And then comes the session where she writes the meet cute the following morning. His first night in Montreal before he is to report to the Canadiens’ practice facility in Brossard. Maybe Glitter has a portion of the truth on hand. Maybe there really are those writers who don’t want the endpoints of a hockey romance dominated by hockey. But I was already told repeatedly that I had too much hockey, so anything non-hockey must deal with cute moments between each other. Or their lives away from each other would work, too, Caro has an inner monologue that seems to drag on about the comments made last night on air.
Gustavs gets a second chance in the NHL, after spending a harrowing 24 hours on the waiver wire waiting to see if anyone would offer it. After taking a taxi from Montréal-Trudeau to his hotel in downtown Montréal, with his baggage in hand… her father tries to make sense of what she has been writing.
“Chérie, je crois que tu es due pour parler de la valeur relative des actifs dans un échange en antenne” (Honey, I think you’re due to talk about the relative value of assets in trades on air) her dad tries to encourage her.
“Je ne suis pas encore rendue au point où mon personnage principal va être échangé. Ça ne sera pas avant deux semaines, je crois” (I’m not yet at the point where my main character is traded away. It won’t be for another two weeks, I think)
I guess, I could talk about Gustavs’ past experience in the NHL and how these made him eligible for the waiver wire, but, if necessary, I can always write an appendix about waiver wire eligibility, she keeps dwelling on these comments about “too much hockey” from last night, and how she knew better than to expect a hockey romance reader to know anything about the waiver wire in the NHL.
“Dans deux semaines, tu vas être maganée d’écrire de manière aussi intensive” (In two weeks, you will be worn down from writing this intensively) her father watches her write the meet cute scene furiously at one of the bars on Crescent Street.
And, of course, Caro sees fit to add in some past memories of his last game in Montreal as a Kraken, and how he returns to one of the hot spots of Montreal’s night life. About how close to Centre Bell that was. About what made playing in Montreal a special, if ear-breaking, experience for away teams.
With the guy eating poutine, which he somehow never ate when he last went to Montreal to play the Canadiens, at one of the bars on Crescent… the meet cute begins.
If I was in the FMC’s position, with some… Latvian guy hitting on me, telling me in English that I remind him of the girls in his native Latvia – oh of course I know about Latvia because I played against it as a pre-teen, a Latvia that, back then, barely had enough female pee-wee-aged hockey players to field a girls’ U13 national team… how would I feel? I don’t think my FMC would act too different from myself in that situation… She starts questioning how awkward her FMC would feel. However, she is reminded that awkward meet cutes happen when dealing in slow burns or in romances where they are oblivious to each other’s love.
And, of course, she feels her FMC is the one who will move the conversation past mentions of his home country, or how he compares Québécois girls to Latvian ones. Or at least when she’s hungry.
Meanwhile, at Capitolium’s place, the latter is left wondering what kind of billet family would let the player in their care hit on their daughter, especially when the rigors of hockey take a toll on his academics. And that he seemingly only had the World Juniors to look forward to. So much so that he works like crazy in dryland.
Capitolium: I need help for the daughter of the billet family
Caroline: Were you an only child?
Capitolium: Yes
Caroline: Often, families wealthy enough to be a billet family for a major junior player, will make their daughters spread thin
Capitolium: What do you mean, spread thin?
Caroline: Girls tended to be better-rounded, both socially and in their skill sets, but your mileage may vary
Like I turned to piano and video games after I left hockey behind. I can thank piano for contributing, albeit indirectly, to my successes as a DPS on MAA when it was around, Caro is reminded of her teenage days.
But then Capitolium’s newest passage is about his own meet cute, where he is about to move in with his billet family. And his main character introduces himself to it. Especially their daughter, whose interest he caught.
Yet, even though, by now, Caro feels like they must get each other’s contact information, she’s left wondering what kind of personality she wants her FMC to have. Other than being a workaholic, in which case it will make the couple oblivious to each other, well, feel reciprocal.
Capitolium is then forced to come to terms with his choice of a team that drafted his main character, and the market the guy is playing in. And how little there was for the youth to do in that town. Which means they can’t do a whole lot more than dryland training and studying (if either is still in school).
I must push through: if necessary, I can add some assignment help for the guy, and then make the girl smarter than he is, maybe even as smart as I feel Caroline’s teenage self would have been. Caro made me feel like she was a brain her entire life, he starts thinking of ways to get to the 50,000-word count, while, at the same time, he feels like he has only a rough idea of how smart Caroline’s teenage self would have been. After all, academics seemed to be one of the primary determinants of which path to take to the NHL: major junior if you struggled in class, college if you had good grades. Or at least in my view.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
She spends the whole morning writing and finalizing the meet cute on Crescent. And then Caro runs through her word count after she is done writing it, so she can update it on NaNo’s website. So while the word counter considers the chapter titles, she considers it fair game to do so since she feels they don’t weigh a whole lot in her word count.
Once she updates her word count for the day, she notices there are 16 achievements for her to obtain. She already obtained 3 of the 16 yesterday by updating her word count at the end of the stream.
“Woohoo! Badge number four!” Caroline exclaims after the word count goes up for the second time, to 4,000 words, and hence the 2-day streak achievement is unlocked.
It’s then that she reads on the requirements of the other 12 achievements, the most obvious being those related to word counts. Her gamer mind seems to be drawn to the prospect of what is called, in the gaming world, 100%. Most of the objectives are straightforward provided I stay disciplined, and I win at the end. Oh boy, the most difficult of the gang is the daily par. I will overshoot the whole 50k words goal if I aimed for it… but would overshooting affect the validity of the challenge? I must ask Capitolium before I go any further. She then DMs Capitolium before she starts writing Chapter 3.
Caroline: I have a question about the challenge
Capitolium: Shoot
Caroline: Is writing over 50,000 words acceptable?
Capitolium: Of course! 50,000 words is just a baseline
Phew! Now I have more breathing room for me to write them being oblivious to love, and I feel it would be more convincing if the FMC’s job has unpredictable overtime, but the FMC would be intrigued by this mysterious Latvian, whose schedule is hectic, especially when on the road, Caro gets started writing the third chapter.
But as she starts writing about the FMC’s life outside the relationship-to-be, Glitter DMs her about what she perceives are flaws in the brand new the meet cute.
Glitter: I think you captured the awkwardness well, but I feel like Gustavs doesn’t know the city very well
Caroline: I guess, all he knows about Montreal is “Canadiens play in noisy Centre Bell, Crescent Street, French, and whatever hotel the Kraken stayed at in past seasons” but he could just take a taxi to the Canadiens’ practice facility without the need to ask the FMC about it
And then a bulb flashes in Caro’s mind. Several bulbs, really. He doesn’t know about Dix30, yet, nor where the practice facility is located, but maybe I can make her help Gustavs learn French! Mostly oral, though. And have some date somewhere in Dix30 to boot!
Glitter (gasping behind the screen) Centre Bell, noisy? You ought to make them introduce themselves at some point in the meet cute!
I knew the Montreal Canadiens played in Centre Bell, but never did I read any hockey romance book playing any actual game in there! And never did I believe that an arena’s noise level would leave an impression on a NHLer! Now I start to feel like Caro might be biting more than she can chew! Glitter then watches a video about the Centre Bell’s noise level, while Caro double-checks the meet cute scene for the FMC’s name: Emma.
Caroline (sending Glitter footage from Habs games at Centre Bell): Centre Bell is called the Mecca of hockey for a reason
All right, better the FMC’s name at the end of the meet cute than no name at all... the streamer then adds her FMC’s name, Emma, as needed. Anything to bolster my word count: 100%ing this year’s NaNo is feasible, but will require words at every corner, and write fast and loose every day if I want to earn the Achieve Daily Par Every Day achievement.
Speaking of word count, she feels like there’s an unclear condition for Capitolium’s challenge and hence asks him to clarify in a Discord DM when she feels her creative juice running low as she starts writing about Emma’s life away from Gustavs. Which made it the right time for looking at her manuscript’s word count again, and then update it in NaNoWriMo’s system. She sees a colored hexagonal badge light up on her home page.
“Woohoo! The Update More than Once in One Day cheevo!” an exuberant Caroline shouts for joy.
With her screen showing a grand total of 5 badges, she adjusts her stream interface to show the cheevos earned as of this point in the challenge, but she also knows that her stream interface will look busier than before. More gauges, more stats on it than before NaNo began. But as the high of earning the fifth cheevo fades, she sees that she’s short a few hundred words for the 5,000-word milestone.
Yet this makes her a little nervous about how poorly defined Capitolium defined the challenge issued to her a few weeks ago, and it has only been two days. She DMs him in the afternoon:
Caroline: I’m a little confused, must the book be finished by November 30? Or I only need to get to 50k words by that date?
Capitolium: Yes, the book’s first draft must be finished
Capitolium’s answer to Caro’s question makes her sweat and tremble. However, he hides the cold, hard truth from her. Because Caro is relatively isolated from the greater NaNo community, she has yet to realize that, even among the winners, there are some who aren’t done writing their books during that timeframe, and others who win but take months to edit their books, or even scrap them entirely. But most entrants give up. Heck, most writers give up on a novel before it’s even finished.
Before she resumes writing Player Masher, she decides to post some clarifications about what the challenge means to her in her social media as well as on her Discord server used for streaming. And also inviting her followers to stay tuned for another surprise on her next stream.
When this fails to make her recover her creative juices, she is left wondering if, in some shape or form, Emma could be listening to Habs games while working overtime on some project. And more specifically, the season opener. A-ha! Make the season opener end the chapter about how Emma comes to the grim realization that she met a Canadiens player at a bar just a few days ago, show some snippets of how I would go around writing the games themselves, she ruminates while she got a better idea of how to finish writing that chapter where Emma listens to a Canadiens games on the radio at work.
With renewed vigor, she starts writing that scene of the third chapter, sounding like a play-by-play commentator for this sound bite: What a hit by Kurpnieks! Kurpnieks with the puck, crosses the blue line, passes to number forty-eight at center ice…
After she gives the snippet from the play-by-play commentator on the radio, Caro then moves on to how Emma reacts to the realization that Gustavs is actually a Canadiens player. Damn… that was a chance encounter for the ages, and I can count myself very lucky to even have met him in person just a few days ago! Even more so considering that I often work overtime these days!