So yes, we can call ourselves (unless we already do) Novelists!
We can even call ourselves PUBLISHED NOVELISTS if you deem the net as a medium and not believe in the narrow view that "if it ain't on paper, it ain't published."
Here's to possibly joining Script Frenzy on April 2010 and hoping that more people and friends take a stab at writing their own novels come Nanowrimo 2010!
SURVIVING MANILA: RISEN THREAT! has finally hit the 50k word mark as well with Chapter 9: Presumptions. The whole chapter has not been completed, although the portions needed to hit the mark have been "uploaded for verification" and approved.
So for those anxious to see a hint of Chapter 9, lemme give you the very paragraphs which allowed me to mark this year's entry to Nanowrimo as a winner.
Chapter Nine: Presumptions
Operation: Purgatory led Captain Rodolfo and his companions on a dangerous trek in search for a biological weapon that seemed to defy all laws of science. Like something straight out of a horror movie, the biological weapon suggested the ability to transmute an ordinary healthy person into an infected carrier of a genetically enhanced mutagen overpowered with chemically induced rage and insatiable hunger, nullified pain receptors and a rapid state of cellular decomposition as the body sapped all stored energy to maintain an almost constant state of activity. While testing had suggested a much lower rate of complete inception of the virus, a large percentage of the remainder would find themselves still sharing the constant hunger and cellular degeneration without the boosts of destructive rage. Instead, the remainder would find their bodies in a rapid state of rot and decay while afflicted with an almost lucid state of dreaming. Though pain negation was constant in all tests, a large majority would find themselves struggling against a physical restraint similar to that of sleep paralysis. Even something as simple as walking or crawling would require much greater effort.
Their hearts would remain beating, rising at a rate as high as 210 beats per second. Their breathing would turn rapid, hyperventilating the body in a matter of seconds. And then, after an estimate period of 15 to 30 minutes depending on the health of the subject prior to infection, the body would crash, adrenaline dropping to immensely low levels and the heart almost imperceptible as it seemingly halts beating. Breathing grows more and more shallow as well until suddenly, a strange state of clam seemingly strikes and the subject can no longer be detected to be breathing. (An astute observer, however, would note that the subject now relies on breathing through the mouth taking in tremendously minute levels of oxygen almost like an animal in hibernation.
The subject would then remain capable of limited activity, typically related to the search or acquisition of living flesh or warm blood for consumption. Records noted a number of subjects lasting just a few minutes shy of 72 hours.
Rodolfo and his team sought not just evidence of this biological weapon, but also for any signs of a cure for those afflicted by it. For something that induced upon its victims a state of living death, Rodolfo had hoped the creators were human enough to consider creating something to counteract its effects had it infected someone of considerable importance to them. But in the ensuing years that passed, more and more the horror of the virus being considered as an ultimate strike with no turning back came into focus. It was like the group sought to make the whole world itself both the target and the attacker with a single act: the world’s population was to become suicide bombers with their blood itself the biological incendiary that would consume us all in a wave of viral fire.
Few believed them.
Few could accept the feasibility of such a biological weapon existing. Too quickly many high ranking officers scoffed at the idea that there was a zombie serum out there. Too many times the operation itself was nearly shut down due to the lack of actual hard evidence. Rodolfo tried to convince others of its validity, with the clearly abundant paper trail and the number of scientists they had either apprehended or killed who seem to have been given charge of a segment of the formula. But the idea that such a biological weapon could exist was too easily dismissed as preposterous. What was next, the officers would say in jest, a death ray? Killer robots who would be sent from the future?
To their credit, Rodolfo and his team kept a true bearing in their search for actual proof of the virus. They stalked the virus and its creators over the last few years with commendable skill. Their missions remained hidden in secrecy with neither media nor public rumor suggesting their existence. From the jungles of Mindanao to the winding roads of Indonesia, the secret back alleys of Hong kong to the quiet towns of Capiz, the missions eventually led them back towards Manila where supposedly an actual active batch of the biological weapon was being transferred from a private ship to a privately chartered plane. The team realized this was the first opportunity through the years to prove it was real and actually get their hands on a sample.
What they did not anticipate was that the information regarding its transit itself was a lie.
The virus was to be unleashed in Manila.
are you talking about the anti-matter, my dear? ;))
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