North Arlington All Stars

Here is a small excerpt from what I wrote today.

My NaNoWriMo2011 work-in-progress is called "The Block" and it is about a block of shops and restaurants in a small college town. The novel will focus on the shop owners, their employees, their interactions, their customers, whatever.

The first two characters have been introduced:

1. Kitty, owner of More Fibre, runs a knitting shop. Mrs. Asham and Alice Kindle are two regular customers of Kitty's under-performing business.
   
2. Marie, owner of Bold City, runs a coffee shop, which is steadily successful.

__________

Marie rolled her eyes extra hard for Kitty’s benefit and Kitty suppressed a giggle. Kitty felt that Marie was her protector, and that with Marie’s friendship and maybe some timely advice, she might just make her shop a success.

“How’s business?” Kitty knew what the answer would be, but wanted just to talk with Marie, to swap stories, share secrets, to become her friend.

“Steady Eddie. People need their coffee and luckily they come to me to get it.”

“Yeah…” Kitty’s reply was wistful. She wished that people needed yarn and thread and crochet hooks in order to wake up in the morning or to perform at work. She wished that there was some substance in the yarn that rubbed off on a knitter’s fingers and if they didn’t get a bit of that substance on their fingertips every day, they would get headaches and act cranky and feel like a zombie when 3 in the afternoon rolled around. She wished that people came into her shop every day and spent money, regardless of the economy or how many financial self-help books lectured them that one way to make ends meet and to grow savings was to simply kick that yarn habit.

Kitty wished that old friends who needed to catch up with each other’s lives browsed yarn colors while they talked about their kids and their spouses and their medical problems.

Alternatively, she wished that she could own a coffee shop as well. Marie could teach her how to make all of those exotic espresso drinks with names like caffay oh lay and they would be best friends with two super successful cafés that didn’t compete with each other at all. Kitty would be just as skinny as Marie, although that would have to be the result of some sort of synergistic magic, because Kitty was pretty sure that she would never take up running.

The simplicity of Marie’s answer was unbelievable to Kitty. It was as if Marie couldn’t help it: the coffee was flying out of the door in spite of any attempts to stop or restrain it. The money flowed into her accounts even if she closed them and changed banks; the money would find her.

Kitty needed 100 more Mrs. Ashams. She needed 1000 more Alice Kindles.