LJ Idol 11 - Week 11
I’ve tried, though admittedly not very hard, to write something. Something complete. Something I could submit to an editor. Something that might earn me some sort of income. I’ve come up empty. Every. Single. Time.
There were Ahndrea and…shit, I can’t even remember his name. She was traveling cross country to start a new life and new career, leaving some serious relationship problems behind. He was a US Marshall investigating fringe militia groups. She’d become stuck in a snowstorm, he’d rescued her. I’d gotten as far as describing his cabin in the small mountain town that he brought her to. Nothing nefarious - they would fall in love eventually. Then…the idea of writing a steamy scene terrified me and I just let it go until it was no more. It could still be something. If I updated it (cell phones were not a prevalent thing when I first started it, hence his rescue).
Then came Alison (I think?) and Terry. He was coming out of a brutal divorce and had shared custody of his young daughter, Madison. Alison was a photographer who traveled the world. They had been friends since she was in Junior High and he was in High School. Not romantic friends, just neighborhood friends. They went their separate ways, eventually becoming occasional “friends with benefits” when their lives crossed and circumstances warranted it. Terry was brutally killed by his ex - run over by a car. His ex-wife, Madison’s mother, also died in the accident. Through a twist of fate, Alison became Madison’s guardian. I think I wrote a bit about them for a LJ Idol entry a few years ago (under a different username). Details hung me up on this one. And emotions. It could still be something.
Gabby, Milton, Yussef, Althea, and Rico were a great bunch, some of my favorite characters ever. Set in a dystopian society where those in power took steps to eliminate those who were a “burden on society”, these were the five who would start and lead the fight back. This one started all because of a weird dream I had about Gabby and Milton. I know I wrote about them for LJ Idol a few years back. There were several pieces and trying to pull them together and make them one is where the blockage came for them. Then it started getting corny to me. It could still be something.
Mara and Jalon were also characters I wrote for LJ Idol. She was young, he was dark, both were full of magic. He was destructive. She had not yet chosen her path and was learning. I was reveling in the exploration of darkness in a character. Responses to the pieces I wrote were encouraging - I thought. My last elimination came on an entry about Mara, leading to doubts that I could pull off what I intended with her. That and trying to again pull together pieces, some written in different points of view, put the kibosh on this one. I’ll keep things close to the vest here, because it could still be something.
A month ago, there were Magna and Truman, written for the LJ Idol topic “True North”. These guys could really go somewhere. I know it. It could be something.
There were others too. Many years ago, now only vague memories or completely forgotten. But these…I love these guys, truly I do. Some of them have been lost to ancient computers that chose to display the BSOD, but I think about them all the time, and where I thought they were going. It’s getting them there that I really struggle with. I’ve always been the type of reader who could get a quarter of the way through the story, read the ending, and still go back to see how they got there. Spoilers have never really meant a lot to me because it’s the process I love. I wish I could do that as a writer because it’s the process that hangs me up every time I try to write a story. The distractions of everyday life, work, family, tiredness, screen fatigue, etc. always seem to be more powerful than the desire to complete these though. I can’t find the disconnect and plod through it and I know I must if I’m ever going to finish any of them.