I'll Write My Way Out

  Logan was raised by a single mother. Logan’s father wasn’t around much, and it might have been tough on Logan, if it wasn’t for his mother’s brother, Brian. Logan was a sweet little boy, and he idolized his Uncle Brian. Brian was certainly hero material. He had kind of a blond curly mullet, and in the 80s, he wore cool tinted glasses and fashionable swim trunks when he took Logan for weekends at his cottage. A photo depicting this phase of Brian’s life had recently surfaced at a family funeral, and one of Logan’s cousins had yelled out: “Ooh, Uncle Brian! What a hottie!” The resultant discomfort led to Brian’s wife trying to distance herself from the photo. “That’s not Brian, and that’s also not me in the picture. I don’t know who those people are,” she said, incredibly. The only possible way that what she said could have been true was for doppelgangers to have taken her and Brian’s places at their cottage during the summer. Doppelgangers who not only had access to their clothes,...

That was a blast to the finish. Nothing made sense, but it all ended. Here is a part of the absolute nonsense that unfolded: Logan, Tanner, and Sam watched as Chadwick Penneyworth emerged from his office, yelling. The Mini Militia had scattered at the sound of the big ruckus, all except one child, a little girl who had somehow gotten rid of her yellow rainjacket and rubber boots, and was now wearing a Santa hat and clutching a recorder. She was crouched near the door to Chadwick’s Office, just out of sight. As Chadwick charged angrily toward the library, roaring “Jesus Christ Almight,” the three men stood, sent up a silent prayer for the wellbeing of the teens, and followed the girl, who was now playing the recorder like a deranged pied piper. “Wait,” said Logan. Tanner and Dean paused, and oddly, so did the girl. She lowered her recorder and watched while Logan spoke. “I just can’t leave the teens to their fate. I’m going to help, you got this?” he asked Tanner, who nodded. At that, T...

Okay- we are in the end game now. I should finish tomorrow, hopefully just past 50,000 words. I actually still really have no idea how to wrap it up, but with the Breakfast Club providing a blueprint, I will find my way somehow. Everyone is at the school. Everyone. Oh, I should tell you that Cody Simpson changed the password to the VIP WiFi Network, so now our heroes have access to the internet, and are able to communicate with each other via their phones. Chadwick and the rest of the senior admin are locked out, victims of their own evil machinations. Here is an excerpt: Sam, Dean, and Logan were on the second floor of the school. They were nearest to the administrative hall, and this was probably the most dangerous place to be, not only because they were close to Chadwick Penneyworth’s office, but because this was the place where there had been the most sightings of the Mini Militia. The evening before, during the planning session at Jackie’s Place, Jackie had pulled out blueprints o...

Things are plugging along. I think everything is going to come to a head during Saturday detention.  “Even I know that the administration at the high school is up to something extremely shady,” Jeremy Roenick noted. “Pardon my French, but it’s a fucking gong show.” Cass was shocked that none of the teachers corrected Jeremy Roenick that gong show was not a French word. Teachers notoriously love correcting people. Perhaps they were afraid it would be misconstrued as flirting. Sylvester Stallone chose that moment to speak. “I agree with Jeremy. As you all know, my masterpiece film, Demolition Man, was dismissed as just a stupid action flick with ‘excessive explosions,’” he said, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Except that it smartly predicted and joked about toxic masculinity, racial bias, and the consequences of stifling individual freedom and critical thinking. By now, it’s obvious that the movie was brilliant. But it still doesn’t get enough credit.” Everyone looked stunned bu...

My novel makes no sense. I have no idea why I didn't advance the plot at all today. I am almost out of time to wrap this up, but that is not pushing me toward resolving any of the multiple plots that are hanging around unfinished. Anyway. Today I decided to write another dance sequence. Oh, and all the celebrities resolved their feuds, so there's that.  “Wait!” Windigo Esmort shouted, just before they were about to begin. “this time, with capes- just as it was intended.” And Windigo, along with Berto and Gordon, hustled to the backroom and returned with enough waist length, sweat-wicking capes for everyone. “Of course, these are only practice capes,” Windigo said. “We will leave the real ones for the dress rehearsal and the performance.” “Performance?” asked Cass. “Yes,” Gordon jumped in. He had for some reason put the practice cape on overtop of the ankle length cape he was already wearing. Surprisingly, he pulled it off with aplomb. “This is actually the final dance number fo...

So, I had to circle back to the mini militia's presence in my novel. They have just been fiddlin' around, showing up from time to time, and no one has ever really known what they were doing or why. I decided to have Tanner Barrows (Cass's ex and loosely based on the character Dean Winchester), who up until yesterday was not even in my novel at all, explain everything. It was a strange choice, but hey, it's EsNoWriMo. Anything goes! Here is an excerpt of an extremely long winded conversation between Cass and Tanner : “That was too easy, right?” she asked, and he nodded. “Was it a trap?” she asked. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “But something bigger is going on.” He looked at her, and something inside of him loosened. He decided, for once, to trust her. “So look. Sam and I have been tracking appearances of what we have been calling a ‘mini militia’. It’s a loose collection of toddlers, sometimes older children. They are often wearing yellow raincoats and carrying wo...

So, I am trying to wrap up the Great Book Heist part of my novel, which is actually based on a true story. Happy to have passed the 40,000 mark, hopefully it's all downhill from here. I find the helpful thing about memos is you can summarize a lot of stuff without ever having to explain it happening, so I might go with that tomorrow. Anyway, here are a couple of excerpts. First, I loved a line from Indigo's blog so much I had to include it in my novel: “What are you doing?” Berto scream whispered, to no avail. Cass ignored them. Gordon, who has an uncanny ability to hear a scream whisper even in a crowded, carnival-like atmosphere did hear, and with a mere glance, completely understood the situation. He, like Berto, had the romantic comedy formula encoded into his DNA. The situation was dire. Gordon pranced to the centre of the room, turned his back on Cass, and then spun around quickly, his cape flaring in the dim flickering light of the bar. “What are you doing?” He scream wh...

Plugging along, and actually a semi-pleasant writing day. I am looking forward to crossing the 40,000 word mark tomorrow, and hoping to sail through Week 4! It certainly will be a mad dash toward the finish line, with a huge, unwieldy and sprawling plot with multiple moving parts. That said, my characters mostly did nothing other than wait around Jackie's Place for night to fall. I also decided it was time to address a storyline I introduced some time in week 1 and have been neglecting ever since. Cass has an ex and a current love interest, so you knew where that has to go, right? Right. We all know.  First excerpt- Jackie Desmond arrives at Jackie's Place, and we learn something surprising: Parm Pettipiece had reached out to Jackie Desmond, to ask if she was willing to answer the call in case any of the teachers (or Justin Bieber) was arrested. Cass only overheard Parm’s half of the conversation, but from what she heard, it seemed that Jackie Desmond was more than happy to rep...

Kind of an uninspired writing session today, but I still managed to get 2,000 words done. I didn't love a lot of what I wrote today, but included this gem about the safety wear designed by Windigo Esmort: Together, the group of high school staff, celebrities, and Jackie’s Place employees concocted an air tight plan. Windigo Esmort, upon hearing that the group of caperers would be entering a construction zone, immediately retreated to the back room, emerging 45 minutes later with a set of hard hats in burnished gold with some spots of greenish patina, as if they had been placed one a high shelf in a palace somewhere, but someone who prayed the hard hats would bever again be needed. These were smartly paired with regulation steel-toed boots, that Esmort had encased in Dr. Marten’s Ricki Nappa Lux Leather Platform Gladiator Sandals in Cobblestone Grey. There were enough for everyone. “How did they know everyone’s sizes?” asked Biebs, with wonder. Windigo glared at him imperiously,...

Joining our group of resisters are more teachers (yes I am still adding new characters, including a politics teacher names LeRoy Butler) and some celebrity feuders:  The Jeremy Roenick and Justin Bieber feud is a strange one, because one is an NHL hockey player (not technically a celebrity) and one is a pop star (a legit celebrity). The origin of the feud is the celebrity hockey game “Skate for LA Strong”- the fundraising game that had brought together first responders, celebrities, and NHL Alumni to support relief efforts for the wildfires that had devastated greater Los Angeles in January 2025. It would have been even cooler if the game had been raising money for the various LA immigrant rights organizations that are resisting the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one of the other reasons that the Summer of ’25 was dubbed ‘Hot Commie Summer’, but hey. You can’t win ‘em all, as they say. I mean, technically the resistance hadn’t started at the time of the game, ...

I was going to post the origin story of Logan 'Bam Bam' Brewster's nickname today (it's a real corker), but I just have to post the memo and subsequent diary entry of Chadwick "McDreamy" Penneyworth. And that is already a very long excerpt, so perhaps I will save the nickname origin story for another time. So, here it is. I hope you enjoy! To: All Staff at Barnaby Secondary School From: Chadwick Penneyworth, “Acting” Principal Date: August 31, 2025 Subject: “Suggested” Practices (Mandatory Rules) Thank you to all those who stopped by the office or sent cards and gifts by way of congratulations for my great success in restoring WiFi Access to the ten poor souls on Martha’s Vineyard who had lost access to WiFi for four full days. They were heartened to know that the entirety of Barnaby Secondary School’s Staff and Senior Leadership team were keeping them in their thoughts and prayers. Unfortunately, I am a victim of my own success. Since the Committee ha...

Finally I managed to get my teachers to stop talking about their incredibly complex multi-pronged strategy. There are so many things that have to happen in the next 19,500 words, I should probably buckle down and write some story and stop going off on side tangents. Then again, side tangents are fun! So, here is a little bit of the teacher's meeting that I finally just ended today, because I needed to move onto something else. "I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Because what is happening to us- it isn’t unique. This has been going on for decades. The gradual, or less gradual in this case, purposeful erosion of conditions in schools. In many cases, the conditions were just always terrible. And, you know, at a certain point, you’ve got to ask yourself, why? Why is so much effort put into making it impossible for us to do our jobs? And you know, I think Logan was onto something when he said that what we do is important,” she saw some nods around the room. “What we do is importa...

A successful writing session as I try to get ahead in the word count. The kids and I are heading to the real life Jackie's Place and I might take a day off of writing while there. The teachers are still at Jackie's Place, and are sharing some ideas for how they can mess with the administration at Barnaby. Here is some of what they have come up with so far. First, Cody Simpson with a big reveal: “Okay. So let’s start with VIP WiFi Coordination. My investigation has revealed that as we suspected all along, there is something fishy going on at Barnaby with regards to the WiFi situation. First, the WiFi network is working perfectly well. Brandon from IT was not lying to you about that.” The teachers vigorously disagreed and began to loudly do so, “But, BUT!” Cody Simpson said, raising his voice to silence the teachers. “But, what Brandon neglected to tell you is that someone in the Barnaby administration purchased a signal jammer from Staples on August 30, 2025.” The teachers gas...