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Wrimonia

Adventures in Wrimonia, Part Thirty-Seven: That’s Postmodern

November thirtieth came, but it didn’t go without some very exciting news. Amy readied the purple trebuchet, sent the pawn flying toward Cole, and walked away. The pawn shattered on the floor. “That’s for you, Cole,” Amy yelled as she walked away with Keith.

“What do you mean, that’s for me?” Cole asked as he bent over on the floor and examined the pieces.

“There’s postmodernism for you,” Amy said.

“Let me get this straight,” Cole said. “First you steal my pawn. Then you kill my girlfriend. Then you break my pawn?”

“Doesn’t it make perfect sense?” Amy asked as she and Keith stood over them. “It’s postmodern. It’s supposed to make sense if you screw with your brain just enough.”

Cole shook his head. “If there’s something here that doesn’t make sense it’s you,” he said. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

“You don’t have to do anything because I’m leaving,” Amy said. She walked away with Keith. Mia did nothing but type away as her characters reenacted this scene, Alaina at her side. Mia had been able to reach her daily word count goal every day over the last couple of days, even exceeding it easily. It really did come more easily with those black clouds now out of the sky.

The End, Mia wrote.

The characters ran toward Mia. “Check your word count,” Amy said. “Go on, check it.” She squeezed Keith’s hand as Mia pushed the word count button.

Fifty thousand, three hundred seventy-seven.

Confetti fell from the sky. Mia jumped up from the eraser bench and hugged Alaina, then all the other characters in turn, even the characters who appeared just to celebrate. “We knew you could do it, Mia,” the ghostly older woman said, “even if I didn’t show up in your story at all.”

Mia looked down. “Well, I’m sorry,” Mia said. “The story just didn’t turn out that way. Next year, maybe?” The woman grinned and started to party with everyone else.

“You have to verify it, Mia!” Alaina whispered, nudging Mia.

“Verify?” Mia asked.

“Of course!” Alaina replied, pointing to the bar above Mia’s head. It was still blue because Mia hadn’t updated her word count yet. “Don’t you want to turn that bar purple?”

“Yes!” Mia said. She looked at the clock above Wrimo Hall. According to the clock she had five and a half hours to go. She grabbed the laptop and ran toward Wrimo Hall and up the stairs to Verification Quarters.

Robots buzzed around this area, too, and Mia and her characters walked toward the nearest one. She examined the boxy body, the arms, the wheels on the legs, the FIREBUS logo on its side. She looked for a place to verify her novel.

“Uh, hello,” Mia said. “Where do I verify my novel?” As soon as she said that, a drawer on the robot opened, and out popped a cable that plugged itself into Mia’s computer. “Won’t that give me a virus or something?” Mia asked.

The robot beeped twice. “Counting words,” the robot said. It was silent except for some beeping for a minute. Mia noticed that the dial on the robot was going farther and farther to the right.

“Fifty thousand, three hundred seventy-seven words,” the robot said. “Congratulations, you are a winner of National Novel Writing Month!” A certificate popped out of its stomach, and Mia examined it.

“National Novel Writing Month winner!” the certificate said, and Mia examined it as the cable unplugged itself from Mia’s computer and the robot rolled away from them. “Congratulations! This certificate declares that (your name here) wrote (your novel title here) in the month of November as part of National Novel Writing Month.” The name and title were blank, presumably so Mia could write them in herself. Mia skimmed the rest of the certificate, not quite caring what it said anymore but taking in the actual accomplishment. Then she scribbled her name and title on it and looked up at her bar.

It was a delicious shade of grape with the word WINNER! emblazoned on it.

“Let’s go,” she told her characters. “It’s time to celebrate.”

And celebrate they did as they walked past the writers with blue bars and joined the ranks of the purple.

***
I know some of you were speculating about more parts, but the tale ends here quite nicely without more summary of the days in between. Truth be told, not much happens after Mia defeats Writer’s Block and Inner Editor and winning–she shouldn’t be browsing the forums because that’s how she got behind to start with!

But this isn’t THE END. I’ll be posting an epilogue on Wednesday, and then it’ll be time for life after Wrimonia.

Feel free to link this on your blog, Twitter, whatever. Just don’t pass this off as your own, and we’re cool.

I highly encourage you to donate to the Office of Letters and Light, the nonprofit organization that runs NaNoWriMo, if you enjoy this tale of noveling madness. If you donate in the new year, your donor goodies will appear in the month before the event you donate to (NaNoWriMo or Script Frenzy).

If for some strange reason you’re really into giving money to Internet strangers who write somewhat humorous things, I won’t complain. You can do that at the link below.





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