My New Year's writing resolutions ( I mean "hopes") for 2015
I haven't been writing as much as I would like to in the last few months. Granted, there are perfectly good reasons for this. Between chemo robbing me of half of my weekends and more work than ever, I haven't had that much time to write. Plus, I've been posting on this LJ more, and those posts can take time, too. It's a miracle I managed to get one story finished.
But now that I' done with chemo (hopefully for good), I do want to try to get some writing done. I do want to get things back to what passes for normal for me. And besides... There was a time when, after spending so much of my day writing for my day job, last thing I wanted to do was more writing. But now, I find myself doing so much journalism writing that, as weird as it may sound, I want to do other types of writing just for a change of pace.
I don't really believe in New year resolutions.... But the start of a new year is as good of an excuse as any to set some goals. After thinking it over, I decided that I was going to try to finish at least one short story a month. And, by "finish," I mean "I'm going to at least complete a first draft, but it would have to be a finished first draft in order to count."
To help nudge me along, I decided to post some story ideas I've been mulling over for the past few months. Over the course of this year, I'm going to try to put all of them on paper (so to speak). And every time I finish one of those stories, I'm going to go back to this post and update it.
I was originally gong to list those stories by title. But then, I realized that I didn't have titles for most of them. And so, in no particular order.
But now that I' done with chemo (hopefully for good), I do want to try to get some writing done. I do want to get things back to what passes for normal for me. And besides... There was a time when, after spending so much of my day writing for my day job, last thing I wanted to do was more writing. But now, I find myself doing so much journalism writing that, as weird as it may sound, I want to do other types of writing just for a change of pace.
I don't really believe in New year resolutions.... But the start of a new year is as good of an excuse as any to set some goals. After thinking it over, I decided that I was going to try to finish at least one short story a month. And, by "finish," I mean "I'm going to at least complete a first draft, but it would have to be a finished first draft in order to count."
To help nudge me along, I decided to post some story ideas I've been mulling over for the past few months. Over the course of this year, I'm going to try to put all of them on paper (so to speak). And every time I finish one of those stories, I'm going to go back to this post and update it.
I was originally gong to list those stories by title. But then, I realized that I didn't have titles for most of them. And so, in no particular order.
- [Placeholder title: Matter of Circumstances] - a young mage from the South Side goes back to the neighborhood where he grew up to confront a former mentor who may be responsible for a terrible crime.
- [Placeholder title: Persian Food] - Hilly Rahimi considers her heritage and what it means to carry on a legacy of a country she may never see again.
- [Working title: Last Flight of Marcie Adornetto] - Marcie has it all: friends, a hot boyfriend and more money than she knows what to do with. So why does she have a nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong?
- [Follow-up to How Vasilisa the Wise Met Vasilisa the Fairest] - Maya Gluova teaches the newest bearer of the essence of Vasilisa the Firest the ins and outs of magic while navigating a city she doesn't understand.
- [Untitled] - when her son is killed simply because he was wrong place and the wrong time, how far would a grieving mother be willing to go to bring him back?
- [Untitled II] - in 1968, a group of hippie collge students tried to summon a god in hopes of making Earth a peaceful paradise. 40 years and countless disappointments later, one of them may be desperate enough to try again.
- [Placeholder title: Screaming Lola] - a high school guy discovers a strange device that lets him redo any action with just one push of a button. A device that lets him take any risk and escape consequences. At first.
- [Placeholder title: Starstruck] - a young reporter can't believe his luck when a local celebrity agrees to go out with him. It's almost as if there's something more at work here. Something involving an arcade machine that vanished mysteriously, and city employees who are even more tight-lipped than usual. There has to be some kind of a scandal. After all, magic isn't real, is it?
- [Working title: Evidence in absence] - when a series of bizarre crimes hits the normally quiet town of Michigan City, a local police detective is determined to solve the case. But how can he get anywhere when evidence keeps changing right before his eyes? And what does a mysterious woman from Ann Arbor - who is definitely more than she seems - has to do with all of this?
- [Follow-up to How to Get a Boy Without Really Trying] - April and Jarek are together, and she couldn't be happier. If only her mother wasn't trying so help her out. (this was something I actually made some progress on before my field laptop lterally and figuratively crashed)