A Silly NaNoWriMo Thing

You know what? Fun things. Fun writery things. It's NaNoWriMo. There's a guinea pig on the forums for NaNoWriMo, well, really it's the guinea pig's owner, and they've got a novel up. Only 400-something words, and it's day 7, so they're gonna need a lot of help if they want to get 50,000 words by the end of the month. See, the way they're working is to collect words other people send them. There's a basic plot idea, Batpig and the Princess Bouncy Braids, and chaos is supposed to ensue. Here's the novel's page.

The current excerpt is my words (as I'm writing this, anyways,) so I feel totally fine reprinting those here in case reading those encourages you to make words. It's silly. It doesn't need to be good. There's not even a requirement that submissions fit or make sense with the stuff that's already there or be related to anything. Just a scene, paragraphs, whatever, written in November when you're bored or feel like it. Like karlianne said.

Exerpt is always the most recent submission, and the first submission of the month is me, so that's how you can make stuff connect if you want to try. Paragraphs can be NaNoMailed to the guinea pig if you're on the forums, or if not, you can email it.

 

It was a dark and stormy night when Princess Bouncy Braids went riding on her Pretty Princess Pony. It's a good question why she would go riding on such a night, but this happened, and since she is a princess, she can pretty much do what she wants. Sometimes that means it'll be a really bad idea, and she'll do it anyways just because she can. Her parents, the King and the Queen, are the only ones who have the authority to make her listen, and there's not much of anyone else you can go to once Princess Bouncy Braids decides she really wants to do something. In this case, the something was going out riding despite the fact that it was midnight, and it was thundering, and then it started to hail while she was saddling Pretty Princess Pony. The stable pig did send a messenger pigeon to the King and Queen, but they were busy in diplomatic meetings with the meerkat ambassador in the hope of preventing the war that seemed inevitable. And so they didn't read the message, and Princess Bouncy Braids went for a ride at midnight.
It was a dark and stormy morning when the Pretty Princess Pony returned without Princess Bouncy Braids. Unfortunately for everyone there, the Pretty Princess Pony couldn't speak guinea pig, and so no one could ask her what happened. If they could find someone who spoke pony, that would be another matter, but for the time being, they would have to search without a witness report. That would make the search harder. Oh, yes, that would make it much harder. I suppose I'll need to make sure they don't get anyone who speaks pony to the palace until it's too late for Pretty Princess Pony's memories to help them, won't I? We don't want her ruining my plans, after all, even if I didn't get to start making them until after Princess Bouncy Braids was foolish enough to go riding alone on a dark and stormy night. I'm just taking advantage of the situation. That's all. Can you blame me? I do so love a good bit of chaos, and if I'm lucky? Well, if I'm really lucky, they'll blame the meerkats. Then war really will be inevitable, and won't that be fun to watch?
_________________________________________________________________

Oh, isn't this wonderful? The King and Queen didn't blame the meerkats. They did something even better. They and the meerkats are both convinced the capybaras framed the meerkats! Hiding my trail and watching chaos ensue has never been so much fun. Now there will be three nations at war, all because that fool Princess Bouncy Braids saw fit to ride alone on a dark and stormy night. I'm just taking advantage of the situation, after all.

There you have it. Fun writery things. And it's NaNoWriMo participation of a sort without the full level of NaNoWriMo commitment. Good for kids, maybe? Or just for fun.

Insecure Writers Support Group!

Trigger Warning: References to (fictional) people thinking of murder of disabled people as merciful.

Hi.
So this is my first post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group.

The badge for the insecure writer's support group. Name in red text on a background of I'm not actually sure what.

I'm almost a week into NaNoWriMo. Guess what? I'm totally insecure about that. I have no clue if my writing is good or awful, and as much as I know NaNoWriMo is about giving myself permission to write badly? I'd rather write decently. Or even well. I'm meeting word counts, which is good, but yeah. Nervous as anything.
It probably doesn't help that the ideas I have actually are ambitious. I know that with my (lack of) executive functioning skills, if I don't just get it all out at once, I'm not going to get it out, so I'm not going to try "dropping out to give it the time it deserves" or whatever. I'm just nervous because this is not an easy first novel, unless this winds up being really different from what's in my head. I might take the two long-term protagonists an
d write their stories into separate novels that's what I'll do (yeah, that's going to mean giving up half my current wordcount but if that's what it takes to make this work and I think it might be...)
See, they're both autistic. And they present significantly differently. And they're both girls. And a lot happens to them before they meet. Alex travels a lot- she has to, since she's not even from the same country as Kaili. Kaili deals with ableism in all sorts of forms, and she moves to a tower because she's had it with people. Especially people who think it'd be merciful to kill her. Which yes, that's something people say about disabled people.
That's another thing that's really hard. Kaili is very obviously disabled. The ways the world reacts to her are hard to write.
Or the fact that I really, really want to go back and write Nina Morow's story.
I might need to, once I finish with Kaili and Alex.
And titles? Ha. How do I title?
The first million words of fiction are going to be bad.
Well. That's great news.
Put the first hundred thousand words of fiction where no one will ever find them, and after that, start putting them up. Try to sell.
I think that puts this NaNoWriMo into the range of things I should put up and try to sell. Because it's actually not my first time writing a novel. My first one was done over the course of my junior year of high school. It was bad, but I wrote a lot of words. Judging by the density of my (often illegible) handwriting and the notebook I filled, that was about 78,000 words of complete and utter junk. No, really. I've since attempted to re-read it. It was bad.
I assume I made the other 22,000 words up in other creative writing contexts, considering that I took three semesters of creative writing in high school (none of my failed novel was used in that class) and write fanfiction. So... Oh my goodness I'm actually going to put this up and hope people buy it what am I doing I am a college student.
I should probably shut up and write story instead of angsting about NaNoWriMo. If I let me, I might write 50,000 words of angst about it instead of 50,000 words of novel. Which would be bad. NaNoWriMo, not NaAngstWriMo.

Autistics Speaking Day 2013

Warning: References to Ableism (super-vague)

Oh hey, it's November 1, Autistics Speaking Day. I'm Autistic. I don't always say words with my mouth, but I communicate, and that's the version of “speaking” I'm using. I've got two main ideas for what to talk about: I've got an autistic character planned for my NaNoWriMo novel(s) who types “I was able to say words. That turned out not to be the same thing as speaking” about a potion that let her... say words. The idea was to let her talk. It's a fantasy novel. I've also got the speaking I do in my daily life, educating people by way of being the autistic adult that they actually know of. The way diagnosis looks in China, there aren't exactly a lot of autistic college students who know they're autistic here. That's not to say there's no autistic students: I think that one of my classmates in graph theory might be autistic. But there's not really people my age who know they're autistic, or there's not a lot of us and we're mostly not in colleges.

First off, offline stuff. I'm out as autistic to my Chinese language teachers, my Academic Director, my Residence Director, all my classmates for my language classes, my roommate, and a couple people in my materials science class. My roommate knew pretty much nothing about autism when I met her, and then I told her that I'm Autistic, and then I lent her Loud Hands because she wanted a book that was in fairly simple language but wasn't meant for young kids. So that's a way of having several Autistic people speaking to her about autism from across the ocean. That was pretty cool.

There's also been conversations with my Academic Director. Some have been really productive. Like this one. It was in Chinese, like basically all our conversations, but here's approximately what was said. She is Zhu Laoshi, I'm me.

Zhu Laoshi: So are you interested in visiting one of the schools for autistic kids while you're here? I could go with you.

Me: Uh, maybe? I'm a wee bit scared, though.

Zhu Laoshi: They learned a lot of stuff from American NGO's.

Me: Yeah, that's what scares me.

Zhu Laoshi: Why?

Me: Because the biggest autism related organization in the USA is really bad.

Zhu Laoshi: Have you told them what their problems are?

Me: Yup. So have a ton of autistic adults. One of the problems is that they don't listen to autistic people.

Zhu Laoshi: That would make it hard, yes. [Conversation continues, but that was the bit I wanted to share.]

Or I explained both a problem I have [I don't always realize I'm cold] and how I handle it [I get goosebumps normally, so I check for those instead of checking to see if I feel cold.] That happened with a classmate for materials science, after which I explained that no, autism does not always mean incapable of oral speech. That's just one of many autistic things, and not all of us have that specific one. Selective mutism, learning to talk later, and word choice differences are all possibilities, and yes, one person can have all those things at once. Not me, I talked super-early, but it's possible.

Now for NaNoWriMo. That's National Novel Writing Month. I'm Autistic. I'm writing fantasy, and I'm including multiple disabled characters including multiple autistic characters. Not that they have the word “autistic,” but people reading in the modern day are meant to read these characters as autistic. One is non-speaking. She designed her own AAC device- it's based in magic, because fantasy, and she spent a really long time studying magical theory in order to design it. After spending similarly long studying to try to make a potion that would let her talk. It sort of worked, but not entirely- the potion that she came up with would let a person who just has physical issues with speech, but if there's also a disconnect between the languaging and the mouth-making-words, the potion doesn't fix that.

And yes, her dealing with ableism is a major part of the plot. Like, the decisions she makes, often in response to people being horrible in various ways, are probably the biggest factor in driving her story arc. Yes, I'm writing a non-speaking autistic character with agency into a fantasy story, and yes, she's got some magic, but it's not because of her being autistic and people missed her magic for a while because she's autistic. I'm not entirely sure about how organizing the bits of story will go and I won't know until I'm well into writing, so I'm not sure exactly when you first meet her, but she's important. And pretty cool. If she were real instead of being a product of my imagination, she would write an awesome post for ASDay. But she's a product of my imagination, so I talked about her a bit instead. Woo autistic people being in fiction. I seem to do this a decent bit- started a series of Young Wizards fics following a non-speaking Autistic character while trying to keep myself away from my NaNoWriMo story until November started. Because being reflected in stories is important. It really is.

Evening

So on Saturday morning my time (I didn't change my blog's time zone when I changed my time zone, so I'm 12 hours ahead of it) I had an abortedattempt at a language utilization report, then moved my tuchus because I wasn't sure exactly how complicated/time consuming getting onto a high speed train to Beijing for the NaNoWriMo kick-off meeting would be. An hour later, I was rambling in a way that might have sounded coherent, but it was pretty irrelevant to any issues I was actually having. (I read through later and didn't change anything. It wasn't coherent. I'm not sure this is either, frankly.) Those posts were written from 9:20-34 and 10:20-45am, respectively. Not edited or anything. Almost nothing on this blog has been edited: I think Functioning Labels, which I've added a few things to, and Autism and Being Trans*, which I fixed some language issues in, are pretty much the only exceptions.

Anyways, this one got started at 7:25pm, just about 10 hours after I had my issue with the report. Two main things going on here: I feel like talking about my day, and I think that showing what my written language looks like at a few time intervals from semi-major issues is possibly useful.

Security for the subway and the train is a thing in Beijing, but it's very much security theater. It's also very quick. Stick your bag through an X-ray and that's basically it. I was able to get from outside security to on my train in three minutes this evening, and it was important that I did it about that fast because I was running for my train this evening. I mean, it wouldn't have been that big a deal considering that the Beijing South->Tianjin high speed train runs every 10-20 minutes pretty much all day, but it would have been annoying because I'd have had to stand in line and buy a new ticket. Buying tickets is more time-consuming than security is, significantly.

Anyways. I thought I had lots of extra time, since I was getting into Beijing South Station at 11:33 and the kickoff started at 3. If I'd known where I was going and/or Google Chome had not decided to try to reload all my tabs when I wasn't connected to the internet, causing me to lose my copy of the directions, I might have. As it was, I got into Beijing South Station, ate food, checked the directions which had not yet crashed out on me, saw what subway station I needed to get off at, and got on the subway. It was a bit of a long subway ride (~25 minutes on the actual subway line) but the Beijing station and the one where I needed to get off were both on line 4, so that was convenient. This is the part where the plans fell apart a bit.

See, I had the directions on skydrive, courtesy of the person who organized the party, but I didn't have them on my hard drive because what is being organized like that? So I got there and looked at the directions, but sometime between the Beijing station and then, Chrome decided to reload the page and so I lost access to the file. That was fail. I wandered around for a bit until I found an internet bar, where I was able to get online for half an hour for only 3 kuai. That's about 50 cents US. Not bad, really. It was the public computers with slow internet and only Internet Explorer, so that made it a little bit frustrating, and only the first page of the document would load, so I was working with incomplete information. That might be why still I got lost on the way there. Eventually I found it, though. At 2:55pm, to be exact.

Kickoff party was good. Small, which might have made it a bit boring for some of the other people there, but I like small. Small is good. Then we got pizza. Pizza is also good. The other thing I got was milk tea. Oh, and the volunteer who set this stuff up is an American who barely speaks Chinese. He teaches English in China, and yeah, I'm impressed with the people who aren't from China and don't read Chinese but manage to live here. I have enough fun figuring stuff out, and I actually speak this language. And read it. Reading it is kind of important, since a lot of the translations aren't much better than Google Translate. [I sometimes correct Google Translate when doing Chinese to English and submit the edits, which I think is how the edits are supposed to get a little bit better with time. It requires having enough understanding of the source language that you can figure out where exactly Google is going wrong, though.]

And then I ran for the train. Which I am now on, because I made the train. Pizza place to subway station was 20 minutes walking, then 27 minutes to Beijing South Station and a total of 10 minutes from getting off the subway to being on my train. I've done quicker subway to commuter rail runs at home, but the station at home is smaller and there isn't security. Also, the first and only time I did it in four minutes, I wasn't carrying anything and got on the wrong train. Oops. So I like to allow a bit more time than that. For a train station that I'd only been in for the first time that morning and which has security, ten minutes was cutting it pretty close. Good to know it's possible, don't really want to do it again. So there is how my day went (it was a good day) and my current level of languaging. I think I'm still going off on more tangents than usual, and if I had a major problem I'd have trouble communicating it, but I'm definitely more able to tell people stuff than I was this morning at 10:20.

And I think that's the sound of the train slowing down to get into Tianjin station. Home. Or close to it. 5 subway stops away, and then I can sleep. Sleep will be good. Gnight, all.

An Hour Later

I'm sitting down and typing this almost exactly an hour from when I was frantically trying to process why on earth I was crying and shaking from my (aborted) attempt at the language utilization report. I added tags and a “heck if I know but be WARNED” trigger warning, scheduled it for midnight, and hitpublish. Then I looked at the clock and started moving, because it was just about 9:30 am my time. Also known as the time I had been aiming to leave for the train station, because today there is a NaNoWriMo kick-off in Beijing. It took me longer to get from my dorm room to the Tianjin train station (~40 minutes) than the ride from Tianjin to Beijing on the high speed train (33 minutes) will take. Which I find amusing. Also a story about transportation inside and between cities. Seriously.

I think it says a lot that I am much better at handling crowded subways, crowded train stations, and navigating unfamiliar environments (my first time in the Tianjin train station was yesterday when I bought my tickets, and I didn't do any scouting beyond what I needed to do to get the tickets) than I am at answering a few “simple” questions about my use of Chinese. Yes, there are some English subtitles at the train station, but most of the translations are sufficiently laughable that I wind up using the Chinese anyways or asking people “If I want to do thing X, where do I go?” The asking is done in Chinese, and the answers I get are generally in Chinese. Sometimes they try English. Sometimes that works, and sometimes I get sufficiently confused-looking that people think I must have the problem with English. Which, yes, I do, but not the one they're probably thinking it is.

And now I'm sitting in the Tianjin train station, waiting for them to start collecting tickets for the train I'm going to be on. C2026 from Tianjin to Beijing South, 33 minute ride, cheaper ticket than the public transit between my mom's house and my dad's, no, really, it is, though that depends on the currency conversion. It's also a difference of a few dimes, but yes, a high speed train from Tianjin to Beijing is cheaper. Runs more often, too. It looks to be every 10-15 minutes that there's a train, and I think it's not quite as often but still a thing between either Tianjin South and Beijing South or between Tianjin West and Beijing South. I don't actually remember, but the point is there. China is way better at public transit than the USA is.

I think I got onto this line of thinking because I'm a little bit numb after my reaction to the language utilization report. I think that illustrating this numbness and how much I can dump words onto a page even when totally numb and also how little they have to do with my current emotional state when that happens and maybe something else I don't know might be useful to someone. Not sure how. Maybe with the idea that being able to put words onto a page or say words or whatever is very different from the ability to use those words to tell people what's wrong or what I need. Or to ask people for things. Though really my current state is a reaction to having asked for a thing. So I don't know. I think I'm going to tune out the world and stick to creative writing and NaNoWriMo prep and kick-off party things as much as I can for the rest of the day and hope my brain is working better tomorrow so I can study properly for Monday's Chinese test. Lining up the reports and the tests this way is kind of icky for me because the reports on how I've been using the language drain my brain and I wasn't even able to get it done properly so it's going to have to break my brain again unless they can fix it. Sad.

One Week More

Autistics Speaking Day. This is going to be my second one (wow when did this happen?) It's also my second one being involved with helping run stuff, because this is me and apparently helping all the blogs be things is what I do (really what is this?) Not even joking. AutisticsSpeaking Day. Autism Positivity. Pile of one-shot flash blogs. Autistic Alligator. Allistic/NT Privilege. We Are Like Your Child.

The thing in common between all of those? It's about Disabled people making ourselves heard (usually specifically Autistic people, though Allistic/NT Privilege is all neurodivergences with a focus on autism because I'm autistic and We Are Like Your Child is any disability with some autism focus because of who the mods are.)

 

And looking at the history of Autistics Speaking Day, it looks like what I'm doing on those other blogs, what I'm doing on my personal blog? Are pretty well in line with the idea behind Autistics Speaking Day. I can work with that.

 

So there it is. Autistics Speaking Day is coming. I've been doing stuff that's in line with Autistics Speaking Day. That doesn't mean I know what I'm writing for it. Last year I talked about Autistics Speaking Every Day. I want to do something different this year. Not sure what. I should get thinking, because it's only a week away, and I don't want to be writing my post on the day of because then it won't be my November 1 post. Also because November 1 is the start of NaNoWriMo. I'm more than happy giving some of my non-writing time on Day One to helping run ASDay, but no, I am not writing anything other than novel on November 1 outside of class time. That is not a thing that is happening. Not if I'm making my Day One Ridiculous Goal of 10k words and my Weekend One Ridiculous Goal of 50k words at the end of the first weekend. Yes, that is “winning” NaNoWriMo in three days. At my typical/low-ish typing speed, it's about 20 hours of writing over the course of Friday-Sunday. I can get faster, but I'm calculating off the low end because it's a lot of words and a lot of time.

ASDay and NaNoWriMo Day One are the same day. That's gonna be fun. One week more....

NaNoWriMo So Far

Trigger Warning: murder, racism, drugs, rape, basically everything

This is what I have so far. It's not great, and I'm way behind. Oops. 

Sgt. Simon Jackson stood at the front of the room. "We’ve got the go-ahead to plant some undercover people to bust up the Czar’s ring. Any volunteers?" Every hand in the room went up. "Now, don’t be so shy."

The room chuckled. They all knew about the Czar. Half of them had family whose lives had been ruined by him, his people, or his drugs. The Czar has been running the poor parts of the city for years
"Who here has ever taken an acting class?" Some hands went down. "Who was actually good at it?" More hands dropped. Shani looked around- it looked like there were still more than could actually be on the assignment, but not by much. She had a decent shot, then. "You lot. We're sending you to a course on disguise all next week, since practically everyone mob knows what the police look like and you need to actually be undercover. Five best at the end are in. If there's no other questions from those of you who aren't going, I'd like to talk to the ones who are

Most of the room stood up, the day shift to clock out and the evening shift to their jobs. "Officially, there was never a government alliance with these people. We know that's bullshit. I have it from the person who gave me the go-ahead that Intelligence does not want this ring busted and only got overruled because the Vice President's cousin lives in the area the Czar is trying to move into. You know what that means about covers- someone will be trying to blow them. If you have a family and want to back out, now's the time." No one moved.

"All due respect, my family is the reason I want in. You know one of them shot my son." That was Dion Freeman. He lived in the projects they controlled, same as she did. They'd gone to school together, even dated for a few weeks. She'd known his son, too. All he'd ever done was refuse to carry for a dealer, and they shot him, a beautiful five year old boy.

"Same." Hong Yan- her husband was still on leave after some of the Czar's men "taught him a lesson." Neither Yan nor her husband were sure what the lesson was supposed to be, unless it was that the Czar and his Sacks needed one.

"My daughter can't walk to school alone because of them." James Fisher. His wife taught English at the same school where Janice taught, and their daughter had just moved up to the high school this year. Through middle school, she'd gone with her mother, which was usually enough. Not always, but usually, which was the best anyone got around here.

"My brother deals because he knows they'll kill him if he stops." Walker Brown. His brother Aidan was in jail again. Not really for dealing- more for having been caught. Most had dealt, and even more had used.

"No one left." Samson Greene. He'd never married, his parents died of cancer, and his brothers had already been killed. This was a man with nothing left to lose.

"I'd like to be able to look my son in the eye and tell him I tried to make the city safe for him, even if I have to do it from Heaven." Andrew Young. He and Dion were good friends, and his son had turned five last week. Mark and Jo nodded.

"I don't want to worry that my roommate won't come home some night because of them, but staying out of this won't do that. Busting them will," Shani said.

"Had to give you the chance. Be here 6am sharp Sunday-you'll be flying out then. Night shift- you're still getting paid for tonight, but you can go home and get ready. We'll clock you out when your shift should end. Same goes for tomorrow- stay home and get ready. Take a brief on the way out and read it before Sunday morning."

Shani followed Yan out. "You OK?" she asked.

"Of course I'm not, but this will help. I hope." Yan's voice shook as she said it. "Not shooting the bastards on sight might be hard though."

"Land them in jail instead. Shooting's too quick for the men who beat up Shirong, and you know it."

Yan managed a bit of a laugh. "Can't I shoot their nuts off and then arrest them?"

"Go for a kick. Easier to look the other way."

"You think they will?"

"As long as you don't get your cover blown doing it? Jackson will. He's almost as pissed as you are."

"Thanks. 'Night!"

"Be safe, Yan. I'll see you Sunday."

"Someone's late," Janice teased as Shani opened the door.

"Meeting between shifts." Shani dropped her bag and flopped onto the couch. "Interesting meeting. They want to bust the Sacks proper."

Janice dropped the pot, and Shani heard something slosh onto the floor. "Shit."

"You OK, hun?"

"My hearing is apparently going and I just spilled water all over the floor. I could have sworn I just heard you say they're finally busting the Sacks."

"You did. They're sending five of us in undercover. Deciding the five by who does best in a disguise class they want to send us to, and the plane leaves Sunday morning."

Janice stood in the doorway, wet towel in hand. "Say what?"

"I know. The vice president has a second cousin living in the part of the city the Sacks just started moving into or some such shit. You know they only care when the big folk could get hurt."

Janice sighed. It was true, of course. The world could crap on people like them all day, but god forbid some politician have a cousin who could be hurt. That would be unacceptable.

"Don't worry about dinner. We can get takeout using the money we won't spend on my groceries and coffee next week."

"Oh? Why won't-wait. Disguise. Sunday. That's not my hearing."

"Nope. It's real. Call up wherever and I'll put the kitchen back together. Tomorrow we'll deal with the practical, and tonight will be for us."

The light on her face woke Shani much too early Saturday morning. Janice, who was somehow blessed with the ability to sleep past dawn, snored softly next to her, and Shani wished she could do the same. Over the years, though, she'd learned that it was futile, and besides, she needed to read the briefing and get something cooked that Janice could just microwave most of the week. Janice could manage simple dishes, usually, but getting one big pot of chilli ready for the week would prevent her from returning to a disaster in the kitchen from an attempt at something more complicated than macaroni and cheese or ramen, she hoped.

Or they would be out of ground beef. That worked too. She wrote a note saying she had just gone to the grocery and kissed Janice on the forehead, then let herself out. This early on a Saturday, it should still be safe to walk.

Yan was at the grocery too. "Early riser too, huh?"

"When I don't have the night shift. Setting up?"

"Yep. Chilli. You?"

"Probably chilli." Yan paused. "Do you... do you think you could get someone to check in on Shirong a couple times? I... well, I worry."

"You have every right to worry. I'll ask Janice to swing by. Call me around noon and we'll work out when and all. Number hasn't changed."

"Thanks."

Janice was still asleep. Shani put the kettle on and plugged in the waffle iron, then pulled the old square waffle iron out of the cupboard, taking care to keep the cupboard door attached to the wall. She mixed the eggs with the oil, then the Aunt Jemima's, then the milk, just as her mother had taught her, and filled the same big pot from last night with water to start the beans soaking while she waited to the iron to finish heating. After ladling the first waffle's worth of batter into the iron, she pulled out plates and forks, then began to read the briefing.

She already knew the contents of the "background" section. It said how the Czar started out as a small-time dealer in 1966, selling to his middle school buddies, then worked his way up. There had been a couple of "convenient" disappearances of dealers a step or two above him his freshman year, and he dropped out to deal full time as a sophomore, believing that gaining the time spent in classes was worth more than the easy direct access to the student market.

The risk paid off. By 1970, he was the biggest dealer in the city, and now? By 1980, he had more authority than the police in the poorest parts of Charlfield, and he only gained territory with time. Undercover agents occasionally busted some of the smaller dealers, but no actual progress was made curbing the Czar's reign of terror. There were few plausible explanations for the length of his reign essentially unchallenged by authority, and none of them could be officially speculated. (Code for corruption, clearly, but that wasn't news. She'd become a cop so that the corruption wouldn't turn on her and to be one of what she figured to be the few good ones in a very broken system, not out of any belief that she could make a systemic change.)

Now for the slightly more interesting part. They notably failed to include an expected length for the mission and they stated that false identification papers would be provided for a cover, with the cover needing to look significantly different from the officer's identification pictures. Usually the officers didn't need to spend their undercover missions in disguise, but in a city where the mobsters knew most officers by sight, it was smart. Even more surprising was the precinct-funded rental of apartments in the area to strengthen the cover and prevent suspects from trailing officers to their real homes. That was not standard --- Crap. Waffles burning. She'd gotten distracted in the briefing and let the second batch of waffles start to burn. She scraped off the burnt bits while the third batch cooked, and put the briefing aside so she didn't burn any more waffles for the last breakfast she'd get with Janice for a week.

The briefing suggested that she think of someone she knew well and try to describe their appearance without looking at them, just to see what she noticed. Since she'd never seen a mission briefing where disguise was part of the preparation, she wasn't sure if that was typical, though it would make sense. It was something she did before shifting to look like someone, certainly. The point was probably to think about what physical characteristics people noticed. She figured it would be a good exercise to see what differences there were in what she remembered about someone she had shifted to look like before and someone she knew well but had never shifted to before, just to see how different those would be. If they asked for one, though, it would be for the person she had never shifted to- no need to go in noticing more than she probably "should."

Janice- She was short and slight, barely 5', probably around 90lb. (Some of her middle school students were taller than her!) Her skin was medium brown with an olive to yellow tint, and she had curly black hair, somewhere between the crinkly frizzy her mother had and the straight smooth hair of her father and yet not really either. After years of wearing it to her waist, she had just cut it off at the shoulders, and it had gotten significantly curlier since. The bridge of her nose was nearly flat from the tip to her forehead, separating large dark eyes. Her face was round, and she had dimples when she smiled. Her ears were nothing unusual, though they were rarely visible since she usually wore her hair down. Her limbs were fairly long for her height, and they were thin- the kind of thin where the untrained eye might think it meant weakness, but what little flesh was there was pure muscle. She might not weigh much, but unless you knew how to get the advantage in leverage, a fight against was not going to go well. Her fingers were long too, actually. For someone as short as she was, "long" seemed to describe a lot of her features, proportionately.

Shani smiled. It hadn't been the way she told Janice she was a shape-shifter, but looking like her double made a fun proof. Now to see what she noticed about someone she had never tried to double.

Yan- She was surprisingly broad shouldered, and she was tall. It was all muscle, too. Whoever had said that Chinese woman were all small and stereotypically feminine had clearly never met Yan. She could dress to fake it, but she usually pushed even further in the direction of androgynous appearance. As a cop, it was probably a matter of practicality- none of them had much authority in the worst areas, but the men were at least usually less subject to harassment.

She put her pen down. WAY more actual details talking about Janice, as opposed to vague descriptions of impressions. So if she just changed the impression looking at her gave, that might be enough, or nearly so. People who couldn't shape-shift managed to make disguises work all the time.

A Partial NaNoWriMo Cast List

Trigger Warnings: Rape, Murder, Drugs, Gangs, Gang Violence, Basically anything violent ever. (No ableism since no one is disabled that we know of)
So, I am doing NaNoWriMo, or trying to, anyways. Not much of the story will be up here since I'd like to publish it and get at least some money from it, but some notes will.
Here is my cast of named characters so far. I have the ethnicity of most of these people specified because I know them, but they have not all been stated in-story yet.

• Shani Aramak: Protagonist. A cop. Lives in the projects with her girl-friend, Janice, who teaches science at the middle school. DARK brown skin (she is BLACK, people.) Fairly tall, wide shoulders, brown eyes, brown frizzy hair that she usually leaves natural. Dated Dion Freeman for a few weeks in high school. A shapeshifter- she can shift however she wants, but the further it is from her natural form, the more energy it takes. She will be using this while undercover, mostly as disguise, though she will also use it to help out in combat a couple times. She needs a nap after the combat ones. Not officially out to the force, but most of the people she's close with know Janice is more than a roommate. NOT out as a shapeshifter yet, though she will get outed, either by a camera she didn't know was there or by someone walking in on her mid-shift.
• Janice Billya: Shani's girlfriend. They've been together for ~5 years now. Science teacher at a local middle school. Similar level of outness to Shani- people know, but they don't officially know. Mixed black and Korean, fairly short, curly black hair, brown eyes, short.
• Sgt. Simon Jackson: He's (*gasp*) white. He does not live in the area where the Czar is fully in charge anymore (yes, it's that bad in some area's of the city) but he's not fully safe either. His sister got raped by a dealer back when they were in high school and didn't tell him until years later, and he is in one of the area's the mob is trying to expand into. This expansion is why they've finally been allowed to plant some undercover agents for a REAL bust instead of just grabbing some low-level dealers. 
• Dion Freeman: Had a son, who was shot at age five for refusing to carry for a dealer. Isn't going to try again until and unless he is FAR away from the city and the Czar is safely dead or behind bars. Probably black.
• Hong Yan: She and her husband are both on the force, though her husband is on leave since 10 guys beat him in front of her to "teach him a lesson." She asked for and got permission to carry her gun at all times after this. Chinese, is fluent in both Chinese and English. Does NOT have a significant accent, though she can fake one when she chooses.
• Walker Brown: His brother is in jail again for dealing. Mixed, though he will probably never tell us the exact mix. We won't see much of him after the first few thousand words, so he's not as fleshed out.
• James Fisher: His wife teaches English at the same school where Janice teaches. His daughter just started high school. White. Whole family will be taken hostage after his cover is blown. He will attempt a rescue with Shani's help, which will be a partial success (His daugher and brother are rescued. He and his wife are killed in the attempt.)
• Samson Greene: Parents dead of cancer. Brothers all killed from various things related to the Czar. He has nothing left to lose. Black. Tall, short hair.
• Andrew Young. Mixed (black/white.) Friends with Dion. His son just turned five.
• Mark (O'Connor.) Irish. Connections not fleshed out yet, but he nods at Andrew's reasons.
• Jo (sephina Collins.) Does NOT like her full name, and just won't answer to Josephina. Nodded at Andrew's reasons too. 
• The Czar. Runs a crime/drug ring. Basically runs the area's Mob. Has connections. (It's the FBI, but as of right now the characters only know it's something intelligence.) White.
• Agent Hunter.(We know it's a code name, but we don't know his real first or last name.)  Teaches disguises, CIA.
• Sammons. (We never learn his first name.)  Is involved with teaching disguises, FBI. (DUN DUN DUN.) (DUN DUN DUN means a couple people TELL HIM what their covers are going to be, and, well, he's kind of one of the corrupt FBI people protecting this lot)

I don't think anyone's autistic, though Shani has a few symptoms that line up with Sensory Processing Disorder. (Wakes up at dawn always because light on the face, doesn't like unexpected loud noises, will probably strangle you if you grab her from behind because it makes her jump, and doesn't really like light touch.)