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Random

A story of NaNoWriMo

Like thousands of characters every year, Random Idea Number 42 dreams of one day starring as the protagonist in a NaNoWriMo novel of her very own. It's not easy when you don't even have a name yet, but she's determined to try.

But when November looms and a friend helps her land a role, she gets thrown into more than she bargained for. Forced to team up with a surly inter-novel investigator, she ends up thrust into a dark plot involving the Travelling Shovel of Death, and discovers the fate of the novels that never made it to 50k...

We'll probably never find out where free shrimp dinners come from, though.

(Starring: a full cast of scientists, detectives, zombies, ninjas, pirates, robots, awful romance novel protagonists, trebuchets, malicious gardening implements, people with significantly anagrammed names, flying pets, wordcount validators, dares, and at least one oversharing talk show host.)

Okay, I can explain.

Caution: the following will make no sense to those not steeped in NaNoWriMo lore. But then again, you'd never understand the story anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.

One day, I was reading about the Traveling Shovel of Death and it occurred to me that, even though I'd used it before, I'd never taken up the idea of having an entire novel about the Shovel. About an hour later the core idea of Random was in my head and wouldn't go away.

https://www.wikiwrimo.org/wiki/Traveling_Shovel_of_Death

I like writing serious stories. But I also like the idea of trying to put together a good story and characters using a cracky premise. It's not that unusual - most of my favourite films run on the same base. Sooner or later I figured I'd have to give it a try.

Random was also heavily inspired by the other NaNo meta novel I know of, Sushi's Adventures in Wrimonia. Do yourself a favour and read it.

https://www.sushimustwrite.com/wrimonia

Special thanks to NaNoWriMo London and NaNoWriMo Brighton for hugs, support, and sleepless nights during 2014. You know who you are.

Rating

Generally family friendly, a few darker scenes and occasional suggestiveness, but nothing naughty going on.

Chapters

1: Bookish Hooligans

2: Established: 1999

3: Don't Try This At Home

4: Aardvarks

5: Welcome to Foreshadow City

6: The Duct Tape Chronicles

7: Not Once More, But Still With Pirates

8: The Cupcake Affair

9: I've Been Around

10: So Many Shades

11: Try Science

12: That Damn Spade

13: All Known Frequencies

14: Free Shrimp Dinner

15: Façade

16: End Paragraph

17: The Shovelbearer

18: Fifty Thousand Words of Drivel

19: Frequent Flier

20: No Plot, No Problem

Alternate links over http are:

https://lilaclynx.net/random/

http://archiveofourown.org/works/3688659/

Credits

Chris Baty is his own person and he made NaNoWriMo. Mr Ian Woon and the Travelling Shovel of Death sprang full-form from the collective WriMo consciousness. Everything else is mine.

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