself! He has a name now, you know) actually believed that Ian was not Amy’s son. But what next? Mia wondered as she began to type. I really should have outlined this story. A shadow fell over her novel, and Mia looked up.
She couldn’t tell what the figure was at first glance, but she could tell that Amy, Ian, and Keith were right behind them, with Brenda trailing behind. It resembled a cabbage at first glance. Okay, fine, a cabbage, Mia thought. They can have a barbeque and make cole slaw and destroy this. But a cabbage on two feet? With arms? Holding a ninjastar and wearing a corset? Now things were getting weird.
The cabbagelike creature had a cabbage for a head, a cabbage for a body, and (dare Mia think it) cabbages for breasts. They were rather large cabbages as well–the ones for breasts, she thought. She looked down at her own breasts. Yeah, they had to be cabbages. No pair of breasts were quite that round. The arms and legs resembled human arms and legs, but this creature was wearing a corset that served only to emphasize the figure of the cabbage. The ninjastar in its right hand just sat there, and the cabbagelike creature wore an eyepatch covering its right eye.
“What are you doing in my novel?” Mia asked.
“Yeah, good question,” Amy asked. “I don’t even like cabbage.” Amy poked at it, and the cabbagelike creature turned around.
“Me?” the creature asked. “I’m here to hijack your novel out of boredom. You’re obviously bored with your novel.”
“No, I’m not bored with my novel,” Mia replied. “I’m just stuck.”
“So is there anything else I need to know about you?” Amy asked. “I don’t like cabbage, but Keith here’s a huge fan of cole slaw. I can go to the store, get a can of mayo, and make you for dinner.”
“Dinner?” Keith asked. “I wouldn’t eat that thing for dinner if you paid me.” He stared at it for a minute and snatched the ninjastar out of its hand.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the creature asked.
“Just examining it,” Keith said. “I once did an exhibit on the history of ninjas.” Mia shook her head and wondered what was going on with her novel. Wasn’t Cole supposed to be the artist?
“Stop!” she yelled, stepping in between the characters and the creature, but before she could say anything else, another creature entered the scene. Where the first cabbagelike creature held a ninjastar, the second one held a sai. “Wait,” Mia said, staring. “There are more of you?” The creatures nodded. Both of them were quite busty, quite cabbagelike, and had properties of ninjas and pirates.
Then they started kissing.
Everyone stared, including some Wrimos passing by. Some Wrimos just passed by, confused, but others stayed and watched. Others cheered.
“You brought it back,” someone yelled. “How?”
Mia shrugged. “I don’t know,” she replied. “They just wandered into my novel, and I didn’t have anything to write about. They don’t belong here, though.” She turned to the kissing cabbages. “Do you hear that? You’re great and all, but you don’t belong in my novel.” The characters were now staring at the cabbages, and Amy returned with an industrial-sized can of mayonnaise.
“Got it,” Amy said. “Don’t worry, Keith, I can wash these things off in no time.”
“Great, but where will you put all the slaw?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” she replied. “We can have a block party. I’m sure we can just leave it for your gallery. They certainly wouldn’t object.”
“But Amy, that’s not a block party,” Keith said. “What kind of neighborhood did you grow up in?”
Amy stared at Keith. “An apartment complex,” she said without laughing.
A Wrimo who had participated since 2002 walked up to Mia. “Really, how’d you bring them back?” he asked Mia.
“Really, I don’t know,” Mia replied. “I didn’t know freaky creatures like them could exist until they just wandered into my novel without a care in the world.” She looked back at the veteran Wrimos who doubted her. “Why?”
“Because we’ve been seeking out such old-school power for years!” he exclaimed. “Here, come with me,” he said to the busty lesbian cabbage pirate ninjas. “You’re coming with me to my novel.”
“Excellent!” the first one said. “I need to be reunited with my kind.” She took hands with the veteran Wrimo, and they wandered off into his novel. Surely it would be happier there. Mia turned to the second busty lesbian cabbage pirate ninja. “And what are you still doing here?”
“No one has claimed me yet,” it replied. “My cleavage has to be good for something.”
“It’s going to be good for dinner, that’s what.” Amy grabbed her knife and chopped off this creature’s breasts. It writhed in pain before falling to the ground. “You’re not going to do the same thing to the rest of me, are you?” it asked.
“I promise you the rest of you will be just as tasty,” Amy replied. “But your breasts will suffice for now. They’ll make a good bowl or two of slaw.” Amy ran off the scene to make the slaw and returned, slaw in hand. The busty lesbian cabbage pirate ninja writhed in place before disappearing and was never seen again by Mia.
“It’s okay,” Amy said while letting Keith sample the finished product. “I made sure to wash everything off.”
“I can’t help but think I’m licking off someone’s tits,” he said as he ate it.
“Oh, we can fix that later,” she replied, winking at him. Luckily Ian was preoccupied with his toy truck in the other room. Mia grinned and wrote every word of this in her novel. Hey, it gave her words, right? she thought as she wrote it down. It wasn’t like anyone was going to read this yet. She checked her word count. She was getting back on track. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw twenty-nine thousand words on the screen. The word count to get back on track was closer and closer.
***
Ah, busty lesbian cabbage pirate ninjas. They were from 2003 if I remember correctly, yet no one knows what I’m talking about when I bring it up. This is where Mia starts to wonder what on earth she was thinking.
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