Ultimate goal – 50,000 words.
Daily goal – 1,667 words
Goal total so far – 5,000 words

Words written today – 1,808
Words written so far – 5,378 words
Words to goal – +378

“Come come! Come Out!
From bogs old frogs command the dark
and look…the stars”
― Kikaku, Japanese Haiku

 

Dallas, Texas

Today I checked the third page of my writing prompts for the 30 days of Nanowrimo and found a few sentences about when I used to go swimming with some friends at night in a resort swimming pool. These frogs would hop up to the pool and croak, with their throats expanding like big frogthroat ballons. I took this little memory and expanded it, making it more dramatic and important, and wrote it up for today’s words. I’ll worry later about figuring out how to hook this into the main story. That won’t be too easy.

Snippet of what I wrote:

But there came a time every night when the four young people would hear a telltale sound from the low bushes and tall grass that surrounded the pool and they would then silently slip into the water and gather in a group in the center. They would tread water, looking outward, touching each other, but barely. All four would feel their breath quicken as they waited and watched.

Only a few at first, dark, small and moving in a jerky, irregular path, but then a whole swarm of frogs would appear and eventually move to the edge of the pool. The entire concrete apron would be lined with frogs, all facing the water, all staring at the four young people treading water and looking back at them.

Then the frogs would start to croak. Every one of them would swell their throat out like a living bubble until it was larger than the rest of their bodies. Then they would use that stored air, under pressure, to let loose with that unique sound, that amphibian mating call, projected out over the water.

At first only a few frogs would croak but after a few minutes it would be a cacophony, a symphony of frog song, a staccato husky squawking that filled the otherwise quiet night.