Random story ideas

Here’s a few story ideas off the top of my head. The intention is for these to be more useful than funny, unlike my writing prompts. I’m going to try using one of them if it speaks to me. You know, like, “GET OFF YOUR LAZY BUTT AND WRITE ME INSTEAD OF LOAFING AROUND AND DREAMING OF DONUTS!” And yes, in my mind the story prompt would yell at me like a bad stage actor.

Ideas:

  • the initial stage of the afterlife of someone (with possible non-stupid twist)
  • the world changes in subtle but disturbing ways for someone
  • strange messages start appearing on a phone or tablet 
  • a giant alien mothership arrives and then nothing ever happens 
  • two words: ghost jogger 
  • and a few more that I will add later because it’s late, I’m tired and falling asleep 

On couches, writing and Fleetwood Mac

I find I write best on this blog when I tackle a topic early in the day or evening. If I wait until mid-evening, say, I’m already shutting off my brain for the night and planning non-thinking activities like sleep* or watching amusing/strange cat videos. But it is difficult for me to jump in early because when I get home from work I am almost always mentally tired (I work in technical support). I usually have dinner shortly after getting home and after that there is a small window between brain-still-active and brain-go-nap where I can start writing with some energy and enthusiasm but more often than not I find my brain simply doesn’t want to participate.

This concerns me because I think I have some talent when it comes to writing and could improve on it with practice. As Stephen King put it:

While it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one.

I am competent for the most part, even if I often feel I get it right through dumb luck or some other process I can’t fully explain or even understand, but I realize that the hard work and dedication King speaks of are lacking. It’s easier to slouch back in my chair and passively let myself be entertained until it’s time for bed and then to dream I’m playing with Fleetwood Mac (see below).

I’ve read a few books on writing over the years, some of them focusing on the nuts and bolts of the craft, others more inspirational. King’s own book “On Writing” has left me fired up each time I’ve read it but the fire burns fast and hot and before long it’s embers and then ash. I need to find a way to keep the fire stoked.

And there is no book or magic trick or sure-fire technique for this. It’s just dedication and hard work. I need to find that within me or just move on to other hobbies, like This Couch is Very Comfortable or Tonight I’m Going to…Nah, This Couch is Too Comfortable.

I made the first step last August when I promised myself to write every day. With only a few exceptions due to unusual circumstances I’ve stuck to that and it has helped to instill some of the discipline I need. But it’s only a first step. The next step is to turn this discipline toward my fiction writing, which has been largely moribund for the past half year, a few days during NaNoWriMo excepted.

I’ll try this week and report the grisly details here. It may be fun. It may even be better than a comfortable couch.

 

* I recently had a dream where I was playing guitar with Fleetwood Mac. They had another guest performer on stage and he announced the next song would be “The Baboons” or something like that. I was concerned because I was not aware of any such Fleetwood Mac song. When the band started in I quickly recognized it as one of their familiar hits and jumped in, at which point the strap on my guitar broke. I awoke before finding out if I dropped the guitar on the stage, produced an unholy shriek of feedback and had Lindsey Buckingham exclaim, “I love it! Keep it!” because remember this is the man who wrote “Tusk.”

The Day I Forgot to Post

Technically I didn’t forget since I’m writing this and it’s still a few minutes before midnight. I was all prepared to write something fascinating, had the blog composition window open, and then got distracted fooling around with Word and WriteMonkey. I think I’ve decided to go back to WriteMonkey for Road Closed because a) it’s already in WM format b) I’m used to WriteMonkey and c) I’ve discovered a few more handy WM features I can use for the novel.

More on actual writing tomorrow.

National Novel Writing Month 2015: The Autopsy

National Novel Writing Month Autopsy Report

Autopsy Number 1
Name Weirdsmith
Body Identification Novel
Date of Birth November 1, 2015
Date/Time of Death November 18, 2015
Coroner Creole Ned
Cause of Death
Fatal lack of interest
Due To
Lack of planning
Due To
Lack of motivation

Yesterday I officially declared my 2015 NaNoWriMo attempt dead. What caused its tragic demise? Read on for more (or skip to the TL; DR summary at the end, I won’t mind).

For months I wavered back and forth on whether or not I would participate this year. I finally decided that if I was in the middle of writing something and going like gangbusters (what are gangbusters, anyway?) I would keep writing and skip NaNoWriMo, as it seems silly to suspend one writing project for another without having a really good reason for doing so.

Come the latter half of October and the only thing I was writing were inane posts to my blog. I promised myself back in August that I would write every day, whether it was posting to my blog, working on a short story, writing on a forum or handcrafting a nuanced grocery shopping list. I’ve kept to this (writing every day, not handcrafting nuanced grocery lists), mainly by writing on my blog. The posts vary in quality and quantity, but I’ve written something every day for the past three months, even if it was sometimes no more than “here’s an amusing cat image I found”. Establishing the discipline of writing every day was important. I hoped this routine would smooth the way for my return to writing fiction, but apart from a few writing prompts, that didn’t happen.

So here it was, mid-October and I was ready to take part in NaNoWriMo again, to get the ol’ fiction juices flowing. Don’t ask what fiction juices are, you don’t want to know.

Here’s a summary of my NaNoWriMo efforts to date:

  • 2009: Took unfinished short story “The Ferry” and turned it into a novel. WIN.
  • 2010: Took completed short story “Hello?” and turned it into a novel. LOSE.
  • 2011: Took completed short story “The Dream of the Buckford County Church” and turned it into a novel. LOSE.
  • 2012: Wrote original novel The Mean Mind, based on an idea I came up with a hundred years earlier. WIN.
  • 2013: Wrote original novel Start of the World, based on an idea created specifically for NaNoWriMo. LOSE (due in part to catastrophic loss of data)
  • 2014: Took unfinished short story started earlier in year that began as a writing prompt, “Road Closed” and turned it into a novel. WIN.
  • 2015: Took unfinished play “Weirdsmith” (I wrote the first act back in 1991) and adapted it as a novel. FAIL.

You may have noticed a pattern here. In all but one case I totally cheated by adapting existing stories or ideas. NaNoWriMo discourages this and my success rate–2 out of 5–is not compelling anecdotal evidence that it’s a good strategy.

As the days went by I cast about for ideas, looking through my old stories, idea files and cans of fiction juice. Nothing grabbed me. Nothing called out to be written. Not even a grocery list.

Finally, on October 31 I re-read my unfinished play “Weirdsmith” and at 10 p.m.–two hours before NaNoWriMo 2015 officially began–I made the decision to take the play and adapt it as a novel.

The first problem came up the next day. I didn’t particularly like either of the two main characters in the play. I decided to jettison them and replace them with the couple from “The Dream of the Buckford County Church.” I’m a big believer in recycling. It’s good for the environment and lazy writers.

I wrote 1,745 words on Day 1, with the opening scene left hanging at a tantalizing point, so I’d be eager to jump back in the next day. But the next day I did not jump back in. The opening scene was limp and uninspired. There were wiener jokes. I’m not philosophically opposed to wiener jokes, but when you start a novel with them, you’re perhaps looking more at a novelization of an Adam Sandler movie more than writing your own daringly original work. I sat out Day 2 to ponder my next move.

On Day 3 I wrote a new opening scene, jettisoning the two characters that had replaced the previously jettisoned characters. It was like the story was built on a foundation of ejector seats. This time I wrote from the viewpoint of Weirdsmith (William Smith) himself. It felt better, though I only had a vague inkling of how the already vague story would proceed.

On Day 4 I pondered my new direction. I pondered for the next five days after that. I finally wrote part of a second scene on November 10. Then I pondered some more. I knew I wasn’t going to jettison Smith, because the story would be jettisoned along with him and that would be the end of it.

Yesterday, November 18th, I jettisoned the story, realizing there was no way I was going to finish by November 30, and more importantly, feeling strongly that my time would be better invested in other efforts.

So what went wrong? Here’s my quick analysis, in handy list form:

  • I waited too long to come up with an idea. This gave me no time for any sort of planning, outlining or just plain thinking about the story. Adapting an unfinished play should have helped but it didn’t in the end because…
  • I cribbed from existing material, decided on Day 2 it wasn’t working and had nothing else ready to fall back on. I didn’t want to just damn the torpedoes (“Torpedoes, I damn thee to a brief and violent life!”) and keep going because I really didn’t like that opening scene. Continuing on from there would have felt like I was wasting my time, simply writing out of obligation and nothing more.
  • My new opening scene written on Day 3 was better, but it was like a sketch that has faded so much you can barely see any detail. You’re not even sure what exactly you’re looking at. I didn’t know where to go from that opening scene and NaNoWriMo demands that you go, you go, and you do not stop. I stopped.
  • A few more days of pondering yielded no insights or bursts of inspiration. Sitting down and forcing myself to write resulted in me pecking out a few more words. The only mercy was no more wiener jokes. But it wasn’t enough.

That’s pretty much it: poor planning, flat writing and in the end all I had was something I wasn’t interested in pursuing. It was kind of like visiting some place you’ve always dreamed about going to and when you finally get there you realize you can make better tacos at home. Or something like that.

Anyway, my plan for next year is to write a novel about writing a NaNoWriMo novel. It should be a breeze.

NaNoWriMo Day 18: Is this thing still on?

National Novel Writing Month, Day 18
Word count: 5,181

The answer is no. I’ve officially given up on this year’s limp attempt. I’ll conduct a full autopsy later but little planning and little enthusiasm played major parts in the death.

My writing continues here and elsewhere, so while this particular effort has ended, all is not lost. As part of the autopsy (coming soon™) I’ll post excerpts from both of the opening scenes I wrote. It’ll be fun and a little sad. But mostly fun.

NaNoWriMo Day 15: Halfway through November and all I have is a scruffy beard

National Novel Writing Month, Day 15
Word count: 5,181

I did not write today. I didn’t even think much about the story. I think in its present shapeless form it’s a non-starter. I won’t say it’s dead because there’s a germ/seed/substitute-your-own-thing there that could be nurtured into a proper story but as it is now, I have neither the will nor imagination to prop it up, flesh it out or just plain wing it.

In a way it’s a relief to realize this year’s project is going nowhere at the halfway mark, because I can go back to my other writing projects that much sooner. Which I will do, for real!

I may have a brilliant revelation overnight and take back everything I’ve just typed out but I would not bet large, small or any sums of money on it.

NaNoWriMo Day 14: Not feeling it, second part in a series

National Novel Writing Month, Day 14
Word count: 5,181

I didn’t write today, a day I could have devoted a lot of time to making up lost ground. There were a few reasons behind the non-writing. Some of it was lack of motivation. I was feeling lazy and unambitious today, not just writing-wise, but in general terms. More concerning, I’m not feeling much from the restart of the story. It’s not bad, but it’s not really grabbing me, either. The spirit of NaNoWriMo says sit down, start typing and see what happens, because something will happen. But at the same time I think you have to know yourself and decide if that hour or two or three spent writing (or trying to) will yield anything useful or not.

I’ll see what happens tomorrow and mull the story tonight. I’m not confident that this revised version will fly, but there may be a kernel there that I can use…somewhere.

NaNoWriMo Day 13: A few words and a few thoughts

National Novel Writing Month, Day 13
Word count: 5,181

I wrote a few hundred words today but mostly spent my time thinking about what I want to do with the story. It is still rather shapeless beyond a very broad outline and while the opening scene has some drama in it, I’m not quite sure yet how it will inform the rest of the story. I have a few ideas.

I’m also starting to get the urge to go back to last year’s novel. On the one hand I hate the idea of simply giving up on this year’s NaNoWriMo because it feels like quitting. On the other hand, literally no one will care if I do, so I probably shouldn’t, either.

Also, I promise to mix in a non-NaNo post sometime over the weekend so the few errant bots happening across the blog will have something new to collect. Don’t worry, errant bots, I’ve got your shiny metal backs!

 

NaNoWriMo Day 12: 1,756 words

National Novel Writing Month, Day 12
Word count: 5,181

Two consecutive days of writing! Will wonders never cease? In all likelihood, yes, but not quite yet, at least.

Adding 1,756 more words gives me a total of 5,181 words and officially puts me at the 10% mark a mere week later than it should have. With 19 days to go I need an average of 2,368 words per day to finish with 50,000 by November 30. I actually think this may be possible, especially if I get in a couple of Big Writing Days or BWDs, as I call them.

Still, as long as I keep writing, that’s all that counts. I can’t say the magic is back yet but there’s definitely signs of life beyond posting cat pictures and lists on this blog.

NaNoWriMo Day 11: 1,689 words. Yes, actual new words!

National Novel Writing Month, Day 11
Word count: 3,425

A truly weird thing happened today. I wrote! I began the new introductory scene and it came out to 1,689 words. Added to my previous writing, this gives me a total of 3,425 words. At this point I should be at 18,337, so I’m 14,912 words behind. This is a lot but it’s not insurmountable. More importantly, this new scene feels right and I’m confident I can keep moving forward for at least awhile before it all falls apart like the Titanic if all of its rivets suddenly popped out at the same time.

Tomorrow: More words!

NaNoWriMo Day 10: Two thirds of a month is better than none

National Novel Writing Month, Day 10
Word count: 1,745

I did some actual writing today but erased it so have nothing to add to my word count. That’s the bad news. The good news is I finally came up with an opening to the novel that I like, which does in fact involve a car crash. You would think opening a story with an exciting car crash would be easy and yet it proved to elude me over lunch today.

But I have a plan now, I just need to execute. With ten days gone but twenty more to go, I still think I can pull this off. Perhaps it will all come together in a magical dream tonight. Magical, I say. With magic. Writing magic.

NaNoWriMo Day 9: I am a big fat liar

National Novel Writing Month, Day 9
Word count: An amazing 1,745!

I fiddled around a bit in Word and WriteMonkey today but didn’t do any real writing. I think my last gasp for starting on completing NaNoWriMo 2015 successfully will come on Wednesday, which is a holiday. If I write nothing then I will probably call it quits and shift back to other writing projects, such as I Really Intend to Finish The First Draft of my 2014 NaNoWriMo Novel This Time or That Incomplete Short Story Collection Won’t Complete Itself or Hey Maybe a Writing Prompt is Just the Thing to Get the Gears Turning.