NaNoWriMo Days 7 & 8 (& yet another excerpt!)

Sometimes I wonder if I should really be writing such vastly different "novels". I have a sci-fi/teen romance fiction novel, a serious Christian-themed novel, a spy/teen romance novel, and now a non-fiction (duh) auto-bio. But then I saw this on Pinterest last night and it made me feel better -->

Okay, I'm not posting stats for yesterday or today because... I don't have any, lol. Well, I'm currently at 13,074 words and I need to be at 13,333 so I'm super close to my goal today. But, I'm at such a nice stopping point. I just finished 1998. So, here is an excerpt from the end of that chapter. Enjoy :) and remember that this is the first draft! It is not perfect in any way. But it's just a taste of what I'm writing :) 

Papa Don came down to Lake Jackson on Christmas day of ’98. We had just spent a few days in East Texas and the fun continued with Papa Don in town. We opened gifts and went driving around . We tried to fish but didn’t have much luck at our location.

            Now, Papa Don smoked. He’d been doing so since about the age of 14. He was, at this time, in his 60’s. Today, he’s in his 70’s. He still smokes. Sometimes he smokes less, but he has to have that nicotine kick every day.

            Well, his trip was no exception. He would sit out on the front porch and smoke his cigarette.

            I was extremely intrigued by this process. I had never seen someone smoke before. Or if I had, I didn’t even know what they were doing. But I now had an opportunity to watch my grandfather smoke up close and personal. I could sit next to him, stand in front of him, watch from the window. Wherever!

            Papa Don was only in town for a few days. When he left, so did the cigarettes.

            But that didn’t stop my interest.

            As Kelsey and I were coloring one morning soon after, I realized that the white crayons kind of looked like something I had seen before.

            Yes, a cigarette!

            I started to peel the paper off the crayon (which took several minutes) and proceeded to stick it in my mouth.

            That’s what the white crayon is for, I probably thought. I mean, no one actually drew anything with the white crayon. It was supposed to be my own personal cigarette – duh.

            So, I started “smoking”.

            “That’s gross!” Kelsey said.

            I didn’t care.

            My habit went off and on. Mom and Dad didn’t know about it, though, for quite some time.

            Finally, I got out a new white crayon on day. As I began to peel the paper off Mom could hear Kelsey say, “You’re not gonna smoke that, are you?” in a totally grossed-out tone.

            But, of course, I smoked away. And I don’t think Mom or Dad even tried to stop me.

            Instead of going into the New Year with a goal to quit smoking, I decided to take it up. 

            Don't worry. That habit didn't last long.