"Treat with Care" excerpts.
So, here are some excerpts from my 2006 NaNoWriMo attempt, Treat with Care. They're the same bits in my NaNoWriMo profile, I just thought I'd better 'save' them, before my profile gets reset. (I still have the full text, of course)
I make no guarantees of quality, these unedited excerpts were written in a hurry. Also, (though obvious) my characters voices and opinions are not necessarily my own.
Lengthy dialogue:
Loki shrugs, and wanders over to his father’s office then, at the far end of the room. “Hey, dad, there’s some chick here that wants to see you. She's saying something about a job, or something. I think she’s nuts, really. Should I kick her out? Or maybe find her a room? She’s really bugging me, I want to kick her out. Please?” he begs at the door, then turns around and comes right back to Bella. “Pfft. He’s not listening, it’s like I don’t exist. Plus, his office is soundproof. The screaming of the crazies almost had him in a cell, or something. I think he did it just to shut me out though, which is the only reason he does anything, ever. But I’m not paranoid, I’ve had every shrink that’s come through here vouch for that, and they promised they weren’t just doing it to keep their jobs or anything. When I put my mind to it, I can drive anyone to quit. I’ve already gone through lots and lots of secretaries. There are three secretary agencies that won’t even deal with us anymore, and two more are on the verge of it. We’re looking at hiring some crazy fast writer type, like Matt Kinsi, or Liana, to do it. Seems like fun. I even volunteered for the secretary job once or twice. But dad won’t give me the job, says I’m just not up to it, or something about discipline, anyway. I think he likes a little bit of ‘bonding’ with the receptionist on the side, if you know what I mean. They’re always female, always big boobs, always dumber than the chair that they sit on. They fall for the stupidest practical jokes ever. Easy to make ‘em quit, and when I can’t do that I make sexual harassment allegations in their name, against my father. He’s guilty, of course, so he always just fires them, it’s so funny.” Does Loki ever shut up? Apparently, he doesn’t.
A recipe:
“Thank you,” says the chef, who then introduces herself to Loki. “My name is Sarah, by the way. Sarah Wilson. But you can call me Sarah, if you want.” Sarah Wilson then blushes slightly. Did Bella tell her about the ‘proposal’ or something? It sure seems like she did. “Anyway, what you need to cook this is: about five hundred grams of minced meat. One onion; I use a large onion, but any size works really. One capsicum; I tend to use a small one. Two hundred and fifty grams of spiral pasta; any pasta works really, but I find large spirals hold the sauce better.” Sarah takes a breath, and then continues. Loki is taking notes, typing on his pocket organiser at a feverish speed. “I also use a tin of condensed tomato soup, a small jar of tomato paste, usually between two hundred and three hundred grams, and a dash of barbecue sauce. I use many herbs to flavour it; the main ones are oregano, basil, thyme, sage, and paprika. I’ll use nearly anything though, depending on how I feel at the time.” Sarah smiles, and then continues with the recipe. “First thing you do is defrost the meat. Then you chop up the onion, and put it in a frying pan with a little cooking oil, I use canola oil usually. Fry that up until the onion is near transparent, then add the meat. Sometimes I let the onion get a touch brown, but not always. At this point, put a large pot of water on to boil, this will be used for the pasta later. Once the meat is brown, add the soup, the tomato paste, and a dollop or so of barbecue sauce, but not too much. Stir this through, and then check on the water. As soon as the water starts boiling, put the pasta in. Then chop the capsicum, and put that in with the meat. Then in go the herbs, don’t forget to keep stirring. Once the pasta is done, drain the water, then add them to the meat and stir through. Serve. Viola!”
Some description:
Loki ignores Bella’s questions easily and cheerfully, and then leans back in his chair, tilting it back onto just the two rear legs. He stretches for a long moment, and then gazes across the table thoughtfully, looking at Bella properly for the first time now. His attention is drawn first to her expression, as he attempts to get a read on how she feels about him. And, he sure gets some idea of it, because she soon glances his way with a very hate filled glare. He shakes his head slightly, and then considers Bella for a moment. ‘Well, she has nice hair I guess, it's just past her shoulders, and this really dark shade, like a black hole almost.’ Loki thinks, and then glances back to see if she’s still looking at him. ‘I suppose her eyes are kind of nice, but brown is such a common colour really. Bella does have the oddest little button nose, though, I just want to reach out and tap her on that annoyingly perfect nose, just to see if it’s real. It probably isn’t, but I must know!’ His arms twitch at his sides very peculiarly, but he controls the impulse, and then tilts his head at Bella for one last long look. ‘She’s so pretty, but she’d be a whole lot prettier if she smiled once in a while. I’ll bet even her smile looks like a frown.’
Bella frowns at Loki, and then shakes her head. If he’s going to ignore her, then it really isn’t worth the bother of snapping at him, even if it would make her feel better. She does take a longer look at him though, glaring hatefully when his eyes meet hers, until he looks away. ‘Such pale blue eyes, I’ve never seen such a light shade. Loki is such a freak.’ She shakes her head, and then glances down slightly, still looking at Loki’s face, however. “He’s got quite a big nose, there. If I cared at all I would probably have to give him the number of that surgeon I know. Actually, he’s got fairly big hands, too. I wonder...’ but she manages to control the almost irresistible urge to check whether his feet are also big. ‘Stupid the way he’s always grinning, though. That’s just so unbelievably annoying. How can anyone be so damned cheerful at a time like this? Like he thinks that everything’s going to be alright. Well, I’m smarter than that. It’s not going to be alright, not now, not ever.’ Bella thinks to herself, the eternal cynic, before getting up and leaving the room to do other things, like prepare for her first day of work at her new job.
Coin flip philosophy:
And a decisive one it was! After a few minutes spent dithering, humming and hawing, dilly dallying, wavering, and otherwise unable to make up his mind, Loki had ‘decisively’ decided to leave it to chance. His next big decision was ‘heads or tails?’ which he assigned to knocking and entering respectively. Of course, first, he needed to get a coin, so he went and asked one of the nursing staff for change. Then, on the first flip, the coin ‘escaped’ and rolled away down the hallway, where a relative of a patient picked it up. After finally having ended an awkward conversation with said relative, he headed back to Bella’s office with the coin, and, as he still had not reached a decision about how to enter the room, he flipped it again. This time, it came up heads. However, Loki had already forgotten what heads meant, so he assigned new values to the sides of the coin, coincidentally the same ones as before, heads is knocking, and tails is entering. He flipped it again, and then covered his eyes for no good reason. He peeked out between two fingers, saw that the result was heads again - knocking - but he decided to ignore the result and just enter anyway. Of course, this in itself was a recognition of, and reaction to, the result of the coin toss, as much as Loki believed and would claim that it wasn’t. It’s like asking a question, then doing the opposite: you need to get the answer first, before you can do the opposite, and doing the opposite is in itself dependent on the answer. Of course, some might argue that the ‘opposite’ was what they were going to do anyway; they just wanted an outside opinion. Or maybe it was fate, and was destined to happen, but the independent source - like the coin - wasn’t aware of that, or was being difficult on purpose. Which would make one wonder what they were sniffing, and could one have some, because coins can’t do anything on purpose, they are inanimate objects. However, that would wind up involving a completely different assortment of problems, drawing in an even wider range of people. One such group being the ones who believed computers were sentient, and crashed on purpose [save file] [save file] [save file] right in the middle of something [save file] important. Then there were the ones who believed that if they talked bad about their car, it would break down in the most inconvenient place, at the most inconvenient time, just to spite them. There were even ones that name inanimate objects, often such as the aforementioned car and [save file] computer. Ahem, where were we? Aha, right, Loki had just opened the door to Bella’s office, after much indecision on his part.
I make no guarantees of quality, these unedited excerpts were written in a hurry. Also, (though obvious) my characters voices and opinions are not necessarily my own.
Lengthy dialogue:
Loki shrugs, and wanders over to his father’s office then, at the far end of the room. “Hey, dad, there’s some chick here that wants to see you. She's saying something about a job, or something. I think she’s nuts, really. Should I kick her out? Or maybe find her a room? She’s really bugging me, I want to kick her out. Please?” he begs at the door, then turns around and comes right back to Bella. “Pfft. He’s not listening, it’s like I don’t exist. Plus, his office is soundproof. The screaming of the crazies almost had him in a cell, or something. I think he did it just to shut me out though, which is the only reason he does anything, ever. But I’m not paranoid, I’ve had every shrink that’s come through here vouch for that, and they promised they weren’t just doing it to keep their jobs or anything. When I put my mind to it, I can drive anyone to quit. I’ve already gone through lots and lots of secretaries. There are three secretary agencies that won’t even deal with us anymore, and two more are on the verge of it. We’re looking at hiring some crazy fast writer type, like Matt Kinsi, or Liana, to do it. Seems like fun. I even volunteered for the secretary job once or twice. But dad won’t give me the job, says I’m just not up to it, or something about discipline, anyway. I think he likes a little bit of ‘bonding’ with the receptionist on the side, if you know what I mean. They’re always female, always big boobs, always dumber than the chair that they sit on. They fall for the stupidest practical jokes ever. Easy to make ‘em quit, and when I can’t do that I make sexual harassment allegations in their name, against my father. He’s guilty, of course, so he always just fires them, it’s so funny.” Does Loki ever shut up? Apparently, he doesn’t.
A recipe:
“Thank you,” says the chef, who then introduces herself to Loki. “My name is Sarah, by the way. Sarah Wilson. But you can call me Sarah, if you want.” Sarah Wilson then blushes slightly. Did Bella tell her about the ‘proposal’ or something? It sure seems like she did. “Anyway, what you need to cook this is: about five hundred grams of minced meat. One onion; I use a large onion, but any size works really. One capsicum; I tend to use a small one. Two hundred and fifty grams of spiral pasta; any pasta works really, but I find large spirals hold the sauce better.” Sarah takes a breath, and then continues. Loki is taking notes, typing on his pocket organiser at a feverish speed. “I also use a tin of condensed tomato soup, a small jar of tomato paste, usually between two hundred and three hundred grams, and a dash of barbecue sauce. I use many herbs to flavour it; the main ones are oregano, basil, thyme, sage, and paprika. I’ll use nearly anything though, depending on how I feel at the time.” Sarah smiles, and then continues with the recipe. “First thing you do is defrost the meat. Then you chop up the onion, and put it in a frying pan with a little cooking oil, I use canola oil usually. Fry that up until the onion is near transparent, then add the meat. Sometimes I let the onion get a touch brown, but not always. At this point, put a large pot of water on to boil, this will be used for the pasta later. Once the meat is brown, add the soup, the tomato paste, and a dollop or so of barbecue sauce, but not too much. Stir this through, and then check on the water. As soon as the water starts boiling, put the pasta in. Then chop the capsicum, and put that in with the meat. Then in go the herbs, don’t forget to keep stirring. Once the pasta is done, drain the water, then add them to the meat and stir through. Serve. Viola!”
Some description:
Loki ignores Bella’s questions easily and cheerfully, and then leans back in his chair, tilting it back onto just the two rear legs. He stretches for a long moment, and then gazes across the table thoughtfully, looking at Bella properly for the first time now. His attention is drawn first to her expression, as he attempts to get a read on how she feels about him. And, he sure gets some idea of it, because she soon glances his way with a very hate filled glare. He shakes his head slightly, and then considers Bella for a moment. ‘Well, she has nice hair I guess, it's just past her shoulders, and this really dark shade, like a black hole almost.’ Loki thinks, and then glances back to see if she’s still looking at him. ‘I suppose her eyes are kind of nice, but brown is such a common colour really. Bella does have the oddest little button nose, though, I just want to reach out and tap her on that annoyingly perfect nose, just to see if it’s real. It probably isn’t, but I must know!’ His arms twitch at his sides very peculiarly, but he controls the impulse, and then tilts his head at Bella for one last long look. ‘She’s so pretty, but she’d be a whole lot prettier if she smiled once in a while. I’ll bet even her smile looks like a frown.’
Bella frowns at Loki, and then shakes her head. If he’s going to ignore her, then it really isn’t worth the bother of snapping at him, even if it would make her feel better. She does take a longer look at him though, glaring hatefully when his eyes meet hers, until he looks away. ‘Such pale blue eyes, I’ve never seen such a light shade. Loki is such a freak.’ She shakes her head, and then glances down slightly, still looking at Loki’s face, however. “He’s got quite a big nose, there. If I cared at all I would probably have to give him the number of that surgeon I know. Actually, he’s got fairly big hands, too. I wonder...’ but she manages to control the almost irresistible urge to check whether his feet are also big. ‘Stupid the way he’s always grinning, though. That’s just so unbelievably annoying. How can anyone be so damned cheerful at a time like this? Like he thinks that everything’s going to be alright. Well, I’m smarter than that. It’s not going to be alright, not now, not ever.’ Bella thinks to herself, the eternal cynic, before getting up and leaving the room to do other things, like prepare for her first day of work at her new job.
Coin flip philosophy:
And a decisive one it was! After a few minutes spent dithering, humming and hawing, dilly dallying, wavering, and otherwise unable to make up his mind, Loki had ‘decisively’ decided to leave it to chance. His next big decision was ‘heads or tails?’ which he assigned to knocking and entering respectively. Of course, first, he needed to get a coin, so he went and asked one of the nursing staff for change. Then, on the first flip, the coin ‘escaped’ and rolled away down the hallway, where a relative of a patient picked it up. After finally having ended an awkward conversation with said relative, he headed back to Bella’s office with the coin, and, as he still had not reached a decision about how to enter the room, he flipped it again. This time, it came up heads. However, Loki had already forgotten what heads meant, so he assigned new values to the sides of the coin, coincidentally the same ones as before, heads is knocking, and tails is entering. He flipped it again, and then covered his eyes for no good reason. He peeked out between two fingers, saw that the result was heads again - knocking - but he decided to ignore the result and just enter anyway. Of course, this in itself was a recognition of, and reaction to, the result of the coin toss, as much as Loki believed and would claim that it wasn’t. It’s like asking a question, then doing the opposite: you need to get the answer first, before you can do the opposite, and doing the opposite is in itself dependent on the answer. Of course, some might argue that the ‘opposite’ was what they were going to do anyway; they just wanted an outside opinion. Or maybe it was fate, and was destined to happen, but the independent source - like the coin - wasn’t aware of that, or was being difficult on purpose. Which would make one wonder what they were sniffing, and could one have some, because coins can’t do anything on purpose, they are inanimate objects. However, that would wind up involving a completely different assortment of problems, drawing in an even wider range of people. One such group being the ones who believed computers were sentient, and crashed on purpose [save file] [save file] [save file] right in the middle of something [save file] important. Then there were the ones who believed that if they talked bad about their car, it would break down in the most inconvenient place, at the most inconvenient time, just to spite them. There were even ones that name inanimate objects, often such as the aforementioned car and [save file] computer. Ahem, where were we? Aha, right, Loki had just opened the door to Bella’s office, after much indecision on his part.