IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!
Their theme this year is zombies. There were Beware of Zombie notebooks, pencils with brain erasers on top, and a raffle for a NaNoWriMo Ate My Brain coffee cup (among other things, in a big basket). Our MLs were dressed up as a Zombie Hunter (who kind of looked like a female cross Bobby Singer that stole Dean Winchester's jacket), and an *awesome* Zombie Librarian. There was also a raffle from a pie from a restaurant they hang out at, and I won! It was marionberry, which I'm not a huge fan of, but dude, FREE PIE. Not a big fan of zombies either, but free stuff is always fun.
But the meet itself was ... meh.
It was kind of like high school. You know, how all the people who've met before and already know each other get into groups and talk away? And you're stuck in the corner with all the shy, awkward people because you don't know anyone, and they're too shy and awkward to talk to you either?
Yeah.
But while I was there, I found out there's another local NaNo group, which happens to be in the town I live in rather than half an hour away like the first group. I was kind of leery about it, but I convinced myself to give them a try. I loved my Arizona group, and I really would like to make some more friends in this area. And worse case, I know I still have all my online Writing Buddies for encouragement. ♥
It was *SO* much better! This group is smaller, and definitely more of my kind of people. Our ML introduced everyone like, six times because we kept having more people show up after we'd started, which made a big difference. (The other group never did introductions outside of the MLs and just left getting to know each other up to us, which really bugged me.) Half the time no one remembered anyone's name, but we were all having too much fun to care. There was much talk of stories and novels and movies and recipes and all sorts of things. It was a very energetic and friendly group.
One of the planned projects we had was that the ML had told us to bring Legos, so we could build totems for our novels. I don't own any Legos, so I dragged Brother through the clearance section of Wal-Mart yesterday looking for anything that worked with my novel theme. (Space Pirates with Dragons.) Sadly I did not find any dragons, but I did snag a Star Wars Headhunter kit! There was lots of ooh'ing and ah'ing over it.
I managed to build the bottom part of the ship while I was there. At one point I was trying to check out this spring-loaded mechanism thing that I wasn't sure if I'd put it in right or not, and I, um. Accidentally shot it at my ML. Technically it hit the wall about a foot over her head, but um. Yeah. c.c;;;
She actually mentioned it on our Facebook group, calling it the best part of the night. ^.^;;
I've decided that 'It was an accident' must now be a running gag in my novel this year, because, well.