Crystal Compass Book 1: Part 2: July 2014 CampNano

She did not get too far out of the double doors, the book in hand, before one of the younger kids latched onto her hand and tugged on it. Twilight knelt down at the boy’s height, not recognising him. “Hiya sweety. Can I help?”

“Lost my mom.” The boy’s accent told her immediately that he was American, probably a tourist from one of the local holiday camps.

“Does she have a mobile on her?” Twilight asked, gesturing to her boss who had followed her out.

Miranda scurried over as the boy gave her a confused look. “A cellphone?” Twi clarified, “Or some way to contact her?” The boy thought for a few minutes, then nodded, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket and presenting it to the pair of librarians. Miranda took it from him, recognising the number as one belonging to the nearest of the Holiday camps. Golden Shores was the more upmarket of the four and was popular for foreign vacationers because of its various attractions, which included rock climbing, forest trails and scuba diving. “You stay with me hon and my boss will contact your mum, okay?” When the boy nodded, Twilight let out a soft sigh, “What’s your name?”

“Mikey.” The boy responded shyly, “Mikey Michaels.”

Twilight winced. She liked her nickname, but she could not help but wonder what the kid’s parents had been thinking to saddle their poor son with a name like that. Or, indeed, if they had been thinking at all. It was worse than her real name.

“My name’s Twilight.” She told Mikey, leading him towards Storyteller Corner, a tiny corner of the library that the children’s books were tucked away in where the floor was soft, the beanbags plushie and the children always happy to gather to hear someone read so they did not have to. “Stick with me and you’ll be fine. Promise.”

The boy still looked unsure, but he did not get a chance to say anything before Twilight called to the children, grinning as she did so. “Kids, I’ve got a new book for you all.”

Those were the magic words. Children seemed to appear from everywhere, pouring into Storyteller Corner and getting settled even before Twilight could get to her, rather much larger, beanbag. “Guys,” she looked around at the children as she took her seat, Mikey sitting by her side, “This is Mikey, he’s gotten lost, so we’re looking after him, okay?” She asked.

“Yes Miss Twilight.” The kids from the village chorused back at her, a couple of the more outgoing children dragged Mikey into their group.

“Don’t worry.” The older of the two told the frightened boy, “Miss Twilight’s a Sorceress.” Twilight tried to object, but another child started talking over her.

“Yeah, and she knows loads of awesome people, like Jack, and Santa!” The second kid piped up.

“But Santa’s not real.” Mikey looked confused as he glanced around, unable to understand what the other children were talking about. “Mom told me...”

“That’s ‘cause your mum don’t know nothin.” A third child spoke up, “Miss Twilight knows them all, we met Santa last Christmas. For real.”

“Now, kids!” Twilight called, raising her voice to be heard over the eruption of babbling that erupted from that. “Mikey doesn’t have to believe in anything he doesn’t want to and I’m not a Sorceress.” She tried.

“She is.” One of the kids whispered conspiratorially, “But she pretends she isn’t so the adults don’t find out.”

Mikey considered that for a few moments, then nodded and smiled back at the child before turning back to Twilight, waiting for her to begin.

The young woman smiled and shook her head. The children had decided she had to be a sorceress almost six months ago, when she had been spotted following Jack around as he brought winter into the village. She had not actually been doing much, besides catching up with her friend but that was not how the adult who had spotted her chasing the swirling ice and snow around town. The parent in question, Mrs Fairland, had tried to spread the rumour that she was a witch and Twilight still occasionally heard it muttered occasionally through the village.

However the children had decided that their favourite librarian could not be a witch. They were always wicked and evil in the stories, sometimes they even ate children, and Miss Twilight was their friend and the one who chased away the monsters. They had seen her do it.

Obviously, if she could scare away the monsters, she had magic but it had not been until one of the older village children, who had been reading the Belgarian Universe series who had brought up the idea of her being a ‘good’ Sorceress and no matter how much Twilight tried to deny it, they kept on believing it.

Still, as long as it helped them chase the monsters out from under their beds and out of their closets, she was not going to complain. Instead of wasting time, continuing to protest their belief, she started reading. She was halfway through the second chapter when a rather flustered pair of adults scurried into the building.

“Mom!” Mikey interrupted Twilight midword by yelling out and darting away from the group. His mother, a rather stressed looking blonde lady snatched him up in a tight hug, mumbling something as Miranda made her way over.

Twilight continued reading as her boss sorted the trio out, wincing along with the other children when Mikey’s father laid into the boy about wandering off and reminded him that he was lucky that the ‘nice librarian had time to look after him.’ They could still hear his father scolding him as the double doors swung shut behind them and they headed for a taxi that was parked up outside.

She was just finishing up her second chapter when the parents started arriving to collect the little monsters. Twilight tried not to be offended when several of them thanked Miranda for letting them leave their kids with her, but ignored her completely, despite the fact that they knew full well which librarian had babysat their children.  

She tidied up Storyteller Corner once the last of the children had been picked up before logging the book on the system and tucking it under the counter to continue tomorrow. “Are you alright if I go?” Twilight asked her boss, “I know I normally work till three on a Sunday but...”

“Go, shoo.” Miranda chuckled, having been warned about the necessity of her employee leaving early to go catch up with some friends for the revision session she was supposed to be doing, “I suppose, considering you brought a new Compass book in, I can let you off the last couple of hours.”

“Thank you.” The younger librarian grinned at her, darting out back and swiftly changing back into her bike wear before shooting out of the door. She slipped her earpiece into her ear as she started to unchain the bike, trying to ignore the fact Miranda was keeping an eye on her through the window as she asked, “Hello?”

Crumbs of a Plot: Day 5

Monday 5^thNovember

Monday brought frustration and a minor case of despair with it as Tasha realised that she had lost her notebook.  The ever important ring bound pad of paper that contained all of her notes for the month’s writing had not been in her backpack when she had checked last night after she had gotten home from her meal with Reika, nor had it been in the restaurant in question when she had ran back to check. If it had fallen out of her backpack on the walk to the food place, it was no longer on the ground anywhere and the only place she had left to look was Crumbs and she was sure she had picked everything up from there when she had left.

She needed that notebook. Without it she had no schedule for her writing, all of her character bios were in it AND all her setting notes were gone. She could attempt to write from memory but without that notebook it would not be as easy as it had been to get her word count up each day as she wracked her brain for the tiny details she had jotted down in the small hours of the morning, exhausted after work and well on her way to dreamland.

Racing for Crumbs in time to arrive as it opened up. Tasha was greeted at the counter, not by Morgan, but by her brother, Daniel, who had been clearing tables the day before.

“Lost something?” He asked, amused as he held up the blue covered notebook on which she had written her name and address in case such a thing happened.

“Thank you.” Tasha hugged the notebook to her chest, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You’re lucky I spotted it.” Daniel chuckled, waving off her thanks. “I’d seen it on your table, so I figured it was yours.”

“Thanks.” Tasha grinned back anyway, still internally dancing over the fact that all her notes were not lost after all and she would not have to start from scratch with the characters she had yet to introduce to her plot.

Between that and the fact it was payday which meant she could afford to buy whatever she liked again, her day suddenly did a one eighty, going from doom and gloom to sunshine and buttercups as she bought Daniel a cupcake, bought one for herself along with her customary hot beverage, and bounced over to her table, setting up swiftly. Day five of National Novel Writing Month was when it started getting tough. If you were not miles ahead on your word count, the end was nowhere near being in sight and it seemed like a long and weary road to the end. When there were other stresses involved in that too, like worrying about work days and the possibility of an emergency coming up that could nuke your word count for a couple of days, it was highly likely that either you were not going to get much done or you would, if you had time shoot off miles ahead.

There was a danger in having too big a buffer too. You could get lazy and overconfident when you had a large buffer, believing that you had plenty of time to write and you were miles ahead so there was no big rush. This could often lead to a slow down or complete stop that could throw off your writing and lead to a dead end. Tasha knew, she had done it before.

Still she knew what she had done wrong previous years and could learn from her mistakes. She was determined to get the minimum done per day at least and two thousand words written a day if she could manage it. It would get her finished on time and she had set herself a goal. If she finished her fifty thousand words, not necessarily the story but at least the fifty thousand, she was allowed to dip into her savings and purchase the new TV she wanted instead of saving up over the next six months.

To do that, however, she had to get her mind off of the notes towards the back of her pad of paper, all of which were based on the end of her tale and focus on what was going on now. This was surprisingly difficult when all she wanted to write was the epic battle and conclusion, but she had heard people moan before that they had written the end of the tale and then gone back and how they had had to adjust the tale midway through had changed the ending anyway and everything they had written for the finale was worthless.

Staring at her computer screen was unhelpful, the words seemed to have hit a wall and did not appear to want to climb over. She had thought this would happen. It was bound to at some point but she had hoped that it would come a little later. She was there for a good hour, tapping out something that did not really read right but, until NaNo was over, would not get edited and scowling at the screen and complaining mentally about how much this entire section sucked.

“Hi.” Tasha was shocked out of her internal monologuing by the appearance of Reika, who slid into the seat opposite her for a second day. “How’s it going?”

“Slowly.” Tasha sighed, “The words have found a hole in my writer’s block and are squeezing through one at a time.” Reika laughed at that, shaking her head slightly as she did so.

“Got to be better than mine.” She replied, pulling her much smaller laptop out of her bag and becoming even more amused when Tasha adjusted the position of her hot drink to allow her to place it on the table safely. “I missed yesterday’s count by about five hundred words.”

“Ouch.” Tasha gave her new friend a sympathetic look, “At least you have the next couple of days to catch up, right?”

“I know, I know.” Reika sighed, “I was just doing really well and then I got distracted playing solitaire and that was it.” Tasha sniggered at her new friend’s petulant tone, “What? I won six games in a row last night.”

“Ah solitaire, the bane of so many NaNo writers.” Tasha bemoaned dramatically, causing Reika to glower at her. “Will you stop glaring if I buy you a coffee?”

“I could be bribed with caffine.” Reika agreed, settling down to write as Tasha got up and headed for the counter, purchasing two new cakes and a large coffee.

“I’m going to be the size of a house when this is all over.” Tasha informed the young woman sat opposite her as she pushed a cupcake across the table, “I mean Crumbs is an excellent hiding place, but it’s really bad for my waist line.”

“This is why I sit facing away from the counter.” Reika informed her, accepting the cake in question and taking a bite, “That way I don’t get tempted.”

“Should have thought of that.” Tasha groaned, causing her companion to grin at her expense.

Silence fell over the pair bar the tapping of fingers on keyboards and the occasional hiss as someone had to go back to correct a word that had come out looking nothing like it was supposed to and made absolutely no sense. With the weekend over, the cafe was back to its usual standards of being an almost unused feature of the bakery. The counter wasn’t any closer to being anything resembling quiet, the price of being one of the only speciality cake shops in the county but with most people popping in during their lunch breaks or between rounds of ‘somewhere to be in five minutes time’ they did not have time to stop for more than a few minutes at best.

This suited Tasha just fine. She was willing to share her privacy with Reika, mostly because the other girl did not interrupt when she was writing and had bought her a meal the night before, however the weekend had been rather loud and obnoxious for Tasha’s tastes. Borderlands was often like that for her when the weekend crowd piled in, but it was only three nights and week and work was different. She did not have a choice but to put up and shut up while she was earning her paycheck each night.

She came to Crumbs because she wanted to get away from loud, rude people like her neighbours, not because she wanted to put up with screaming babies and children that kept coming up to the table to see what you were doing. This was why she was rather glad that a new week had started and most of those who had invaded over the weekend had gone away, including some of the louder Wrimos.

She did not even notice that her writing speed had picked up considerably after Reika had arrived until she surpassed her word target for the day and just kept going, heading up into the nine thousands. Reika seemed to have relaxed too, her hands flying across the keyboard at a rather impressive speed, causing Tasha to wonder what she did as a job. At the speed she was typing at, Tasha could not help but wonder if she worked as a secretary or something. Then she remembered that if Reika had a full time job she would be there right now and not here, and resolutely took her mind off of that subject.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Reika asked, not looking up from her screen.

“Just wondered what you do for work. I mean I know you’re new here and all but...” Tasha trailed off.

“No, no it’s a valid question.” Reika replied as she stretched, looking surprised that Tasha had asked, “I’m a part-time cashier. Nothing interesting. You?”

“Barback.” Tasha shrugged, “Run glasses back to the bar and clean up spills. I’m training to be a bartender though.”

“Sounds fun.” Reika did not look like she was entirely convinced of that.

“Eh, pays the bills.” Tasha replied.

“To bad jobs.” Reika held up her Styrofoam cup of coffee.

“To bad jobs.” Tasha agreed, tapping her cup of hot chocolate against Reika’s drink.

They both took sips of their drinks and then that seemed to be the end of the conversation as they both settled back down to get another hundred or so words written before they got distracted again. Since the next distraction was them getting kicked out of the cafe since it was closing time, they managed much more than that and before they went their separate ways they agreed to meet up at the McDonalds nearby for a burger before they settled down to write and completely lost track of time.

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And that's all I still have

Crumbs of a Plot: Day 4

Sunday 4^thNovember

Tasha slunk into the cafe on Sunday morning half asleep and short on money. Having finished late the night before, she had been horribly tempted to stay in bed and say screw keeping up with her word count for the day. Her neighbours had decided the issue for her when they had started screaming at each other. With sleep unobtainable and a headache forming, she had slunk off to Crumbs in order to get away before she joined in the screaming in an attempt to get them to shut up.

She was looking forward to tomorrow, when the noisy neighbours were in work too early to actually catch each other long enough to start a row, and her wages came in, however neither of these good points actually helped her now. It would not have been as bad if she had finished work on time, however a couple of extraordinarily drunk losers, a minor brawl and major case of property damage had prevented her from doing so.

Still it could have been worse. She only worked three nights a week and she was not due to return to her place of employment until Tuesday night at the earliest, provided no one went off sick and she did not get called in to cover. As such she had a couple of nights of, hopefully, uninterrupted sleep ahead of her. Today, however, she needed to write another one thousand, six hundred and sixty seven words before she could go and get a nap.

Pausing at the counter as she remembered the girl with the laptop’s gift from the day before, she quickly glanced around the cafe and noticed that her friend was there, along with a couple of others who had not been there during the week, but there were not as many laptops on tables as there had been the previous day.

“Two cakes, a hot chocolate and...” She gave Morgan a sheepish look, “What’s she drinking?” She asked, subtly gesturing to the girl who had bought her a hot chocolate the day before.

“And one black coffee, no sugar.” Morgan nodded, having made a note of the preferences of most of those who seemed to be living in her cafe in order to make sure that she had enough of everything in stock.

“How much is that?” Tasha requested, grimacing as she opened her purse and looked at her cash status. Payday was tomorrow and as such the well of funds was running a little dry.

“Seven pounds sixty,” Morgan rattled off, becoming amused when Tasha had to chase pennies around her purse to stump up the cash. “Bad day?”

“Sleepy, payday tomorrow. Bad combination.” Tasha grunted back, causing a couple of the other ladies behind the counter to chuckle.

“Let me give you a hand.” Morgan smiled at her as Tasha tried to balance two drinks and two plates of cakes and nearly lost all of it. “Stopping off at your friend’s table first?”

“Please and thank you.” Tasha nodded, heading across the cafe with the coffee for the girl in question.

She happened to be paused in her efforts to complete the same task that Tasha was trying to finish when they reached her table and she smiled brightly at them. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Tasha waved, taking in the girl’s black hair, green eyes and Asian features, “I’m Tasha. Have a coffee.” She then placed the aforementioned coffee on the girl’s table.

“Reika.” The girl chuckled back, amused by Tasha’s bluntness. “Thank you.”

Tasha nodded back and then moved across the cafe and collapsed at her table, head meeting table before Morgan reached her.

“You alright?” Morgan could not help but ask, amused and concerned in the same instant.

“Finished work at half six this morning.” Tasha grumbled as she sat up properly and glowered at her laptop, which she could swear was slower than ever this morning. “Then got chased out the house by my blasted neighbours and their latest rendition of ‘dying cats’.”

“Lovely.” Morgan scowled, ill amused by just the thought. “Well I wouldn’t recommend you go to sleep here, but if you need somewhere to at least relax, then here’s a good place.”

“Thanks.” Tasha nodded, taking her sugary death cakes from the woman, “And thanks for the assist.”

Morgan waved it off and headed back behind the sturdy wooden topped counter, leaving Tasha to come around a bit and get something done. Neither of the cakes, cream filled, sugar sprinkled monstrosities that could have caused tooth decay just by being looked at, lasted long past her laptop’s initial log in page but the hot chocolate was cold by the time she finished it because her annoying neighbours had given Tasha plenty of fuel for the obnoxious and loud members of the royal kitchen that were eternally causing grief for her lead female. In fact considering how sleepy she was she managed to churn out a surprisingly large amount of words before someone slumped into the chair opposite her, disturbing her privacy and shocking her out of her marathon of writing.

“Sorry.” Reika looked apologetic as she opened up her laptop and dumped her shoulder bag on the floor beside the table. “But...” She gestured to her table which had been invaded by women with young children.

“Oh lovely.” Tasha complained, wincing as one of the babies in the group started crying.

“I know, right?” Reika grimaced as she sat down, glaring at the table full of young mothers and their less than well behaved little monsters as she did so, “Children that age should stay out of nice quiet cafes. It’s like taking babies into cinemas, why would you do that?”

“Because they can.” Tasha shrugged. “Either that or they just don’t care about anyone else in the cinema and think they have the right to watch whatever they like even with young children with them.”

“You don’t mind do you?” Reika looked worried at her brusqueness. The question caused Tasha to notice her accent. It wasn’t very strong, but it was not really an English one.

“No, no.” Tasha waved it off, “I’m just tired. I’ll be better company another day, today not so much.” She could not help but add, “Are you from around here?”

Reika smirked self deprecatingly, “No, I’m from London. Not that anyone can tell, bloody accent. I mean learning two languages as you grow up is good and all, but I keep getting people being rude because I sound foreign.”

“I think you have a very nice voice. It sounds lovely. I didn’t just say that.” Tasha desperately tried to bury herself in her writing, ignoring the highly amused chuckling of her companion, missing the fact that Reika had started blushing at the compliment and managed to tap out another three hundred words before she finally got severely annoyed by the still wailing child and spat out something unsavoury.

“Don’t kill it.” Reika advised, “You’ll never get your novel finished if you’re in prison.”

Tasha let out an amused snort, “I don’t know, I’d have plenty of time to write. No job, no neighbours.”

“No Crumbs either.” Reika pointed out, still torn between amusement at the sleepy young woman before and irritation at the kid that just would not shut up.

“True. I like Crumbs.” Tasha sighed, noting the fact that there was a steadily increasing circle of empty tables around the group of young mothers and that the counter staff looked just as frustrated as the customers did.

“Even when it’s loud?” Reika teased.

“Even when it’s loud.” Tasha nodded solemnly, causing her companion to laugh. Feeling like she had won a victory though not able to work out why, she turned her  attention back to her laptop and was pleased when Reika did the same. Both became absorbed in their work right up until close to closing time, at which Tasha’s stomach rumbled and Reika’s mobile phone went off.

“Hello?” Reika asked as she picked up the call and Tasha started packing away. “Yes, oh? No, no it’s fine. Okay I’ll eat out. No, no don’t worry, I understand, see you later, bye.”

“Everything alright?” Tasha could not help but ask, noting that her companion’s calm had completely disappeared.

“Yeah, fine.” Reika sounded frustrated, glowering at her phone like she hoped the device would explode into about a million pieces, “Mum’s just working late again which means its ready meals or take away for dinner...” Tasha blinked at Reika as she paused, trailing off and staring at her. “Come for a meal?”

Tasha stared at her in confusion, “Wha...?”

“Sorry.” Reika looked embarrassed, “We haven’t long moved here and I don’t know anyone so...”

“No, no, it’s fine.” Tasha waved it off, feeling sheepish for making her embarrassed. “I just don’t have any money to eat out until tomorrow.”

“It’s okay, I’ll pay.” Reika offered hopefully, “Anywhere you fancy?”

“No, no.” Tasha shook her head, thinking quickly and half wondering if she was being asked out on a date, “I haven’t thought of anywhere, I mean there’s a nice Italian place about five minutes from here, but bar that I don’t tend to eat out that often.”

“If we find a nice place we might be able to get some more writing done.” Reika offered, noting Tasha’s sudden hesitation and thinking it was because she had changed her mind.

“Sounds good to me.” Tasha nodded, trying to ignore the amusement of the ladies behind the counter as she scooped up everything of hers he could see and headed for the door. “I take it you need me to lead the way.”

“If you would.” Reika nodded, gesturing for Tasha to precede her.

“In that case,” Tasha stepped through the door and paused as the chilly and slightly frosty night air hit her, pulling up her hood on her university hoodie, “It’s this way and be warned, we are highly likely to get lost.”

“Lost is fine.” Reika chuckled as the cafe door shut behind her, “As long as there is food at the end of it.”

Crumbs of a Plot: Day 3

Saturday 3^rdNovember

“Late, late, late.” Tasha muttered as she darted through the door of Crumbs, looking rather like she’d fallen out of bed, into her clothes and out the door. She knew there was no one who was expecting her at the cafe, but she had set herself a time to be at the cafe every day for the duration of National Novel Writing Month and she had failed to meet it for the first time. Considering that it was only the third of the month, it was not a good start.

The bakery was a lot more crowded than usual, but that was to be expected on the weekend. People who would not normally invade the place because they worked too far away during the week came by to pick out cakes or meet up with friends or just window shop. This meant that to add to her tardiness, she then had to wait twice as long in the queue before she was served. By the time the lady behind the counter finally got to her, Tasha was twitchy, wanting to get on with her story.

“Got somewhere to go?” The woman joked, “I’m sure you could go without one of our cakes for twenty-four hours.”

“Don’t scare that one off Jen.” Morgan chuckled from where she was stretching to get a cake down for someone off of the racking, “She’s one of our writers. We’ve got a few this year.”

“Oh, you’re one of the one who invade our tables every November?” Jen asked, amused, “I thought we had an extra girl this year.”

“My first year invading anywhere.” Tasha smiled at the pair, chilling out slightly now she was close to settling down and getting on with it. She glanced around at the tables and paused as she saw that the other girl wasn’t the only one who had a laptop in front of them. There were three or four other writers settled into the cafe, some sharing tables others on their own getting things written or staring into the abyss as they tried to work out how to word the next part of their epic novel.

“It’s the same every year,” Jen chuckled, “Nano hits and suddenly we get invaded by the crazies who require peace and quiet and can’t find it anywhere else. Not that we mind, it’s good for business and the Wrimos are a lot quieter than the students we get in here around Christmas and Easter.”

“That’s because we understand the value of somewhere to hide.” Tasha chuckled slightly, “Now if you’ll excuse me.” She paid for her food and drink and collapsed at her table, nodding to a couple of the other Wrimos as she passed.

It didn’t take long for her to get her laptop out and start it booting back up again, cussing as she routed around in hr backpack for her powerlead. She had noticed that, rather helpfully, there was a power point next to her table, though she had to be careful to avoid pulling out the power lead of the writer a table over who had already claimed one of the sockets on the double power point.

Once her laptop stopped complaining about a lack of charge and started actually doing what it was supposed to be doing, Tasha took a moment to savour her purchases, a nice warm hot chcoclate to chase away the cold November chill and a tasty, tasty cake that brightened her day slightly.

She was halfway through the next page when she realised that her hot chocolate, which had been emptied before she had got well into writing, had mysteriously appeared to have refilled itself. She glanced around, well aware that they did not do free refills so someone had to have bought it for her.

No one seemed to be looking her way and it was not until Tasha looked up at the counter and Morgan pointed at the girl who had been there the day before that Tasha realised that it was her that had bought the refill for her. Tasha blinked at the girl, surprised, then nodded gratefully at her, welcoming the added warmth. The table she liked was perfectly located but it was right next to the window and a little chilly. The hot chocolate was a welcome treat.

Making a mental note to get the girl something the next time she went up to the counter and to actually get her name when she handed whatever she bought over, Tasha quickly tapped out another one hundred words only to realise the girl had left before she had finished. She grumbled in frustration at the fact, guessing that unlike her the other girl actually had somewhere to be this afternoon, while she was busy trying to catch up from oversleeping. 

Tomorrow she was determined to at least get the other girl’s name and, if possible, a proper look at her.

Crumbs of a Plot: Day 2

Friday 2^ndNovember

Work was on the forefront of her mind on Friday as Tasha entered Crumbs. Three days out of seven she worked in a bar, running the bottles and glasses back to be washed before they were used again. When it was quiet during those shifts the older, more experienced bartender helped her learn the tricks of the trade and memorise the cocktails they sold. Until she actually remembered and could mix every cocktail that they sold, she was unfortunately stuck as a runner or ‘Barback.’

The job itself wasn’t bad, the pay was half decent, the hours allowed her to do pretty much whatever she wanted during the day and she could wear whatever she liked as long as she wasn’t showing her underwear off to the world. Borderlands wasn’t even a huge bar. It got busy on the weekends and edging her way between the customers was a little less than fun when they got drunk enough to play ‘grope the barback.’

Still she should not complain. At least she had a job. With the way the climate was at the moment, putting up with a couple of arse slaps a night was a small price to pay, especially when she could then get the bouncer who hovered on the door, making sure that underage members of the public did not enter the bar after a certain time of night, to kick out the customers in question if they did it too frequently or were too insistent. It was generally a good sign of when they had had too much to drink.

Settling at ‘her’ table once again, she made a note of the fact that she was not the only to be hiding behind a large cup of coffee, a couple of cakes and a computer screen. She could not help but wonder if the other person was a Wrimo like her, then shook her head at her foolishness and settled in to write her story. It was not as easy as they day before. There was shouting coming from the kitchens out back and while most of it was not hard to ignore, there were one or two occasions where it got so loud that it caught the attention of everyone in the ‘public’ part of the bakery and Morgan had to step into the back.

The third time it happened, Tasha had been stuck over how to  get a pair of characters to interact without resorting to locking the pair of them in a room together. She had not quite realised how difficult it would be considering their different backgrounds, skill sets and timetables until she had had to write it realistically and understood properly that really, given everything, the pair of them should never meet.

Poking at the part of the story she was trying to write until it did what she wanted it to, she happened to be looking up when one of the bakers came storming out of the kitchens and proceeded to start shouting at one of the ladies behind the counter. The lady in question, Morgan’s younger sister, Dee, started shouting back, and though it took a moment for her to decipher what was being said, Tasha managed to grasp what the argument was about.

“You gave us the wrong details!” The baker was yelling, furious beyond reason, “The client came in and pitched a fit!”

“I took them exactly as I was given.” Dee screeched back, “They wanted a red velvet sponge with strawberries and cream filling,”

“The customer was getting the cake for her son” The baker snarled, “She told you he’s allergic to strawberries!”

“That’s not what I was told, Steffan!” Dee snapped, “She specifically asked for...”

“She asked for raspberry and specifically asked for no strawberries to be prepared anywhere near the cake!” Steffan raged back, “We could have killed him! Get! Out!”

“Wha...what?” Dee yelped, shocked.

“Get out of my bakery! Now!” Steffan ordered.

“You can’t fire me!” Dee’s piercing tones caused everyone who had been trying to ignore the ongoing ‘conversation’ to look in their direction.

“I can and I have. Get. Out!” Dee fled at the look of pure, unadulterated rage on the baker’s face and Steffan stalked into the kitchens but not before yelling something about free drinks for anyone served by the stupid bint.

This included Tasha who got a free cup of coffee out of the mess. She watched the customer in question get led to the booth where the consultations for the unique, speciality cakes were held and between word sprints Tasha watched them ply the angry woman with food and drink as the bakery worked fast to provide a replacement for the cake that had been tainted.

She wasn’t sure who she felt more sorry for, the woman, the baker, Steffan, or Dee. The poor customer was frantic. The party was this afternoon and there was very little time for a new cake to be completed. Steffan was probably frantic too, his worker had provided the wrong information and now he was scrambling to provide what would probably be a much lower quality version of the cake he had already prepared, using sponge had prepared for a different cake, and she could hear the sounds of complaints coming out of the kitchen now. This was all Dee’s fault of course. If the woman had just taken the order correctly none of this would have happened. However Tasha could not help but feel sorry for her. After all she had seemed genuinely surprised when Steffan had told her the order was wrong and it was hard to find another job, especially when your previous place of employment would not give you a reference.

Still it all worked out fine. Tasha happened to be at the counter when Steffan called the woman over, offered her a partial refund and showed her the cake. It was gorgeous, a round cake covered in green fondant icing with cars made out of icing adorning the sides and a road on the top with a car made out of modelling chocolate ‘driving’ down it. The grass had been piped on in green royal icing and there were even little street lights.

To say Tasha was impressed was an understatement. After years of store bought cakes she had forgotten how good one of these cakes could be. A lot of work probably went into them and Steffan looked tired but as the customer practically danced out of the store with her cake his face lit up and a calm seemed to settle. It was intriguing to watch and as she settled back at her table, it got her thinking about how things going wrong could help things go much better afterwards.

With that in mind she rewrote the events she was planning, editing them so that things went wrong and it was a comedy of errors that brought the two lead characters together in time for the ‘real’ plot to kick off. It was not quite what she had had in mind when she had first thought about this scene, but it worked much better than any contrived reason she had thought of before.

This was one of the reasons she preferred writing in public as opposed to curling up at home and ignoring the outside world. There was inspiration that could be missed if you shied away from what went on around you. Answers to problems that could cause the dreaded writer’s block could be surpassed with a little observation and occasionally a random conversation with a stranger.

At least Tasha always found that it helped. She supposed that it was different for different people but her muses never worked as well as they did as when she was sat in some corner of some tiny cafe and letting the noise wash over her.

Making a note in the pad of paper containing her entire collection of notes about the change in the meeting, she swiftly worked her way through the conversation of the two lead characters. They were stand offish at first, the not-so noble Prince and the golden hearted but hot-tempered servant girl, and while it read awkwardly to start with it kind of felt natural for it to be. After al it wasn’t like a commoner would be friendly towards someone of the upper caste, especially with the reputation that Tasha was writing for him.

Still as the story progressed, as the Prince realised that the cushy lifestyle he had lived his whole life was nothing but a shield to prevent him from realising what life was actually like for the people and was forced to actually realise that in the ‘real world’ things were not just handed to you on a silver platter, and the servant girl lost some of her dislike of the Prince and taught him to understand the people, something he would need to do to be a good King, the pair would warm up to each other.

At least that was what Tasha hoped.

It was an overdone plot, she knew it, but it was something she had been planning for a rather long time now, ever since she had blown last year’s attempt by getting distracted midway through with the latest in a game series she had been following since her early teenage years. That and having a huge amount of reading material had made it easy to work out how to run the story and how to avoid being too much like every other rendition of the tale. It was not going to be easy to stand apart but she was going to try at least.  

With the problem of how to get the pair to meet worked out and the story flowing swiftly again, Tasha’s hands flew across the keyboard as fast as she could manage, the ideas flowing much faster than the words could appear on the page. It was always fun when that happened, when the writing became a whirling dervish of literary madness. Reaching the goal at the end of one of those crazed writing sessions always left Tasha with a buzz that would generally carry over to the next day and help boost the creative process when she picked up from where she left.

With her earlier distraction, it had been a good thing that she had suddenly gone into speed typing mode. She barely managed to write the lower limit of what she was supposed to do a day, though she had created more than enough of a buffer for herself before she had left the previous day, before the alarm on her phone went off.

Tasha glowered at the tiny noise making machine and she was not the only one. The obnoxious beeping sound caught the attention of the few patrons that were still here this close to closing, including the other girl who was still tapping away at her keyboard even as her eyes flickered over to Tasha who was scrambling to hit the off button and make the annoying beeping noise stop.

“Just five more minutes.” Tasha muttered to herself as she tossed the mobile phone, which was now on silent, into her backpack, deciding that since she did not start work until after nine at night she did not need to leave the bakery before she was ready to do so or the bakery closed, whichever came first. She was there, in fact, until Morgan had, very apologetically reminded her that she could come back the following day if she desired but the cafe had to close as they needed to count up the money in the till and someone needed to go home and check that Dee was okay after the earlier row.

Still unsure whether she felt sorry for Dee, who had, after all, been the one at fault for the earlier explosion behind the counter, Tasha managed to get everything into her backpack and switch her shoes, trading her nice sensible trainers for her sturdy but fashionable boots that went much better with the outfit she was wearing and were suitable for work. Then she exited the bakery to the sounds of a new argument starting up in the kitchens, looking for somewhere a little closer to Borderlands in order to hunker down and get a proper meal before her shift started. 

Crumbs of a Plot: Day 1

I don't have all of this saved on file so the first few days will get posted, but after that I'm afraid the file is lose

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Thursday 1^stNovember.

It had been a really long time since Tasha had last been to the bakery on the corner of North Street and Western Park Lane and as she stepped through the doors she was taken back in time to that last visit. The smell was the same as it had been on the day of her graduation, when she had dragged her family into her favourite place to come when she needed to get away and relax, only to find they had already found the place for themselves and ordered a cake.

Crumbs Bakery was more of a cake shop than a traditional bakery. It only rarely actually sold bread, the first couple of hours of its day being the only times, and instead concentrated on pastries and cakes. Its stock varied from day to day, depending on who was working and what they fancied working on, but the display cases were never empty and the cakes could vary from little cupcakes and fondant fancies, right up to seven or eight tiered monster wedding cakes that had been decorated specifically for the person who had ordered it.

It also had a section of its downstairs cordoned off for the part that Tasha tended to hone in on. Crumbs had its own cafe section where someone could, if they so desired, sit and eat their purchases and chat with friends or other customers. It was not normally very busy as most people did not actually realise that the cafe part was even there. Nor that Crumbs sold drinks across the counter. Not many but a big enough range for a cheap enough price that during Tasha’s students days, Crumbs had become one of her major hangouts.

Now, two years after graduation from a course that at the time had seemed like the ideal way to get into her preferred industry at the time but had not been that attractive to employers against the hundreds of other courses that were similar amongst universities in the same country, she was stepping into Crumbs for the first time in a really long time.

It was ideal for what she wanted for the coming month. Quiet, peaceful, most of the time anyway, and somewhere where no one would ever think to look for her. It was perfect. It helped that it had food and drink readily available for anyone that had money in their pocket so she didn’t even have to think about moving and disturbing her writing spree.

It was selfish she knew. Her friends just wanted to spend time with her. Her parents just wanted to check she was okay and work would want to know if she could possibly cover anyone else’s shifts in a tight situation but it was the same every year.

She would settle down to get herself lost in writing her novel for NaNoWriMo and everyone would get confused as to why she was spending so much time doing something that complicated for fun.  Her obsessiveness over her word count and her knack for finding seconds to add extra words to her novel on her laptop would cause them to grow concerned for her sanity by the end of November and it just was not fair.

She did not ask for time to herself normally, she did not get pulled into many things like this and one month a year to settle in and bury herself in doing something she enjoyed should not be too much to ask for. After all once the fifty-thousand words had been written she would emerge from her cocoon of writing fixation regenerated and blissed out by the fact she had managed such a monumental task.

This was why, this year, she had sought out the peace and quiet that was Crumbs. The cafe in the bakery would provide somewhere away from the hectic busy schedule that was life and allow her to get lost in her novel in a place where no one would pay attention to her beyond perhaps considering her the ‘laptop girl in the corner.’ 

Her eyes scanned the tables as she queued up to order a cake and a drink from the ladies behind the counter, making sure that there was somewhere for her to sit before she wasted precious writing time. She should not have worried. There were plenty around. The busy season had yet to start and while Crumbs was in high demand for its speciality one of a kind cake creations that could feed anywhere between one and five hundred guests and the pastries it sold flew out the door, taken by those who did not have time to hunker down and spend time actually savouring the food they had just purchased.

The table that caught her eye was tucked up in the corner by the front window. It was out of the way and would not cause any problems if she was there for a rather long time. It was also perfect for when she had those moments that she knew was inevitable, where her muse fled and refused to provide her with any more details, at which point she would be able to watch the world go past and try and encourage her mind to come up with new things. She had her notes on her planned story but it was inevitable that at some point the dreaded writer’s block would strike and then the number of words she could churn out in an hour would slow to a crawl.

The table she wanted had a good view of the ‘outer’ bakery, where the counters and the cafe were, had a decent view of the outside world through the window display of cakes  and was still secluded enough that she could basically curl up in a corner and write to her heart’s content without disturbing anyone or becoming a nuisance.

The lady who served her when she got to the head of the line recognised her. Morgan was the oldest sibling of the Jones family, who had owned the bakery for about seventy years, and had been the one to serve her most often when Tasha had decided she needed to retreat from the loud, obnoxious housemates that she seemed to have acquired. She had, after had a ten thousand word dissertation to write and while she liked rock music, having it blasting through her bedroom walls every night was counterproductive to any work getting done on it.

“So what is it you’re here to write this time?” Morgan asked with a chuckle, remembering how Tasha had been prone to curling up in the corner and getting lost in her reference books and laptop screen, tapping away at her keyboard for hours on end.

“Have you ever heard of NaNoWriMo?” Tasha replied, as she pointed to the cupcake she was interesting in devouring. When Morgan shook her head, Tasha chuckled slightly, “Its short for National Novel Writing Month. Over November the challenge is to write a fifty-thousand word novel. Kicked off at midnight and finishes just before midnight on the first of December. Anything written before or after those dates doesn’t count unfortunately.”

“It’s a charity thing?” Morgan asked, confused as to why anyone would sit and stress themselves out all month willingly, as she pulled the cupcake in question out of the counter.

“No, well it can be. I mean they ask for donations to run the site and things and any excess money they make goes to fund creative writing projects for kids and stuff like that. I mean some people get sponsored to do it, but this year I’m just trying to do it for a bit of fun.” Tasha replied, pausing in her chatter with the lady to watch Morgan lay into one of her younger sisters for screwing up her coffee order.

“Sorry about that,” Morgan sighed once a white coffee was sat on the work surface next to Tasha’s cake, “Right, so you’re trying to write a novel? For no reason? Oh and that’s three pounds and thirty pence please.”

“For fun.” Tasha corrected as she fished around in her purse for the correct change, “That and I wanted an excuse to come and spend lots of time here. It always leaves me hungry when I work here. I think it’s the smell from the ovens.”

“Ha.” Morgan sniggered, accepting the change Tasha dropped into her hand, “If you spent as much time here and we did you’d soon get sick of the smell.”

“It’s possible?” Tasha asked, pretending to be shocked though she had heard stories of people who worked on chocolate lines in the Cadbury factories who had been allowed to take as much chocolate as they had wanted as it went past them and had soon gotten sick of the confectionary.

“Believe me, after working with cakes for so long, it takes some pretty spectacular cakes to get you to want to eat them.” Morgan sighed, “That everything?”

“Yeah, I’ll get out your way.” Tasha chuckled, collecting her items and making her way over to the table in the corner. By the time she had settled down at the table and pulled her laptop out of her backpack, Morgan had already moved through two more customers. Tasha could not help but be amused by the professionalism of the woman, who seemed to be able to have a perfectly friendly conversation with the customer she was serving at the time but did not allow it to continue over to the next person she served. Instead each customer got a new conversation dependant on items purchased or whether she had served them before. Morgan seemed to have a good memory for things her customers had mentioned in the past. It was probably necessary for when she was taking orders for the bakers out back.

Her laptop was slow to boot up, a problem she had been noticing more and more recently, which gave her the time she needed to take a sip of her coffee, the caffeine helping her to wake up a bit since she had gotten up much earlier then she normally would to try and get a buffer written in case she over slept after a night in work. The slowness of her computer did allow her to appreciate the aromas coming out of the kitchen a little more though as the smell permeated the air around her.  Tasha’s stomach grumbled slightly as the smell of cake wafted through the small, enclosed space and she attacked her cupcake voraciously as she opened up a brand new document to write down what was in her mind.

The story flowed quickly and easily, the characters seeming to play their roles willingly and enthusiastically as she played through what needed to happen in her mind. This was only the start of the month however, she reminded herself as she took advantage of the cafe’s free internet to update her word count on the NaNoWriMo website and look pleased as her predicted date of finished went down to November the twenty-ninth. There was a long way to go before the end of the month and the grand total of fifty-thousand. Hitting the day’s word total of one thousand, six hundred and sixty seven was a good start, it meant you were on target to finish on time.

That, in Tasha’s opinion was not good enough.

Being on target to finish on time was good, but it did not take into account any problems that might arise. Nor did it allow for any mess ups or over sleeping or, indeed any time that work absorbed the time that had been put aside for writing. As such, while she had free time she was damn well going to make sure she got ahead. She had, after all, blown the last couple of NaNo’s by not making sure she had a buffer against the inevitable overtime or emergency that would always pop up when she was least expecting it.

By the time she was happy with her word count for the day, the bakery was beginning to close its doors, at least to the general public. She could hear someone out bellowing about ‘not being able to get this cake finished by tomorrow’ if they did not stay well into the night. The cafe, however, was closing and most of the staff, most of which were members of the Jones family, were soon heading home which meant, unfortunately, that Tasha had to give up her peace and quiet. Just knowing, however that tomorrow there would, hopefully, be a table waiting for her made the process of updating her count, shutting down her laptop and exiting the warm, delicious smelling bakery, into the harsh cold winds of the November evening, that much easier.

Tasha made a mental note, as the door closed behind her, the shop’s bell tinkling as it did so, to bring more cash or actually remember her debit card so she could have more than one cake because after sitting in the cafe all day, she felt like she could eat an elephant.