Chapter Sixteen

I wrote parts of this at the Night of Writing Dangerously... so they need a lot of editing. A lot.

Chapter Sixteen

By Tuesday, Patricia had her flight booked and everything ready to go, including ascertaining that having Alfalfa along wouldn't cause too many difficulties. Actually, she was surprised by how easy the process had been to get everything sorted with the transit officials to bring him with her. She suspected it had been facilitated somehow, and the off-hand request for her to find a home for another rabbit at the same time as she was informed about the need to bring Alfalfa seemed somewhat suspicious.

Regardless, she had managed to find a good home for the sweet little thing. He was brown, like Alfalfa, but bigger and scruffier and, to be honest, he actually reminded her of some sort of dog. In any event, her friend Karen, who lived in Langley with what seemed a zoo of animals, had been happy to welcome the rabbit into her flock. “Don't be surprised if strange things happen,” Patricia had warned her friend, but had not tried to explain further.

She had spent much of the day at the seniors' centre. She wasn't sure what she had been thinking the previous week, as all sorts of things had been filoed under 'c', and she'd spent the time reorganizing the paperwork studiously avoiding the thought of carrots.

Unfortunately, one of the bridge ladies had brought carrot zucchini muffins, apparently because of Patricia's own comments about craving carrots the previous week. She politely took one, which was delicious, but declined more, explaining that she had spent the intervening time assuaging her craving. Thankfully, at the time of that discussion she had been in the process of winning a small slam bid in spades with her usual partner Katie, so very little discussion was wasted on vegetables.

By the end of the day, she was positively craving a chance to sit down and write.

She had never really tried writing before this month, she had realised. Stories had been Alfred's forte and so she had avoided trespassing on his talent. He would probably have welcomed her interested, and she thought istfully of the lost opportunities they might have had to collaborate. Her thoughts, tinged slightly with envy, turned to the memory Alfalfa had shared with her of his work with Alfred, but that was silly, she scolded herself. She had enjoyed partnership with Alfred in so many other ways, and now she had, she thought, experienced some of the almost symbiotic relationship an author could have with a plot bunny.

And therein lay her craving now, for she had never felt the power and addiction of the ability to shape worlds out of nothing. Already in her two projects she had started two completely separate worlds, and she had only been writing for a matter of weeks.

It was exhilarating and awe-inspiring, and right now it meant that she was more than ready for the night's write-in – but that anticipation was heavily tempered with apprehension as she remembered the troubles of the previous week's write-in.



Patricia was unsure whether she felt relieved or disappointed when only she and Jamie showed up at the write-in. Even Zale had chosen not to come – Jamie said she had excused herself due to papers she needed to write, which she undoubtedly did need to work on, but they both suspected she was also self-conscious about her novel. They knew it had been rough going and that that had likely affected her decision. Neither blamed her, but both were also putting it in the larger context: Jamie had also noticed the decline in forum-goers and the steep slowdown of growth of the total word count of all NaNoWriMo novelists.

They spent about an hour writing, both pleased with the result, although Patricia found it distracting that she was fully aware of all three of the plot bunnies in the space. The two black bunnies – she no longer thought of either as the Mad Hatter but she'd not yet learned their names – were working with her, while the one Alfalfa had called Flopsy was working with Jamie. She wondered who plotted with Jamie normally; Flopsy seemed too busy to have that as a regular duty.

Hm, Patricia thought. They had decided to do another twenty minutes of writing – and yet - “Jamie?”

“Yes, Patricia?” Jamie asked, looking up from his laptop.

“Do you still have that army of plot bunnies?”

“Oh sure,” he said. “I was writing about them just a moment ago.”

“I bet you were,” Patricia said thoughtfully, glancing at the space she knew Flopsy crouched in, although she had less awareness of her now that she had stopped writing. Strange. “What have they been up to?”

“Not much, really – I only seem to write about them much when I'm here, actually,” Jamie said. “I've just had them pestering the humans – like in Australia, you know? - and doing rather a good job making pests of themselves. It doesn't seem to affect my protagonist at all – he's gallivanting pretty far from the human settlement, although right now there's a human child with him – so I'm not really sure why I'm going into all this detail. It just feels like the right thing to write.”

“Hm<” Patricia murmured. “Would you do something for me Jamie? It might be difficult to write and once you're done it, the rest of your story and your ability to write it may suffer, though I hope not.” Patricia glanced again at the space where she could no longer sense Flopsy. “It could also help tie the plot bunnies in with your main arch somehow.”

“Okay?”

“Have the humans... no, actually. Don't let the humans kill them or harm them or – especially! - exterminate them,” Patricia said, changing her mind suddenly at a mental picture of a Alfalfa. “Have some of them enter a friendship. Perhaps a plot bunny sneaks off with your dragon and human child and they become friends – but somehow the plot bunnies and humans must become friendly. No Pocahontas ending, either.” Patricia paused. “Think you can do that, Jamie?”

“Sure, I think so,” he said. “It might even help spice things up a bit for my protagonist – I'm worried about running out of story.”

“No pressure,” Patricia smiled. “but the fate of NaNoWriMo may depend on your success.”

He stared at her.

“Oh, and Jamie? Keep me appraised of how it's going. I won't be here next week, probably, and an updated then might be too late anyway. Let me give you my email address and my hotel phone number in San Francisco. I'll be there as of Saturday afternoon. If you leave me a message I'll call you back as soon as I'm in, all right?” Jamie nodded and Patricia scribbled numbers on a page in her notebook, ripped it out, and handed it to him. “Good. Good luck, Jamie.”

“Um. Thanks,” he said.

“So tell me about your dragons, Jamie. Are they based on another society or series at all?” Patricia asked, lightening the subject.

They spent the rest of their time discussing the dragons in Jamie's world, Patricia reminded of her fascination at her own ability to create worlds. She had based hers largely on the world she lived in, but here Jamie was, creating every detail, from coming-of-age customs to naming practices to architecture. He was also fitting in his own ideas of an ideal society, and of how flaws in society impacted members of that society. She was highly impressed at the variety and depth of his creation and his characters.

“Jamie, I would love to read this story of yours when you're done, rough edges or no,” Patricia told him as they buttoned their coats and wrapped their scarves tightly around themselves and left the warm sanctuary of Steeps Tea.




Patricia had bag in hand on her way to the airport at 5am on Saturday morning, and in the other hand held the cage that had arrived nearly three weeks earlier. Alfalfa and his cage were surprisingly light.

She was tired, for she had hardly had any actual sleep since Tuesday. Instead, Alfalfa had been in near-constant conversation with her from the moment she fell asleep. It had mostly been about logistics – discussion over what would happen in San Francisco and some seemingly random places where Alfalfa had requested her to go at certain times after she arrived – including a small coffee shop in Mission where he wanted her to spend time writing on Saturday evening shortly after their predicted arrival in the city – but he had also needed her to find a home for another rabbit, which had also gone to Patricia's friend in Langley.

But they had also spent a lot of time just... talking. It was strange, and Patricia got the feeling that the other rabbits, particularly Flopsy, didn't really approve of the interaction, but she was comforted by it. Mostly they talked about Alfred. It became even more clear with each conversation that both had loved and admired him deeply, but both had been affected by different aspects of his personality. Patricia felt blessed that she was able to learn more about her husband and his effect on others even after his death, and opened up to Alfalfa in ways she hadn't to anyone else about the little things she had loved in Alfred, her favourite moments and memories.

She had noticed after the kick-off party that she had become rather more morose and staid and, well, boring than she had ever thought she would ever be. The kick-off party had enabled her to open up, and the novel-writing had brought her to a new level of creativity, but it was this week's discussions with Alfalfa that had made her realise that she had been locked into mourning for her husband and that she had never really allowed herself to get past the fact of his death. But now, the combination of memories from Alfalfa and reminiscences of her own had suddenly shuttled her into a world where she was in love with her husband in a way that enabled her to move on. She was feeling far happier and healthier and more awake than she had in years.

But it was about time that she headed out the door. She went over her list in her head again: notepad for writing: yes; list with the address and phone number of her hotel: yes; information for finding the Night of Writing Dangerously: yes; list with instructions for fulfilling all of Alfalfa's requests: yes; cage for Alfalfa with Alfalfa in it: yes; clothing and so on: yes. Was there anything else that might possibly be of use to her for saving National Novel Writing Month?

Oh! Patricia realised suddenly, dropping her bag and setting Alfalfa's cage down gently – ignoring the sudden questioning up-down-up-down-up-down that indicated that he wanted to talk to her – he probably just wanted to know what on earth she was doing and she had no time for that. She had just enough time, she thought as she checked her clock. She'd still make it to the airport in time – it was a quick walk to the airport and the Canada Line skytrain was fast and didn't have to worry about traffic. So another ten minutes wouldn't hurt.

Besides, she had forgotten to turn off her computer, so she wouldn't even have to wait to boot it up (and this was she would remember to turn it off, which was much more environmentally friendly – May would be upset with her if she knew how close she had come to forgetting to turn it off).

Patricia quickly navigated to the National Novel Writing Month website and logged onto the forums. It was so obvious – how had she missed it, she berated herself absently as she scanned through the list of forum sections – what better way to reach a wide audience and start discussing the problem? Start trying to find a solution?

Dear National Novel Writing Month novelists,she wrote,

I'm sure you've noticed that novelist numbers are dropping faster every day. It feels like the plot just won't come, or isn't right, or like you've completely messed up and there's somewhere else you need to go. In the past, the folks at the Office of Letters and Light have been there to be our support blanket, to tell us what we needed to hear and help us to keep on going. And even when they aren't around, in the past there have been enough of us doing well to encourage and support the rest of us, to keep us going (Patricia didn't actually know this for certain, as she hadn't been involved in the writing endeavour in the past, but from what the others had said at the kick-off, it seemed likely).

This year, it isn't just us against the words. It isn't just us not being able to get there, and not only are we not getting a friendly push from some other novelists or encouragement from the people in charge of the whole event, but we actually have a force against us.

We have all heard of plot bunnies. We might think of them as friendly little creatures who get us through those moments of writer's block or who write themselves onto those dreadfully scary blank white pages.

But they're more than metaphors. They have personalities and powers and interests, and right now they're interests are opposed to ours. I'm not sure why, but this year they are trying to destroy National Novel Writing Month. They are specifically targeting Chris Baty and the other staff at the Office of Letters and Light, and it's making it impossible for them to implore us to greater efforts. And so it is up to us.

We can't let the plot bunnies destroy NaNoWriMo. This event is an exuberant burst of creativity which brings together an extraordinary diversity of people, and opens to them the opportunity to reach the lofty heights of author-hood. I myself am a widow, and I had let myself detach from my own creativity and innovation, and my partaking in this endeavour this month has brought me back to life. If NaNoWriMo stops, if the plot bunnies are able to end it this year, then chances are it will be the end. What then for people like me? What then for people who have always dreamt of writing a novel and never made the time?

We can't let it happen.

And so, dear fellow novelists, I am here to ask for your help. Please just keep writing.

Maybe your story won't make sense. Maybe your protagonist will change two or three or four or twelve times throughout your novel because you keep getting ideas for completely new plot lines and scenes and needs – but that's okay. This year, it really is just about the word count. We need to prove that we can pull together our novels in the face of adversity.

So please, just keep writing. No matter where you are in your novel, no matter what.

Patricia reviewed her message, pressed post, and glanced at the time – shoot! Now she was running on a much tighter schedule. She turned off the computer, picked up her bags, and headed out the door.




Patricia settled into her window seat after buckling Alfalfa's cage into the seat beside her, as instructed by the rather handsome flight attendant – although he did look unfortunately a lot like Regis Francis Xavier Philbin – and his name was Xavier, actually. Funny how these things happened, she thought cheerfully. She'd barely slept, but she was on the plane now, and she had made that appeal to all of the NaNoWriMo novelists – again she wondered how she had not realised what a great opportunity the forums could possibly be when May had shown it to her.

She didn't really know what she was going to when she got to San Francisco, but she was excited about it, and right now, she was sure it was going to work out.

“Alright, Alfalfa,” Patricia whispered, trying to avoid anyone hearing her and realising that she was trying to have a conversation with the small furry mammal in the cage on the chair beside her. While she was perfectly happy being perceived as a crazy old lady, she didn't really feel that she needed to put too much fuel on that fire. “Our first plane flight together – I'm sure you're as excited as I am! I'm not going to talk much – I think I'm going to spend the flight working on our story. Does that work for you?”

Alfalfa turned towards her and offered her a yes signal.

Patricia pulled out her notebook and began writing away – pausing to watch the flight attendant Xavier run through the safety features of the aircraft, and wondering at how many people did not bother to look up from their novels or newspapers. Weren't the safety features important? Patricia wondered as she checked behind her to see where the exit doors behind her were.




Bang! crackled quickly through the airplane's cabin, and Patricia looked up from her notebook and a scene with two men fighting over a woman in a bar (and she wondered at how enjoyable she was finding writing this stuff – she would have found it drivel not that long ago) to see a bright white light and to hear a sharp scream from a woman some distance in front of her on the plane -

but nothing seemed to be happening because of it.

The plane began shifting suddenly and the seatbelt light turned on with a loud tone. What was happening? Patricia wondered – a woman screamed, piercingly, and Patricia decided to describe both her and her voice in the next scene of her murder mystery.

“Don't worry folks,” Regis's voice – Xavier's, she meant – smoothly sliced through the heightened tension of the room. “It's just lightning. This is a modern aircraft and it is designed with safety features that deal with that sort of thing.”

Lightning? How often did that happen, Patricia wondered... but Xavier's smooth calm was as placating here as Regis's was on “Who Wants to be a Millionnaire”. While others on the plane had begun chatting back and forth about the lightning and so on, Patricia shrugged and moved back to her love triangle story.






The coffee shop was small and classy, despite its name (something about Dead Dogs), with beautiful terracotta colouring and tiles on the floor. Patricia had herself her first new tea in a few weeks – it was called PG Tips and it seemed to be an exceptionally lovely blend. And, as she had been up for so many hours, and was feeling particularly exhausted and didn't know quite how long she was going to have to stay in this coffee shop for Alfalfa's sake – he was in her hotel room, and had told her that the person he needed to contact would recognise her without his presence – Patricia settled herself into her chair in the corner and inhaled a long strong whiff of black tea. Mmm, she smiled to herself, and pulled out the notebook that contained her notes for her murder mystery.

She started scripting notes for the story about the woman who screamed dramatically. She supposed it could have been another murder, but she had decided that it would actually relate to finding a blood-spattered gun in a woman's spa. Or perhaps it was a gun discovered in a blood-tinged foot bath? Hm. Did they even have spas like these in the 1940s? Patricia wondered. Oh well. That's what she wanted to write, now that she had seen one a few doors down, and wished it were open. Perhaps she could drop in the next day before the Night of Writing Dangerously... but no. She would indeed need to be at her best, but she doubted that the spa would help her focus on what she would do when she was actually at the event, and she thought that perhaps Alfalfa would have things that she needed to do instead.

Maybe on Monday, then. Her flight back to Vancouver wasn't until Tuesday afternoon.

At a small thud on the table, Patricia looked up at a small fuzzy black and white lop-eared rabbit settling itself onto the table – but even as she saw it, it faded out. Huh. Perhaps this is who Alfalfa wanted her to meet... “Hello,” she said to the air.

Nothing.

All right then. Patricia bent back to her page – and as soon as she started thinking of her next words, she caught a peek of black and white across the table.

“Seriously?” Patricia asked, without looking up, and channelling May's word choices for a moment. “You only appear when I'm in the middle of some plot idea?” She wrote a few more words in an attempt to keep the conversation going – and the black and white rabbit didn't disappear. She tilted her notebook up so that she could keep some awareness over its top of the other end of the table while continuing to write, although it was difficult. But while that was tricksy, what was more of an issue was the need to pay attention to two things at once... not that paying attention to the rabbit seemed to be doing any good.

“Right, so you aren't going to be much help, are you?” she asked, writing a few more words about the scenery that she had suddenly decided was crucial to the position of her characters. “Then I'm just going to keep writing this scene.”

Bach bach bak bak bak! broke into Patricia's hearing suddenly, and she stopped paying attention to both the notebook and the rabbit – there was a chicken in the doorway of the cafe. What? How had it opened the door?

She blinked – it was actually a chicken doorstop. What had made the noise?

Oh. Someone's ringtone, Patricia realised, as she noticed the man heading for the door and smiling around apologetically as he answered, “Hello?”

She sighed, took a big sip of her delicious black tea, and turned back to her notebook. She tilted it up and started to finish the sentence she had paused in the middle of – oh, the rabbit was gone.

Well, she was going to finish the scene, and then she was going to head for the hotel. She had done what Alfalfa had requested, she had made some sort of contact with some sort of rabbit, and that was all she needed to get done.

She took another big sip of tea, and settled into her story.





Alfalfa paced.

He wasn't as sure of Earry as it seemed Flopsy was, although he hadn't told her he had any questions. And if he wasn't sure of Earry, how could he be sure of any of the San Francisco rabbits?

Not that he had much choice.

If he was going to help his people, he needed to take action against what was happening now. He may not trust Earry, but he knew that the information about the leader being a vampire was completely correct. It was the only thing that explained himself being cut off from Bunniption Base, as well as the sudden dearth of plotlet kits becoming plot bunnies. But perhaps that was one of those cases of telling something verifiable in order to gain trust... Earry didn't know.

He did know that he would need help here, and he knew that Earry trusted Bun-Bun. That meant he had to take the risk, although he also knew that from Earry's body language – the body language that he didn't think he was showing – that he knew Bun-Bun to be a very dangerous individual.

That scared Alfalfa, for he had been around for quite some time. He had watched the garden grow, as it were, and he also knew that it was at times pruned. He suspected that Earry was one of the ones chosen to do the pruning in dark corners where no one would ask questions. If Earry was one of those, and he thought Bun-Bun dangerous, then what was he, Alfalfa, one of the “smart but compliantly mild” sort, doing getting him involved?

Well, he had no choice, and that was that. At least he could keep an eye on Bun-Bun and the others for the sake of Patricia – he had known that he needed to come with her, but after Earry's reaction, he was even more glad. He knew she had no idea what she was getting into.





When Patricia returned to the hotel room, there was a blinking red light on the phone on the bedside table: a message from Jamie. She took a few moments trying to figure out how on earth to listen to it, then finally found the “msg listen” button. Who designed these things? She lifted the receiver and pressed the button.

“Hi Patricia,” a female voice cheerfully bubbled into her ear. “This is Zale. Jamie hates talking on the phone, so he asked me to call, since I love talking on the phone. He says you needn't call back, but he's been working on your request. It's slow-going, but he's got it well on its way – he put a plot bunny into his protagonist's travel party, like you suggested, and he gets along well with both Johan – the human boy – and Zeitgeist – the dragon. He said you have your event tomorrow starting early in the evening, so he's going to try to get to the point where Johan has to go back home, so that he can slip some more of the developments you were hoping for with the whole plot bunny army into the novel before you get there. He doesn't have to work, so he thinks it should work out. At least that's what he says.

“Anyway it's all very exciting. He told me what you said about the future of NaNoWriMo and I saw your message on the forums... I've started working on my own story again, even though it isn't going very well, and I've managed to get 2000 words in today. Jamie helped by letting me use his laptop while he was at work, so that was much faster than writing it in my notebook, but I don't think I'll get to use his computer much more in the next week. Anyway I'm going to do my best to help with my word count. I hope we manage to save it. NaNoWriMo, I mean. It's pretty awesome, even if it is at a really busy time at school.

“So yeah. We're excited to hear about the Night of Writing Dangerously. Jamie said you might not be able to make it to the write-in on Tuesday, but maybe when you are back in Vancouver you can send us a message and I can make cookies for us and we can write together and you can tell us about San Francisco. Okay?

“Have a fun trip and be safe, Jamie says, and our mom too. Bye Patricia!”

The phone clicked off, and Patricia sat still for a moment, smiling, before placing the receiver back on its cradle. They were good kids, she thought. She hoped the subplot she had asked Jamie to include didn't mean he wasn't able to make it to the 50,000 words – but somehow she thought he would think it important enough to be worth it whether he managed to reach the word count goal or not.

She didn't know if it would make a difference, but it couldn't hurt. And the plot bunnies were all about myth and metaphor at their heart – there must be some relation with the stories we tell about them. Patricia sighed at herself. There was nothing she could do about it now, and she had done everything she could by suggesting that Jamie try that particular storyline, and by sending out a request for help on the forums.

Now all she could do was be well-rested and ready for the event the next night, which she believed the bunnies were sure to attack. What could possibly be a better-placed strike?

Patricia decided not to try to come up with an answer to that question, and instead wished Alfalfa a good night and went to bed.