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rsadelleNon-Binding Poll: What should I write in 2008?
I've been thinking about changes I want to make in 2008, and in addition to learning things, I want to write more. I have one idea that I'll tell you about on the first, and my other idea is to actually focus on working on something particular. I don't really have a fandom at the moment, so I don't think I'm going to focus on fan fic. (Although there are often Eroica fic bits in my head, especially if I'm between fandoms. Dear Klaus and Dorian: If you want me to write you this story, I need to know the plot around it. Bitter sniping at each other, manipulation, and angry sex does not a story make.) I was thinking of fiction, though, so that means some original works. Below are some of the ideas I have, followed by a non-binding poll. (When I say "non-binding," I really mean it. Despite the votes, I went with "recrudescent" on my mom's birthday present.) I do, of course, always welcome other ideas.
A not-quite aside: I debate with myself sometimes about revealing too much about ideas I have, but I find Seth Godin's "if you've got ideas, let them go" fairly compelling.
I call these "novels I'll probably never finish"
In my head, that really is how I refer to them. Partially because I'm not sure if I have it in me to actually finish a novel, and partially because I'm not sure if finishing a novel is something I even want to do. These are things I've actually started writing.
Cleopatra In Space
Although this is how I affectionately refer to this novel, it's not actually the story of Cleopatra set in space (although that would be interesting). It's the story of a girl named Cleopatra, who's the princess of a world. She fights the need for a bodyguard and finally ends up with Jasik (I say "finally" when I really mean "at the beginning of the book"), who is very good and doesn't let her get away with much, and who truly does want to protect her.
Influences: City of Diamond by Jane Emerson, Light Raid by Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice, "The Eye of the Storm" by Kelley Eskridge, and "Tales of Two" by Pumpkin and Lilith Sedai.
Written: Bits and pieces here and there, including Jasik and Cleopatra's meeting, and her discovery that he knows her grandmother. Many more bits and pieces live in my head, including her first speech to the people as queen and the existence of Maisie, who isn't Jasik's daughter.
Challenges: I have a lot of key scenes in my head, but I'm not sure what to do with the pieces in between.
Avatar of the Goddess
This is a formula fantasy novel wherein a travelling magic user meets a travelling warrior, they travel together, fall in love, and defeat evil (not necessarily in that order). The one thing that changes the formula is that our travelers are both women.
Influences: Wheel of the Gods by Martha Wells, the Tarma and Kethry books by Mercedes Lackey, and certainly others of the formula.
Written: The very beginning in which Kara falls down in the snow and Malkena takes her in. I don't think anything else is written on paper, and I really only have vague ideas about the plot. The religion is the same as in the lotrips slave AU I wrote a few semi-connected parts of (1, 2, 3, 4; the religious bits are at the end of the third part and in the fourth part).
Challenges: The aforementioned vague ideas about the plot. I also need to work on avoiding the stereotype of all the men are villains. I think I need a het pair of travelers to travel with them.
Lesbian Mystery Novel
Sunny is a cop. Someone's dead. Teza's a suspect. Jolie is Teza's ex-girlfriend.
Influences: Um. I don't have any specific ones in mind.
Written: About three paragraphs, and some notes about the characters.
Challenges: I don't have any idea who actually committed the murders. I also don't have that much insight into the characters.
Possibly Cheesy Lesbian Romance Novel
The Fosters and the Cranes live on either side of the tracks in a small Southern town. There's a generations-old history of Foster boys and Crane girls. Melody Crane's mother dies the summer before her senior year of high school. She stays in the North to graduate, and then comes to stay with her Crane cousins the summer before college. While there, she meets Evie Foster. I haven't yet decided if this is going to be only Melody and Evie's story (the cheesy romance novel variation) or if I want to interweave the stories of other Foster/Crane relationships through the years (the more serious novel variation).
Influences: The movie version of Tuck Everlasting, probably all kinds of other things too.
Written: Various bits and pieces across several writing notebooks.
Challenges: I need to figure out when it's set, and then find data about cell phone adoption to figure out if they have cell phones or not. Also, visiting Boston didn't necessarily help with research for the part where they're in college.
Het Romance Novel
Rebecca Blake is a novelist. Her agent talks her into going to a Hollywood party, where she meets an actor.
Influences: Oh, I don't know. I'm sure there are some outside of my own imagination.
Written: A few bits and pieces, including their meeting, their first kiss, and an angry sex scene.
Challenges: This is actually an RPF Mary Sue. I need to change the names and enough of the details to make it fully fiction.
I call these "novels and short stories I'll probably never write"
This group of things are novels and short stories I have the idea for but haven't actually started doing anything about.
Social Services Agency
Once upon a time, one of the programs at our agency that contains personalities a little wilder than much of the rest of the agency used to be in our building. I would eat lunch with them almost every day, and I was the quiet one who mostly listened and observed. Every once in a while, someone would joke that I was storing up stories to write a book. It's not such a bad idea. Instead of a novel, it would be a series of interconnected short stories, and I even know the thread that would hold it together. I made notes one morning of the things I wanted to remember to keep in it.
The Belly Dancing Detective
Our heroine is the only woman detective in the department. So when they have a series of murders and the only connection they can find is, uh, well, I'm not entirely sure if it's the dancers or the drummers or the dance community, but whatever it is, they decide the best way to get some information is to send in our heroine undercover as a belly dance student. She eventually solves the murder, and in the process of learning to dance, she finds that she really likes being part of a community of women. When she admits to taking the class as part of her job, and tells them who she really is, some of the women from her class feel betrayed. At the end of the book, she comes back to class as herself. This really should be a series, and the driving personal conflict of the second book would be the rest of her class beginning to accept her back as one of them.
Revolutionary Jesus
Jesus isn't trying to be a religious figure, but rather a military one. He's leading a revolution. Judas becomes his second in command. I was struggling with how to get from there to the religion, and then I went to see Tomáseen Foley's A Celtic Christmas. One of the performances was a woman singing a Christmas song. I was following the rhyme and rhythm, and knew the next word was "messiah," and thought, "It's the women." In the gospels, it's the women who find out that Jesus's body is gone. So it's the women who turn him from a military leader to a religious symbol. I think. Anyway, I think this might require more research than I'm willing to do. The main influence here is Jesus Christ Superstar.
Modern Day Mary I
Way back when I was in college, I was watching comedians on Comedy Central. One younger woman said as part of her routine, "Who's God going to choose? The girl working at The Limited?" I thought, "Yes, that's exactly who he would choose." The girl working at The Limited is the modern day equivalent of the Virgin Mary. I've always seen this as a short story, although there's probably enough material there for a novel.
Modern Day Mary II
There's a poem I really like, "The Annunciation: Our Mothers at Church" by Julianna Baggott, about the retelling of the annunciation. An excerpt:
Dinner Theater Backstage Drama
In August, our statewide meeting for work was in Orange County. Our team is very into pirates, so on our free evening, we went out to Pirate's Dinner Adventure. The food was terrible, but the show was tons of fun. I was distracted, however, by figuring out who the characters would be in real life and plotting the novel. I know who the characters are, but I'm not sure I have a main plot line for the book. Maybe the Red pirate who sleeps with waitresses and the sweet Gypsy girl who still goes on auditions and is in love with the Red pirate.
British Teen Rock Star Novel
When I was in the IB program in high school, I volunteered in the children's room at the local library to get the community service hours I needed for IB. My job was to help children of various ages use the computers. One day, two girls, about twelve years old, came in and wanted to know about the Spice Girls. I'd never heard of them, but I helped the girls look them up on the internet. A few weeks later, they (the Spice Girls, not the twelve-year-olds) were on Saturday Night Live, so I stayed up late to watch them. I knew exactly who each one would be in the book, and so I was disappointed to find out their real story. But I've never let go of that first impression of them. The novel, then, is the story of five teenage girls, best friends, who sing together, and then become famous.
[Poll #1111927][Poll #1111927]
I've been thinking about changes I want to make in 2008, and in addition to learning things, I want to write more. I have one idea that I'll tell you about on the first, and my other idea is to actually focus on working on something particular. I don't really have a fandom at the moment, so I don't think I'm going to focus on fan fic. (Although there are often Eroica fic bits in my head, especially if I'm between fandoms. Dear Klaus and Dorian: If you want me to write you this story, I need to know the plot around it. Bitter sniping at each other, manipulation, and angry sex does not a story make.) I was thinking of fiction, though, so that means some original works. Below are some of the ideas I have, followed by a non-binding poll. (When I say "non-binding," I really mean it. Despite the votes, I went with "recrudescent" on my mom's birthday present.) I do, of course, always welcome other ideas.
A not-quite aside: I debate with myself sometimes about revealing too much about ideas I have, but I find Seth Godin's "if you've got ideas, let them go" fairly compelling.
I call these "novels I'll probably never finish"
In my head, that really is how I refer to them. Partially because I'm not sure if I have it in me to actually finish a novel, and partially because I'm not sure if finishing a novel is something I even want to do. These are things I've actually started writing.
Cleopatra In Space
Although this is how I affectionately refer to this novel, it's not actually the story of Cleopatra set in space (although that would be interesting). It's the story of a girl named Cleopatra, who's the princess of a world. She fights the need for a bodyguard and finally ends up with Jasik (I say "finally" when I really mean "at the beginning of the book"), who is very good and doesn't let her get away with much, and who truly does want to protect her.
Influences: City of Diamond by Jane Emerson, Light Raid by Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice, "The Eye of the Storm" by Kelley Eskridge, and "Tales of Two" by Pumpkin and Lilith Sedai.
Written: Bits and pieces here and there, including Jasik and Cleopatra's meeting, and her discovery that he knows her grandmother. Many more bits and pieces live in my head, including her first speech to the people as queen and the existence of Maisie, who isn't Jasik's daughter.
Challenges: I have a lot of key scenes in my head, but I'm not sure what to do with the pieces in between.
Avatar of the Goddess
This is a formula fantasy novel wherein a travelling magic user meets a travelling warrior, they travel together, fall in love, and defeat evil (not necessarily in that order). The one thing that changes the formula is that our travelers are both women.
Influences: Wheel of the Gods by Martha Wells, the Tarma and Kethry books by Mercedes Lackey, and certainly others of the formula.
Written: The very beginning in which Kara falls down in the snow and Malkena takes her in. I don't think anything else is written on paper, and I really only have vague ideas about the plot. The religion is the same as in the lotrips slave AU I wrote a few semi-connected parts of (1, 2, 3, 4; the religious bits are at the end of the third part and in the fourth part).
Challenges: The aforementioned vague ideas about the plot. I also need to work on avoiding the stereotype of all the men are villains. I think I need a het pair of travelers to travel with them.
Lesbian Mystery Novel
Sunny is a cop. Someone's dead. Teza's a suspect. Jolie is Teza's ex-girlfriend.
Influences: Um. I don't have any specific ones in mind.
Written: About three paragraphs, and some notes about the characters.
Challenges: I don't have any idea who actually committed the murders. I also don't have that much insight into the characters.
Possibly Cheesy Lesbian Romance Novel
The Fosters and the Cranes live on either side of the tracks in a small Southern town. There's a generations-old history of Foster boys and Crane girls. Melody Crane's mother dies the summer before her senior year of high school. She stays in the North to graduate, and then comes to stay with her Crane cousins the summer before college. While there, she meets Evie Foster. I haven't yet decided if this is going to be only Melody and Evie's story (the cheesy romance novel variation) or if I want to interweave the stories of other Foster/Crane relationships through the years (the more serious novel variation).
Influences: The movie version of Tuck Everlasting, probably all kinds of other things too.
Written: Various bits and pieces across several writing notebooks.
Challenges: I need to figure out when it's set, and then find data about cell phone adoption to figure out if they have cell phones or not. Also, visiting Boston didn't necessarily help with research for the part where they're in college.
Het Romance Novel
Rebecca Blake is a novelist. Her agent talks her into going to a Hollywood party, where she meets an actor.
Influences: Oh, I don't know. I'm sure there are some outside of my own imagination.
Written: A few bits and pieces, including their meeting, their first kiss, and an angry sex scene.
Challenges: This is actually an RPF Mary Sue. I need to change the names and enough of the details to make it fully fiction.
I call these "novels and short stories I'll probably never write"
This group of things are novels and short stories I have the idea for but haven't actually started doing anything about.
Social Services Agency
Once upon a time, one of the programs at our agency that contains personalities a little wilder than much of the rest of the agency used to be in our building. I would eat lunch with them almost every day, and I was the quiet one who mostly listened and observed. Every once in a while, someone would joke that I was storing up stories to write a book. It's not such a bad idea. Instead of a novel, it would be a series of interconnected short stories, and I even know the thread that would hold it together. I made notes one morning of the things I wanted to remember to keep in it.
The Belly Dancing Detective
Our heroine is the only woman detective in the department. So when they have a series of murders and the only connection they can find is, uh, well, I'm not entirely sure if it's the dancers or the drummers or the dance community, but whatever it is, they decide the best way to get some information is to send in our heroine undercover as a belly dance student. She eventually solves the murder, and in the process of learning to dance, she finds that she really likes being part of a community of women. When she admits to taking the class as part of her job, and tells them who she really is, some of the women from her class feel betrayed. At the end of the book, she comes back to class as herself. This really should be a series, and the driving personal conflict of the second book would be the rest of her class beginning to accept her back as one of them.
Revolutionary Jesus
Jesus isn't trying to be a religious figure, but rather a military one. He's leading a revolution. Judas becomes his second in command. I was struggling with how to get from there to the religion, and then I went to see Tomáseen Foley's A Celtic Christmas. One of the performances was a woman singing a Christmas song. I was following the rhyme and rhythm, and knew the next word was "messiah," and thought, "It's the women." In the gospels, it's the women who find out that Jesus's body is gone. So it's the women who turn him from a military leader to a religious symbol. I think. Anyway, I think this might require more research than I'm willing to do. The main influence here is Jesus Christ Superstar.
Modern Day Mary I
Way back when I was in college, I was watching comedians on Comedy Central. One younger woman said as part of her routine, "Who's God going to choose? The girl working at The Limited?" I thought, "Yes, that's exactly who he would choose." The girl working at The Limited is the modern day equivalent of the Virgin Mary. I've always seen this as a short story, although there's probably enough material there for a novel.
Modern Day Mary II
There's a poem I really like, "The Annunciation: Our Mothers at Church" by Julianna Baggott, about the retelling of the annunciation. An excerpt:
When she said yes again each year,It sparked a question in my mind: Could you say no to God? I don't think you could. The idea for this story is that our Mary (in contemporary times) gets pregnant by God and wants to say no, but he's God, and so she can't. Every attempt turns out badly for her, and she's forced to carry God's child.
our mothers teetering
on the wooden pew's edge,
sighed a little,
a small death in their lungs.
They wished, for once,
she would say no,
that someone would finally say no.
Dinner Theater Backstage Drama
In August, our statewide meeting for work was in Orange County. Our team is very into pirates, so on our free evening, we went out to Pirate's Dinner Adventure. The food was terrible, but the show was tons of fun. I was distracted, however, by figuring out who the characters would be in real life and plotting the novel. I know who the characters are, but I'm not sure I have a main plot line for the book. Maybe the Red pirate who sleeps with waitresses and the sweet Gypsy girl who still goes on auditions and is in love with the Red pirate.
British Teen Rock Star Novel
When I was in the IB program in high school, I volunteered in the children's room at the local library to get the community service hours I needed for IB. My job was to help children of various ages use the computers. One day, two girls, about twelve years old, came in and wanted to know about the Spice Girls. I'd never heard of them, but I helped the girls look them up on the internet. A few weeks later, they (the Spice Girls, not the twelve-year-olds) were on Saturday Night Live, so I stayed up late to watch them. I knew exactly who each one would be in the book, and so I was disappointed to find out their real story. But I've never let go of that first impression of them. The novel, then, is the story of five teenage girls, best friends, who sing together, and then become famous.
[Poll #1111927][Poll #1111927]
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-28 12:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-28 02:21 am (UTC)Plus, I haven't paid any attention to Matt and Ben for a while, so it would be all old-school or AU. (Um. As I type this, I realize that may not discourage you...)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-28 01:13 am (UTC)This gave me inspiration to make a post of my own with all the dead ends of stories I've got lying about.
And cycling back to another post you made --
"Does self-knowledge ever jump out from around the corner and smack you in the head? Does this seem normal to you, or do I need to do a lot more work on the know yourself components of emotional intelligence?"
...that's pretty much the reason I keep my journal in the first place since I tend to promptly forget moments of self-realization the moment the next shiny thing in my life catches my eye.
fuseji will resist the Firefly reference that the use of 'shiny' would demand. The Tick did it first, after all!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-28 02:36 am (UTC)I don't know if rounding up everything unfinished actually does anything for me, but it's certainly an interesting exercise!
...that's pretty much the reason I keep my journal in the first place since I tend to promptly forget moments of self-realization the moment the next shiny thing in my life catches my eye.
Huh. Is this your LJ or some other sort of journal? Does it help you have a handle on who you are? I think I do remember my moments of self-realization. What I find disconcerting is how much I don't know about myself, which comes out in those moments.
(Gorram Tick!)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-28 03:27 am (UTC)Exchanging writing with you right now has been part of that same process of self-awareness, actually -- I not only thought of a part for one of the stories I was writing just realized that my LJ can basically be tracked by those moments of introspection broken up by something entertainment-related. It's entertaining to me, anyway...it feels kind of like writing a User's Manual for myself.
Did fuseji have a point?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-29 05:23 am (UTC)What an excellent image. I need one of those for myself!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-28 05:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-29 05:31 am (UTC)