Nanowrimo - Day Seventeen (Surprises)

After deciding yesterday that I wasn't going to attempt a completely linear storytelling method for my Nanowrimo project, I had a couple of surprises that have reignited the process a bit.  I think surprise is half the reason I write.  I love the moment when my fingers fly over the keyboard and they produce something I had no intention of creating.  There is something about writing and the unconscious mind at play when the writing is going well.  I don't know what that relationship is exactly, but I love it.  I imagine that it is what some people might call "The Muse." 

I have produced 5,313 words in the last 24 hours.  That is a total of 18 pages of writing.  The thing that unlocked me was to begin at a point where there was action.  I chose a fight scene between two of my main characters.  I knew it was coming and I knew I didn't want to look away from it.  Well, I began writing it, but it soon deteriorated into flashback.  I divorced the flashback from the original fight scene and began writing the road up to the fight.  Why did these two guys come to blows?  The journey has been odd. 

The first thing that happened was a fight between John and his girl, Katie.  Katie was pushing John to kick Willy's ass.  This sent John on an anguish spiral that led him down the railroad tracks and to a "homeless" guy's camp by the river.  The guy isn't really homeless, but is escaping his own domestic troubles.  The dynamic between these two guys quickly exploded into what I'm hoping is some good material. 

So, here it is 18 pages later and I have two or three chapters as a result: the fight, the fight with Katie, and the encounter with the "homeless" guy at the river.  By allowing myself to write in a nonlinear fashion I was able to discover a motivation, a character, and a dynamic scene that promises to yield some exciting action and additional character development.

It's been a good 24 hours.

Word Count: 5,313
Total Word Count: 28,930
Sample Sentence/Sentences (One of the first moments with the homeless guy):

                The last cars of the train rattled past and the resonant echo of their passing lingered in the air like a frequency, like a struck tuning fork.  When the vibrations in the air settled down around him, he realized  he’d been standing there with his back to the homeless man for a while.  He turned and looked over his shoulder.  The man was standing outside his tarp looking up at him.  He was eating macaroni and cheese straight out of the pot with the wooden spoon.