Day 19. I'm stuck here on this NaBloPoMo island, surrounded by a sea of language. Words, words everywhere and not a drop to write. Sometimes I think I can see other blogs and even commenters from here, but then realize it's all just a mirage. I've started to dream of writing beautiful, long paragraphs, full of nuance and meaning. It's a sad shock when I wake up and find out that it wasn't real.

Our rations are running dangerously low. Words and punctuation are in such short supply that I think we're starting to hallucinate. Earlier today I looked at James and thought he was a big fat apostrophe. I told him this, trying to make light of our dire situation. But he's cranky and became indignant, saying, "If I was going to be anything, I'd be a semicolon!"

Yesterday we went into the forest to forage for verbs, but all we found were a few measly pronouns, hardly worth building a story around. Still, in our desperation, we tried. But it was all "he" and "she" and then "he" again, not making a bit of sense. I threw in a few verbs and adjectives from our dwindling supply, but that didn't make it much better: "pretty she coughed." We soon gave up in frustration. What I wouldn't give for a juicy noun-verb combo with a nice slice of descriptive commentary on the side.

James tells me to keep the faith, to just hold on, to keep hope alive. I tell him that if we needed cliches, those would be just fine. But we need interesting stories if we're going to last another 11 days in this God-forsaken wilderness. And to do that we're going to need more words. He promised me he'll try fishing again tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath. The last time he went out, all he brought back were a few italics and hyperlinks. The links were good, but they're not substantial enough to keep us going. He swears he saw an essay swim by, but I told him: "Good luck hooking one of those!"

(Thank you to James for this idea!)