The Breakfast Club

Frogboots turned me on to the amazingness that is Nanowrimo. Basically November is National Writing Month, and to encourage writers from all over the WORLD to finish some significant work, you are challenged to use the month of November to write 50K words. 50K!

In the beginning I was doing so well. I work best under a regard system. It is literally how I managed in school. I would promise myself a special treat if I did well on a test or paper. If an exam went really well, I would regard myself with a cupcake or a cd. I am sort of competitive, especially with my peers. And I relish in getting a better grade than my designated classroom nemesis. I still do this now, except in the real world I simply reward myself for making it through incredibly tough days. Had a bad day at work, wanted to curse a customer out but didn't...that friend deserves a song purchase from iTunes or better yet a book that I will sit on the floor for months.

What I like about Nanowrimo is that they have tapped into the pleasure one gets from regards. Write 50K by the end of the month and you get a nice little certificate. A certificate! A piece of paper saying that you have completed a 50k word count. In the beginning I would work on my story for an hour (the Peru one) and upload what I managed to write on Nanowrimo. Three weeks ago I was at 9 pages with a +3,000 word count. Today I am at 9 pages with a +3000 word count. What the fudge.

It's not that I am not motivated. I am very motivated. But I lack guidance and because of this my writing falls apart. It seems, that everyone at the bookstore who isn't over the age of 35 or under the age of 20 wants to be a writer, have landed at the bookstore because of the inability to do so. I want to go into production work. I will one day be a writer, but in order for me to do so my job has to be a little different from my passion. I will not be a life long bookseller! But those at work who know that I write feel it necessary to ask me what i am writing. And I am bombarded by 'writers' who talk about writing without actually writing. I don't talk about writing at all, but I also haven't done much of it these days.

Surprisingly though, I am the girl at work to come to with any literary crisis. Don't know what to do with this plot block in your story...come to me and I'll help you work it out over some general questions and guidance. Because of my two internships at a publishing house and a production company I am all of a sudden an asset to the emerging filmmakers and writers at my job. If only a real job would realize this, i would be set. I have always had this vision of forming a small collective group of emerging writers, artists, and musicians who are talented, young, and hungry. But so far the people I have met are just young and hungry with no actual drive to even test there talent.

And I hope I am not participating in the latter of those three qualities. But I can't even manage a 50K word count. I am doomed.

The new girl at work is a writer. Yeah. I found out during one of my "so what do you think of the new girl conversations". My favorite store manager is Paul. He is your classic family guy. He was a jock in school, who studied business in Westchester and managed a bunch of retail stores in the last 20 years. He is obsessed with video games, loves his kids to death, and don't get him started on the Yankees. He loves the Yankees. Everybody likes Paul because he understands a pivotal role in being a manager. Get your employees to like you, and we will do our best to pick up the slack when he asks.

Because of the holidays, we have hired a slew of new people. So far I only like the Matt kid. His dad is this hot shot publisher, but besides that he fell into the group pretty well. Paul, having only been there a year, has never hired anyone before and for some reason the old managers felt it was time. Of course (because he's a guys guy), he hires a beautiful half Italian/half Hispanic, ex-bartender who now works in advertising but wanted to make extra cash! We, the girls, all hate her. The boys, love her.

I wish I was vain and could say that I hate her on looks alone. We are a store of young, alternative intellectuals who spent our high school days fending off the popular beautiful people, only to now become comfortable in our skins. And then this chick comes along, with her gorgeous hair and skin and suddenly it's as if she has plopped herself down at the nerds lunch table, interrupting a game of dungeons and dragons with her prettiness. She talks like Scarlet Johansen, she laughs a siren and damn it her hair is pretty amazing. Pretty amazing.

But I'm not vain. And the reason I don't like her has nothing to do with her looks. Josh, a friend at work, said it best. Our particular store is employed with people who fit into a certain niche. This is why we have more good days then bad, why we pick up the slack for one another, and function as some cohesive team. We all like each other. We all hate our jobs and know that if things were better our retail days would be way behind us....but we generally like each other. Because we are smart, passive, talented slackers. Or as he called it "Nerds who are finally okay with being a nerd". I say we are like The Breakfast Clubs, brats thrown into a situation under our control but we've turned it into an weekend adventure, and made some friends along the way.

But all of a sudden, because everyone is looking for a job these days, we are a store full of 'new people' vs. 'old people' and what the new people have, in a way done, is invaded the only thing we like about the job, each other. On the first day, New Girl was already bossing everyone around. She wanted us to hold this, or go there, or do this and that for her. She doesn't ask questions about how something is done she expects you to just give her answers. I call her the "used car salesman" in my head, because she comes on strong and doesn't waiver until you are off the lot and cursing. We spent that whole afternoon talking about her, and at the end of the night we were glad when she got to leave early.

She has been trying to make up for her bad first impression, but some of us (me.me.me) we are not that forgiving. So far our continued impression of her is "she's not horrible but...."

I found out that she was a writer a day or two after I met her. She was in the essay section and was browsing through a book on memoirs. I later found out that she introduced herself as a writer to half of the employees. She makes me ill. One of my coworkers, in defense of me, said "our Beckett is a writer too. You two should have so much to talk about". No. No. No. We sized each other up immediately and then went our separate ways, pens in hand seeing who would pen their first novel first (okay this didn't happen. But in my mind it was like that!) Maybe having this foe at work will generate some writing. I have a need to squash her prettiness with my personality and writing abilities. It may be the reward at the beginning of my writing 'career' that I need.