Subliminal Suggestion

No, I'm not going to put a lot of little hints in here in white text that say, "hey, buy my books." As much fun as that would be. I won't remind you that I post a free read at http://spaceslugserial.blogspot.com or at least, I won't remind you again.

But it rocks.

The title refers to a funny NaNo story that I am going to tell. . . without the aid of subliminal messaging.

My NaNo novel is almost done. It's in its last few chapters, stretching for the end, suffering the early stages of an impending death, etc.
I know, it's about time.

But let me take you back to the begining to one of our first write-ins where we sat around all punchy and full of enthusiasm and trepidation about the month ahead. We drank coffee, and someone who shall remain nameless (not me, I swear) came up with this great idea that we should all include the tacky, reproduction monkey lamp on the coffee house table in our novels.

Posh, I say.

No way was that nasty thing worming its way into my novel. I wrote, oblivious to the subliminal message that had been implanted at the write in. So what if my villain turned out to look like a bad guy from the planet of the apes. It worked. So my cop is shaped like a giant orangutan...that's from the last book.

So I forgot about the lamp.

Until today. Twenty four hours before the end of the book, the lamp came back to haunt me. Dammit anyways. My protagonists followed the villain to his estate, which miraculously turned out to be a tropical-esque island cabana with decour that screamed wicker and phony palm fronds. Ick, I know. He's the villain.

Anyway, as I'm describing the room, a tiny voice from nowhere whispered. "What this room really needs is a tacky old monkey lamp."

Shit. The voice was right. The room demanded it, in fact. It was perfect. The villain looked like a monkey, his staff were reminiscent of the little golden tamarins I love from the zoo, and the monkey lamp ended up sitting calmly on an end table. "Fine," I shouted. "It's in there, now leave me alone."

Except in the next second a fight breaks out. My heroine has no weapon. The orangutan officer grapples with the planet of the apes freak and two golden tamarins jump on his back, biting and clawing with their tiny fangs and claws.
"Whack em with the lamp," the voice says. "Go for it."

It works mate. She swings the bronze monkey lamp. Monkeys go flying. I shout and fling my arms and spill coffee on myself, narrowly missing my keyboard.
Hey, it's the end of NaNo and I'm half mad by this point anyway.

So much fun.
Now that wretched lamp is practically a main character. I should have just tucked it in there at the beginning and got over it.

It just goes to show you that, during NaNo, anything goes. Oh, and aparently I'm very succeptible to subliminal messaging. Don't spam me. Don't.

A bit punchy,
~Frances