NaNoWriMo Introduction Post

Hello, my many and varied readers! It is November, and I thus have created this journal because I don't like Blogger very much and LiveJournal is hard. I will be posting weekly updates on my NaNoWriMo progress as well as various informational posts.

Here's the info on this year's novel!

Title: Evocation(working title)
Summary: Men and women around America find themselves suddenly able to control the world around them. A bank teller who can channel the power in a storm, a struggling waiter who can make the songs on his iPod reality, and a clothing store owner who can enchant anything that someone wears. Some can take the burden of power and contribute to society. Some would rather use their new abilities to take advantage of the world.
Genre: Urban fantasy

NaNoWriMo Week #1 (November 1-3)

“Welcome to Bank of America! My name is Miranda, how can I help you today?”
In the spacious lobby of one of the largest banks in Chicago, Illinois, many tellers sat on comfortable stools behind counters that buffered them from the hundreds of customers they would encounter daily. On the furthest left, an elderly white man named Clarence slowly counted out bills to an equally elderly white woman, dressed in a fetching blue suit with a charming blue hat pinned to her gray hair, who stared ferociously at Clarence’s spotty hands, as if daring him to miscount one of her twenties.
The second window featured a pleasant-looking Asian man in his thirties, who was briskly helping a white woman in her early twenties set up an account with the bank. She was not very interested in the process, too wrapped up in texting someone from her bright pink smartphone, her immaculately trimmed and brightly polished nails flying over the touch screen.
The third, fourth, and fifth windows were closed, leaving the sixth and final window manned by a Latina woman in her mid-twenties. She was an unremarkable height, tall enough to look most in the eye. Her thick brown hair was cut to hang just above her shoulders, and teased a bit to frame her face becomingly. She had large brown eyes, and was wearing a little makeup, just foundation, mascara and lip gloss. She smiled broadly, her generous mouth quirking up just a little higher on the right side of her face, as an older Latino man walked up to her counter.
“I need to cash my check,” the man told her, thrusting an envelope into her face. She gently took it from him, opening it swiftly and examining the check.
“Do you have an account with us?” she asked, giving him a moment of eye contact before turning to her computer, which was angled very carefully to prevent anyone across the counter from seeing the screen. As her customer rattled off his account number, her fingers flew across the keyboard.
“Would you like to deposit any of the check into your checking or your savings, sir?” she asked as she stamped the back of the check, before running it through her scanner.
“Just cash,” the man said gruffly.
Miranda’s fingers again swept across her keyboard, striking a suspiciously high number of keys before her cash drawer popped open. She efficiently slid out twenties, counting them into her customer’s hand.
“Thank you, sir,” she told him. “Have a lovely afternoon!” He turned and walked away without responding. When Miranda could see that she had no customers waiting in line, she turned her attention to her computer screen. A few keystrokes swapped her active windows around, revealing a program that allowed her to send messages directly from her computer to Twitter. It also showed her recent history.

“@midineroahora longest shift ever! So many ungrateful people come here”
“@midineroahora hey @madampetticoats you will not believe the rude man I’m helping right now, he just shoved his envelope in my face”
“@madampetticoats @midineroahora oh no he didn’t! girlfriend. #bitchplease”

Miranda’s face curved into a slightly more natural smile than the one she’d put on for her customer. She really wasn’t supposed to be using Twitter from her work computer, but her manager was a fifty-year old man who avoided technology. He wouldn’t be checking her Internet history any time soon. And using Twitter to vent her frustrations made it a lot easier for her to deal with her more trying customers.
She glanced at the tiny wall space she was allowed to decorate in her window. It held a picture of her with her parents, right after she’d graduated high school. Her Mama had been so proud of her, the first child to graduate high school after a brother that had spent more time in juvy than class and a sister who’d been knocked up, then kicked out of the family when she got an abortion. Miranda was still in touch with both Hector and Clarisa, but she rarely got to see them. Even mentioning Clarisa would send her Mama into tears and make her dad’s eyes get scary with rage, and Hector was usually too busy running with his friends in the more unpleasant parts of Chicago.
Miranda’s eyes drifted to the right, where her two certificates for Excellent Customer Service hung. She had won two months in a row, and was on the track to get a third certificate in a few weeks. She placed all the credit on her online venting; it helped her treat every customer like royalty when she knew she could lay out every single idiosyncrasy for the Internet to tear apart.
The lights above her flickered. She glanced out to the picture windows at the front of the lobby, and saw that rain had started to fall onto the street. Thunder rumbled, and she felt her grin broaden into a true smile. She loved storms, especially at night. On an impulse, she grabbed the folded sign that read “please see next teller”, placed it on her counter, and walked to the doors, wanting to smell the fresh scent of rain for herself.
She stepped outside, though she stayed under the awning to protect her work uniform and her carefully styled hair, and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. An especially close bolt of lightning sizzled through the air, causing a thundercrack that she felt like a blow to the chest, face, and stomach. She staggered back, eyes flying open, expecting to see a crater in front of her.
But the street was flawless, the traffic unperturbed. Pedestrians had long since escaped the wrath of the storm, which was quickly winding up into a furious tempest, and she was alone on the sidewalk. After another moment of enjoyment, she walked back into the bank, intent on asking her coworkers if they’d noticed the huge thunderbolt.


“Okay, pull the chain down about two links.”
The large, austere room currently held two men and a huge amount of steel bars and chains. A structure dominated the center of the room. It was a surprisingly delicate frame made of welded steel, suggesting both wings and flames in its subtle curves and exact angles. Over and through the intricate frame, the two men were threading steel chains that had been scorched into varying shades of red, brown, and black.
“All right that’s good, now I can thread this through here and….voila!” The first man, a tall, white, very pale fellow who couldn’t be much past twenty, slid one of the gleaming chains through a tube made from overlapped steel bars, leaving just enough slack for it to cascade down to hang an inch above the ground. The young man grinned, making the piercings through his eyebrows and lips wobble. His hair was dark, with small tufts dyed in various colors. None were the bright, neon colors you might expect of someone with his facial decoration, but instead deep green and dark red, evoking a very naturalistic, autumnal effect. He was extremely thin, with cheekbones that could cut paper and long, nimble fingers. He wore a red t-shirt and unremarkable blue jeans, with heavy work boots protecting his feet.
His partner was also white, but other than that not much like him. He was stocky and on the shorter side, with drab brown hair and dull brown eyes. The edge of a tattoo peeked out from the collar of his blue t-shirt, hinting at more of a personality than his unremarkable appearance would suggest.
“How many more of these do we need to do, Andrew?” the shorter man asked. He clambered down from his perch near the top of the sculpture, dropping heavily to the ground. “We’re running out of the chains we made.”
“It’s close, Anthony,” Andrew said, studying his sculpture from a few steps back. The framework’s suggestion of leaping flames, or swirling wings, was meant to be obscured behind a curtain of chain that would represent water, balancing the heat of the imagery in the steel rods. “We still need to be able to see the firebird, like it’s rising out of the water.”
“I still don’t get why a firebird would be underwater,” Anthony quipped, rolling his eyes. He was bored by art, but needed the work for his major assignment in the metalworking class he was taking.
“The why is supposed to come from you, Anthony,” Andrew shot back. He walked forward, running his fingers through some of the finer chains. “Art is subjective. It’s not a story, it’s an experience.”
“Well, I’ll stick with experiencing things that I don’t have to decode, thanks,” Anthony said. “At least this is fun work, even if I don’t get it.”
Andrew chuckled. The rings on his fingers, all steel as well, clinked gently against the chains that ran over them. He’d bought several of them in Brazil, from an open-air market stall owned by a woman who spoke remarkable English. He loved the simplicity of the steel rings, with simple patterns etched on them. The crassness of more ostentatious jewelry rubbed him the wrong way. His piercings were all steel as well; it was a material he found amazing use for.
As he let the finest of the steel chains slip from his fingers, he felt a sudden wave of heat. His eyes widened, the blue irises reflecting a sudden flare of intense, electric blue light. His piercings and his rings all seemed to ignite, burning with a matching cerulean fire and searing into his skin. He opened his mouth to scream, and the overwhelming light and heat seemed to pour into his throat, shooting into his core and expanding, cooking him from within.

“And it’s hard to dance/With the devil on your back/So shake it off”
White earbuds tucked into the blond woman’s ears snaked down to a cell phone on her arm, nestled in an armband that had the word Rachel stitched onto it. The cords bounced off her arm as she ran determinedly on the treadmill. She was wearing a gray hoodie and pink sweat pants, with two t-shirts underneath to help disguise the rolls of fat that undulated as she ran. It made her sweat more, but even at the gym on the treadmill the looks she got from people made her want to hide in a tiny hole and cry. So she put layers on to at least hide the flabby rolls, though she couldn’t diminish her figure.
Freckles dusted across a strong nose, pale from long hours in front of a computer. Her brow was furrowed with effort, and a sheen of sweat covered every inch of exposed skin. Her hair, pulled back in a ponytail, kept time with her slow, laborious, but steady pace. The green numbers on the treadmill ticked lazily up, mocking her with their slowness.
I just have three tenths of a mile left, she told herself, as light from the sunrise began to sneak into the large room of her twenty-four hour gym through the enormous windows. She had chosen a treadmill directly in front of the wall of mirrors, to give herself motivation to keep running. She divided her focus between the hateful numbers on her “distance run” meter and her hateful reflection, her awful fat self.
In a burst of anger, she clicked the vertical on her treadmill up a half-point. The extra elevation immediately began to scream through her legs, but she refused to give up. She would finish this mile, damn it, and she would finish strong.
Her vision began to tint green as she forced herself to take step after step. She stopped staring at her treadmill, and instead glared daggers at her reflection. Every desperate lunge toward the mirror was like a declaration that she would not accept this, she would not be trapped within this disgusting body. The mirror seemed to sparkle, and lights flickered in her vision. She glanced down at the treadmill, and saw it was at .97.
She could make three more hundredths of a mile. Children in Africa had to walk tens of miles just to get clean water. She could run three more hundredths. A glance up at the mirror showed her the body she wanted: sleek, thin, beautiful, unstoppable. The vision of her future smiled, before her vision went black.

“Hey I just met you/And this is crazy!/But here’s my number/So call me maybe!”
As he drove north on the highway from Odessa, Texas, Antonio belted out the lyrics to the cheesy summer pop hit the radio was playing for him. He didn’t look like someone who would enjoy Carly Rae. People who didn’t know him called him cholo and pushed their children behind them, intimidated by the black muscle shirt and dirty jeans, or maybe the ratty mustache, or the green Army tattoos all up and down his arms. His thick accent and the way he mixed Spanish and English didn’t earn him any points, either.
None of this really mattered to him at the moment. He’d just finished visiting an old friend in Odessa and was on his way home to Lubbock, about three hours northeast. There was a whole lot of empty highway between him and home, and he intended to fill it with as much terrible, yet strangely addicting pop music as he could. One of the small towns on the way had a McDonald’s where he could stop and grab dinner.
The song ended, and commercials began playing. Antonio jabbed the next button on his stereo, his golden brown skin glowing in the afternoon sunshine that slanted through the windows of his ancient Sunbird. He skimmed through radio stations idly as cotton fields streamed past him.
His phone, a cheap prepaid flip phone he’d bought from a gas station, began to vibrate, the sound of the spinner inside the phone far louder than the tinny speakers playing a synthetic marimba. He opened it one handed. “Bueno,” he answered.
“Antonio, Buenas tardes,” the voice on the other end greeted him. “Como estas?”
“Muy bien, gracias,” Antonio responded. “Para qué me llamaste?”
“Why did I…know your name?” the voice asked, suddenly speaking English with a great deal more confidence than his Spanish had had. “I’m so bad at Spanish.”
Antonio chuckled. “You’re getting better, sir,” he said. “Why did you call me? What do you want?”
“Oh, I just wanted to know if you were going to be on time for your shift tonight,” the man said. “I know you were out of town the last couple days. We’ve had a slow day, so if you’re planning on being on time to the lab I can send Terrence home a little early, let him have some time with his kids.”
“Si, I’ll be there on time. Tell Terrence he owes me one, pero make sure he knows you’re joking. El doesn’t have a sense of humor sometimes,” Antonio said.
The man on the other end of the phone laughed. “I know, he’s so hard to work with when he’s tired. Okay, I’ll pass the message on. Let me know if anything holds you up on the way back. Safe travels!”
“Gracias, Jonathan,” Antonio said, before hanging up the phone. He spun the volume knob on his radio, bringing the sound of Adam Levine whining about another girl breaking up with him flooding back into the cabin of his car. He started singing along, terribly off key but not caring even slightly.
Soon, he saw a white structure on the right side of the road on the horizon. Seeing it always dampened his mood; it was an enormous cross built on the highway, apparently to make sure everyone who drove north from Odessa remembered that they’d been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, even if they wanted nothing to do with any church. He sang even more loudly, hoping his terrible tunelessness offended anyone nearby who might be listening.
As he passed the cross, which was the closest landmark to the first town between Odessa and Lubbock, he noticed the day was getting oddly bright. The sun wasn’t close to setting, but it was afternoon, and there was no real reason for him to need the sunglasses he’d carelessly thrown on the passenger seat, driving northeast as he was. He grabbed the glasses and slid them on, squinting against the light that steadily shone brighter.
His car began to vibrate, as if he was driving over the wake-up strips on the shoulder. He felt the vibration in his abdomen, like he was sitting on the world’s most excited washing machine. It increased in pitch, until he felt like he might shake apart and be left sitting in a pile of automotive scraps.
After a few moments, the vibrations vanished as suddenly as they’d started. Antonio tapped his brakes, turning off the cruise control and letting the car coast to a stop on the side of the road. He was breathing heavily, almost as if he’d just finished a long run. He felt drained and stretched thin.
On an impulse, he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. Stretching his legs sounded like a great idea, and indeed, as soon as he was outside and moving he began to feel better. He had no idea what had just happened, and he really didn’t want it to keep him from getting home. Lab work at the hospital paid decently, but not enough that he could afford to miss shifts. His short walk seemed to have energized him, so he got back into the car and started back on the road north and home.

Miranda gazed longingly at the clock on the wall to her left. It was inching its way to five o’clock, and the end of her shift. She’d been in the bank since seven that morning and she was exhausted. The storm outside had continued getting stronger, whipping itself into a fury that made the day outside seem like nighttime, lit occasionally by brilliant sheets of lightning. Miranda could almost feel the rain and wind beating against her skin, she wanted to be out of the bank so badly.
The door slammed open, letting in a gusty howl of wind and spattering of rain drops. Excitement sizzled across Miranda’s skin with just the smell of the storm, but the man who followed it into the bank took her sudden burst of spirits and sank them to her feet.
He was a middle-aged white man, with reasonably well-groomed red hair and a baggy gray hoodie over nondescript jeans. He was holding a burlap sack in one hand, as well as a cell phone, but it was his other hand, the one holding the gun, that kept Miranda’s attention.
Her hand flew to the panic button under her counter, pressing it immediately. As quickly as she’d pressed it, her hands were up in the air, and she was backing very slowly away from her counter. No sudden movements, don’t provoke him, give him what he wants until the police get here, she told herself, repeating the litany that had been trained into them for cases of robbery. Clarence and Richie were doing the same thing. Thank God there haven’t been any customers for at least an hour, she thought, grateful to the storm for keeping business away for a completely new, and completely unwelcome reason.
“Any of you hit your panic buttons?” the man demanded, brandishing his gun at the three tellers. He kept moving the barrel, not focusing on any one of them. Miranda shook her head, not needing to fake the jerkiness fear lent her motions. “Good! Get away from the counters!” The redheaded man, whose hoodie was marked by what Miranda hoped were sweat stains, strode closer to them, though he was careful to keep equally in sight of all three, in case he needed to use his gun.
“You, chink!” the man snarled, gesturing forcefully at Richie, the Asian teller. “Unload your drawer in this!” He threw the burlap sack at the young man, and waved his gun threateningly. Richie caught the sack and opened his drawer, dumping bills into it as fast as he could.
The front door, which was still held open by the force of the wind, rattled suddenly. Miranda’s ears picked up the sound of police sirens, though she couldn’t see much of the lights through the lashing rain. The bank robber heard them too, because his face contorted with rage. “You called the cops?” he screamed, and squeezed his trigger, gun pointed squarely at Richie.
Miranda opened her mouth to scream, and the whole room seemed to freeze. She felt every ripple of wind that struck her face, she could see every rain drop flying into the room. The bullet leaving the gun was caught in its very own cyclone of air, and she could almost see how a tiny change in air pressure would send it off course…
A wave of darkness washed over her vision, and she staggered backward, stumbling into the back wall of the teller’s area. Her scream finally made it out of her mouth, but she didn’t hear anything from Richie or Clarence.
Two sharp reports, bang bang, exploded through the lobby. She heard a man cry out and fall to the ground. “Richie!” she screamed, rubbing her eyes and stumbling forward, trying to see through the sparkling blackness that clouded her sight.
A gust of wind ruffled her hair, and she could suddenly see again. The redheaded man writhed on the ground, leaving smears of scarlet blood on the tile floor. Richie was frozen, his skin white with fear and his eyes widened until his eyeballs might fall out. Clarence was leaning against his counter, clutching his heart. Two uniformed officers stood in the lobby by the door, guns held out in firing position and trained on the man on the tile. Both officers were staring at her, though.
A third police officer ran into the room, and dropped to his knees by the attempted robber. He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt and began the process of arresting the man. Miranda could only watch, and lean against her counter, feeling like she had just finished a heavy lifting workout.
One of the officers came up to Miranda, holstering his gun as he walked. “Are you…all right, ma’am?” he asked, keeping a respectful distance from her. “Are you feeling odd at all?”
“As far as I can tell I’m fine,” she said, trying not to stutter. The officer was a rather handsome man, white, maybe thirty, with sandy hair and bright blue eyes. “Just scared. Is Richie hurt?”
“It doesn’t seem like anyone was shot but the criminal,” the officer told her. “We’d like to have all of you checked out by a paramedic, though, if you don’t mind?”
Miranda nodded, and walked out around the tellers’ stations to the officer, who carefully escorted her outside, where an ambulance was parked and paramedics were waiting under the bank’s awning. She saw that Richie and Clarence were already being checked out, and that the man who had attempted to rob the bank was being shoved into a squad car.
Richie glanced up at her, and Miranda tried to give him an encouraging smile as the paramedics gave her instructions and attached various medical devices to her arm. When she met her coworker’s eyes, he flinched, and looked away. Miranda’s smile melted into confusion.
Being outside in the raging storm was calming, even with the chaotic illumination and frequent rumbles of thunder. She closed her eyes and just listened to the rain, allowing it to soothe her frazzled nerves as the paramedic, a heavyset black woman, felt her throat and wrist. When a police officer walked up, she opened her eyes and turned to him.
“Yes, officer?” she asked. The officer, the same one that had escorted her out of the building, blinked and pulled his head back, like he was surprised about something.
“Um, I just wanted to get your statement about the, uh, the robbery,” he stammered. Miranda’s face flushed a little; was he being clumsy because he was attracted to her? “Could you explain the sequence of events to me, ma’am?”
Miranda took a deep breath. “Well, the door slammed open and that man came in. He wasn’t trying to hide his gun, so I hit my panic button immediately. Then I just tried to be inconspicuous. He called Richie something vile, and shot at him. Then you showed up and shot the man robbing us, I think.”
The officer’s eyebrows furrowed. “The thief shot at Mr. Hoang?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s what happened,” Miranda replied. “He was so close, I can’t believe he missed. Richie is okay, right?”
“Mr. Hoang seems fine,” the officer said, looking at Miranda oddly. “But the only bullet we’ve found was nowhere near any of the tellers’ windows. Did he fire any warning shots?”
Miranda thought back, wanting to make sure she gave an accurate report. She was very familiar with the way even a hack defense lawyer would try and get someone off, after all the trials she’d sat through for her brother. She didn’t want to be the reason this man that had tried to hurt her friend escaped justice.
“I only remember him making a single shot. It all happened so fast,” she finally said.
“Do you recall anything unusual happening?” the officer asked. Miranda gave him a disbelieving look, but before she could say something suitably sassy he amended his question. “I’m sorry, I meant other than the robbery. Any reason that the man might have shot the wall fifteen feet away from where Mr. Hoang was standing?”
Miranda shook her head. “No, nothing at all. Why?”
“Just making sure I have all the facts, ma’am,” the officer said. “Once the paramedics have cleared you, you’re free to leave. The lobby will be a crime scene for at least a day, so there’s no need for you to stay.” He nodded politely to her, then walked away.
Miranda sighed a little as he left, and the paramedic chuckled. “Honey, he ain’t something to sigh after,” she said gently, uncuffing Miranda’s arm from the blood pressure device. “He’s pretty but ain’t much going on upstairs, you know what I mean.” She tapped her temple, giving Miranda a knowing look. Miranda gave the paramedic a somewhat strained smile.
“Can I go home?” she asked. “It’s been a day.”
“You’re fine, honey,” the paramedic replied. “Go home, have a drink. You should probably have someone come over, keep an eye on you, just in case.”
Miranda thanked her for the help, then stood up. She felt stronger than she had all day, despite the harrowing attempted robbery. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since the man walked into the lobby, but it felt like hours had passed. She walked up to the front doors of the bank, and tapped the policeman guarding the entrance on the shoulder.
“Excuse me, sir, can I go inside to get my purse and umbrella?” she asked him.
“Let me call an officer to escort you,” he told her, pulling a walkie-talkie from his belt. Before he could say anything, the handsome officer from earlier appeared at his side.
“I forgot you’d need your things from inside, ma’am,” he said, blushing a little. “Let me walk you in. Please be careful not to touch anything.” He opened the door for her, and walked in after she entered.
She quickly walked back to the main office, which wasn’t open to the public. She grabbed her purse and umbrella from her storage cube, and turned to find the officer standing very close behind her.
A wave of dizziness rushed through her head, and the officer stumbled back several steps. Miranda put her hand on the top of the storage unit, a large wooden structure built for everyone to keep their personal items in a central, secure location, trying to steady herself
“Are you all right?” she asked. The officer, who was leaning against a wall, stared at her, with what looked like anger on his face. Miranda looked steadily at him, not sure what was going on.
After a tense moment, he answered her. “I’m just fine, ma’am. I think you should go on home now.” Miranda nodded, and took a careful step. When her legs didn’t betray her, she strode out of the main office, her flats making little noise on the carpeted floor but scuffing loudly across the tile as she entered the main lobby.
The officer, whose name she still didn’t know, followed her until she had reached the door that led to the employee parking area, behind the building. Her car was parked close enough to the door that she didn’t bother with her umbrella. She thanked the officer for escorting her, and dashed to her little green car, unlocking it with her remote and getting in without getting terribly soaked.
She quickly started her car, turned the radio down, and drove out of the parking lot, wanting just to get home and lie down. The strength she’d felt earlier was gone, leaving a shivering weakness that kept her from trusting her own body.
Traffic wasn’t terrible, most people seeing to want to stay home in the face of this storm. She lived about fifteen minutes from the bank, which turned into thirty since she had to carefully drive through flooded intersections and take a few unexpected detours.
At one red light, she was quickly typing out a tweet on her phone, to let her followers know that yes, there had been a robbery, but no, she wasn’t hurt and she was on the way home. She glanced up to check the light, then did a double take. A swirling blue cloud of light was floating through the intersection, gliding right toward her. She yelped as it soared through the air, and hit her gas, trying to get her car out of the way. Before it hit her, it swerved abruptly to the right, disappearing into a building. It seemed to pass right through the brick and glass, leaving them unharmed. Miranda stared disbelievingly at the building, before a honk behind her reminded her that she was now slanted across two lanes of traffic in front of a now green light. She blushed furiously red and began driving, straightening her car into the left lane and zooming down the street.