Penguins

The Austin NaNoWriMo participants call themselves the Austin Penguins, and they try to work penguins into their NaNo novels. So, I've come up with ways to work penguins into both of my ideas.

If I write the story about Jessie, her high school mascot would be the Pendleton Penguins. It would be a much-mocked mascot, partly because penguins just aren't fierce, and partly because of the school colors. The school colors might be purple & gold--all wrong for penguins--and they'd be the Purple Penguins, which would look a bit ludicrous. Or, the colors would be red & black. In that case, the mascot would be black & white like normal, but because of the red in the school colors, people would jokingly refer to them as the Bloody Penguins. Or if I write the story about Lainie, she would have a collection of penguin items. At some point, she'd feel embarrassed about them, like they were too childlike, and pack them away, but eventually she'd realize they were part of her and bring at least one or two back out.

The problem? After coming up with these penguin ideas, I saw today that E. Lockhart's new YA novel The Boy Book is out, and it's got a penguin figurine on the cover. (The prequel, The Boyfriend List, had a frog figurine on the cover and they figured into the story.) So now penguin figurines may be considered derivative. Argh. I figure I'll still write it that way, if I go for that story, and then if it really ever gets close to being published (ha) and the penguins are a problem, I can change them to some other kind of figurine.

Oh, I also work beets into all my longer fiction, because the novel I started in 2000 (and have still never finished, despite having it all plotted out!) has a lot to do with beets. So, beets have got to make it in somewhere, though it's pretty easy to work a food in.