Ideas

Wow, a week has slipped through my fingers since my last post! I finished the final, polished and shiny version of my urban fantasy, I HAD TO FALL, and decided to take a break from any real writing and just focus on fleshing out some new story ideas. I've got a lot of them rolling around in my head, so I've spent most of the last week sitting out in the backyard, vodka cooler in one hand and laptop in the other, soaking up the sun and pouring out notes on those different ideas. Hard life, eh?

And somehow—this is a bit of a mystery—I managed to catch a cold. I can feel it right now, that itchy feeling in the back of my throat, combined with the sniffles... in June! Well, if it means I have to miss a few days of work to recuperate * checks weather forecast of sunny skies and +25°C *  then so be it.

I'll be getting back into the writing tomorrow, but first I have to decide which of my ideas I want to push forward with. None of them are strictly urban fantasy, because I wanted to try something new. Of course, all these ideas have different pros and cons in my mind right now...

Adult fantasy. Different world, different species, not set on earth. Think Michelle Sagara. I really like this idea because the world is already pretty developed in my thoughts, and I like the idea of doing some more inventive and creative world-building. The problem: I can see that, in my head, the protagonist is a strong, silent woman with her own powers that slowly come to light. In this sense, she reminds me so much of Deyl Parker from my urban fantasy that I worry I'd get bored writing her.

YA dystopian. Or sort of dystopian. I loved DIVERGENT and have always been a huge fan of THE GIVER and NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR. Just added the HUNGER GAMES to my "Good Reads" list. Thing is, I always wonder what happened to make these dystopian worlds the way they are. If you assume they're set in a future version of our world... what went wrong? War seems to be a common theme, but I find my mind wandering off on tangents imagining where humans screwed up to end up like this. So my YA dystopian idea actually happens during the apocalypse, the great cataclysmic event that results in a new world order. And the characters won't have miraculous teenage powers that save the world from changing. Instead they'll have to learn to change with it, to salvage what they can and move on. I really, really, really like this idea. Also, I see it from the protagonist male point of view, which is totally different from what I've written before. The problem: I can't see the world as well as I'd like. I can't decide if the characters are straight-up human, or if they've got a little extra juice. I can see what's happening, but I'm not sure of the stakes. Still, with a bit more brainstorming I think I could give this one a go.

YA romance. I like this idea because I already know the characters, I've already interviewed them in my thoughts. I want to write it from both the girl and the guy's point of view, which will again be different from anything I've tried, but I love the way that works in Desrocher's PERSONAL DEMONS. This idea isn't really paranormal, more of a sci-fi I think. There is definitely a bit of a time travel thing. The problem: I feel like writing in this genre might be beating a dead horse. After the whole TWILIGHT extravaganza it seems like everyone has written a YA romance. Maybe that's no big deal, but I have reservations about writing mine.

Adult sci-fi romance. Time travelers. What did I just say about beating a dead horse? Ha! But seriously, this idea doesn't seem as overdone, at least in my head. It's not anything super tech-savvy, just that the characters, pros and ants, move through time a lot more than regular ol' humans do. It's a bit of a war-time scenario, except that war is happening way in the future. I see the story from the male protagonist's viewpoint, which I'd really like to write. He's also something of a sidekick to the story's hero, which I find kind of intriguing, centering the story around someone other than the hero. The problem: Honestly, I'm just nervous about trying to write a sci-fi. Time travel is complicated. Michael J. Fox can tell you that much. I'm nervous about trying to keep all my time threads neatly sorted while overlapping them enough to add some complications to the character's lives.

So that's it for now. I actually have a few other idea snippets I want to get down on paper (digital paper, of course) before the end of the day, and maybe one of those ideas will the one I go with...

For now, any thoughts on these ideas? What do you think I should write next?