The first (and maybe last) excerpt of my Nano stuff

Per popular request (Ok, it really was just Thomas' request), I am baring my soul for all lurkers to poke holes in... and posting a section of the "novel" (hah!) that I am writing through Nanowrimo. I understand that posting these kinds of things is a little bit controversial, as it may jeopardize future publish-ability, but hell, I don't really care. It's not going to get published anyway.

So, I'm not going to set this up much, other than I was giggling when I wrote it, and it reminded me of all the work related happy hours we used to have (those were the days).... I read part of it to my loving and supportive husband... giggle, he did not. Smile in a "that's nice for you sweetheart way" he did. So much for feedback from him. Story line is about a high school English teacher who is generally unhappy and unfulfilled, but thinks she is "all that" (huh, good thing I'm not a teacher, or you all would see right through it). She regularly meets up with a friend for happy hour on Monday afternoon. Here it is... lay waste if you like, ignore if you want.

In the town of Winton, there were four restaurants that had liquor licenses, and over a dozen bars spread throughout the town limits. Since both Emily and Gene were teachers and “pillars” of the local community, they always chose to attend happy hour at a restaurant. What would the School Board think if they heard that two of their teacher stopped by the Queen of Hearts bar every Monday? Even worse, they couldn't imagine the wrathful lecture of Principal Amundson if he found out. It was a small town after all.

Tonight, they agreed to meet at Bananabee’s – a locally owned restaurant located in the strip mall at the west end of town. It used to be called Karl’s Kafe, but when Karl died, his son Kevin took it over and wanted to emulate a chain restaurant that was very popular up in the Twin Cities. Kevin investigated a franchise agreement with the chain, but realized he’d have to dump too much money into the place to get it up to snuff for the franchise, so instead, he played off the name, literally stole a copy of the menu, and just switched the names of the menu items. Voila, at Bananabees, you could get a Monte Cristo sandwich, but it was called "The Monte Carlo”. As an appetizer, you could order Jalapeno Toppers, instead of Poppers. It was a running joke in town that Kevin stayed up for a whole week, obsessed about dreaming up these names, and printed the new menus before he knew that his restaurant staff could actually cook the food. Gene had visited that other chain last year at a teaching convention, and in her opinion, Banabee’s Monte Carlo sandwich was much tastier, only because it was prepared with small town love, rather than assembled based on a laminated picture by picture recipe card.

Gene pulled into the Banabee’s lot to find Emily’s grey minivan already parked. Gene was proud of the fact that she still owned a two-door coupe, and had no need to compromise design for the ability to haul kids to soccer games and the like. Gene and her cocker spaniel were the only ones these days that rode in her car. She dodged an elderly couple on their way into the restaurant, probably headed to meet their friends for Linner.

There..... I did it..... now, I need to get back to the writing for fear of falling in the big behind with my Nanowrimo buddies. I'm up to 5,123 words.... 10% through and I'm still not sure where it's going.... next excerpt I post will actually be about the main character Gene, just haven't quite figured her out yet.