Rambling, Writing, Not Finishing my Homework
I'm trying to decide what to start writing. Obviously, I have a short story due on Wednesday for English, so I'll be writing that. But I'm not very comitted to the project - it'll be interesting, and I'm sure I'll reap serious benefits from it, but it isn't something I would have picked for myself. I like to write fun, immersive things when I write fiction, not so much "high-brow" "artsy" stuff you generally study in class. Not to diss Italo Calvino, because I sort of love him now that we've read On a Winter's Night a Traveler (Read it, if you can, because it's really top-notch), but he's too good. My writing style is more Stephen King than Earnest Hemmingway, and I'm totally okay with that.
Sidetracked!
I had an idea, ages ago, from a post I made about NaNo 09. That year I ultimately decided to do a steampunk, vampire, X-Men, Hunger Games (before I'd even read it, no less) clusterfuck of insanity that was me trying to shove everything I love into one novel.
But this is what I'm talking about:
Blackbirds: A complicated vampire story. It would need to take place at some point between the world's Pagan heyday and the mass conversion to Christianity. Just a fun little idea. Way better than Twilight. :)
I was thinking about it this morning, and I think it has nice promise as a short story. I don't know what they'd do in the long haul, and maybe after I write the short story I can think about it, but for now I think that's the track I'd like to follow.
I'm always trying to fit vampires into my stories somewhere, and this is indicative of something I do with writing a lot: I refuse to acknowledge what I'd actually like to write about, and instead try to shoehorn things that don't go together into other ideas in an attempt to make them more "acceptable". Don't ask me; I barely know how my brain works. But there comes a moment in your life when you just say:
Credit to bisty_icons and cleolinda for being awesome, even if I have to channel Bella Swan to prove my point.
Having said this, I'm not sure if this is the one I want to do right now, because ...
There is also this other idea kicking about in my head, from (wow, amazing) THIS year's NaNo What-The-Shit-Am-I-Doing-Seriously post:
A group of young renegades fight vampires in Wisconsin, convinced that all bloodsuckers are inherently evil. The lead female hunter's viewpoint is challenged when they raid a clan and she meets children and their protector. Allowing them to escape the slaughter puts their protector - the daughter of the head of the clan - in the hunter's debt. The hunter attempts to change the minds of the other hunters, finding an adversary in their leader. The hunter must choose between killing her leader or killing her new vampire friends.
I've had this idea rumbling around in my brain for a good while now, so I'm fairly certain of where I want the story to start, go, and end. I've just ... out-intimidated myself. This idea would have to be a novel-length thing in order to cover everything - or a monstrously long short story - and I can't seem to ever finish a novel. I work on it for awhile in a frenzy of artistic enjoyment, and then it fizzles out and I never work on it again.
Oh, I take the stopped projects out and read them every so often, changing words here and there and thinking I'll continue ... and then I don't.
In other news, I got a WordPress account in order to post on the Mark Does Stuff blogs, but I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it yet. I have an attraction to WordPress. It's just so ... clean. But that cleanliness you trade with visibility - as opposed to here on good 'ol LJ. So there's that.
Sidetracked!
I had an idea, ages ago, from a post I made about NaNo 09. That year I ultimately decided to do a steampunk, vampire, X-Men, Hunger Games (before I'd even read it, no less) clusterfuck of insanity that was me trying to shove everything I love into one novel.
But this is what I'm talking about:
Blackbirds: A complicated vampire story. It would need to take place at some point between the world's Pagan heyday and the mass conversion to Christianity. Just a fun little idea. Way better than Twilight. :)
I was thinking about it this morning, and I think it has nice promise as a short story. I don't know what they'd do in the long haul, and maybe after I write the short story I can think about it, but for now I think that's the track I'd like to follow.
I'm always trying to fit vampires into my stories somewhere, and this is indicative of something I do with writing a lot: I refuse to acknowledge what I'd actually like to write about, and instead try to shoehorn things that don't go together into other ideas in an attempt to make them more "acceptable". Don't ask me; I barely know how my brain works. But there comes a moment in your life when you just say:
Credit to bisty_icons and cleolinda for being awesome, even if I have to channel Bella Swan to prove my point.
Having said this, I'm not sure if this is the one I want to do right now, because ...
There is also this other idea kicking about in my head, from (wow, amazing) THIS year's NaNo What-The-Shit-Am-I-Doing-Seriously post:
A group of young renegades fight vampires in Wisconsin, convinced that all bloodsuckers are inherently evil. The lead female hunter's viewpoint is challenged when they raid a clan and she meets children and their protector. Allowing them to escape the slaughter puts their protector - the daughter of the head of the clan - in the hunter's debt. The hunter attempts to change the minds of the other hunters, finding an adversary in their leader. The hunter must choose between killing her leader or killing her new vampire friends.
I've had this idea rumbling around in my brain for a good while now, so I'm fairly certain of where I want the story to start, go, and end. I've just ... out-intimidated myself. This idea would have to be a novel-length thing in order to cover everything - or a monstrously long short story - and I can't seem to ever finish a novel. I work on it for awhile in a frenzy of artistic enjoyment, and then it fizzles out and I never work on it again.
Oh, I take the stopped projects out and read them every so often, changing words here and there and thinking I'll continue ... and then I don't.
In other news, I got a WordPress account in order to post on the Mark Does Stuff blogs, but I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it yet. I have an attraction to WordPress. It's just so ... clean. But that cleanliness you trade with visibility - as opposed to here on good 'ol LJ. So there's that.