I’ve been thinking about this latest story idea I had (which should not remotely be a mental priority right now, but I can’t entirely help it).

The novel idea that I had before this - which I worked on for years and years, chipping away here and there - is pretty much gone. Most importantly because, in a novel that was supposed to center almost entirely around the emotional development of two characters, I had written their beginning-selves far too similar to their ending-selves. There was no development in the development plotline. And I just couldn’t seem to get a successful re-write on the beginning characters. So it’s scraps now. Interesting scenes and dialogue that I may find use for someday, but it would need new characters.

What this new idea is founded on, I have realized, is basically the distilled essence of what the old novel was meant to be all along - Not a eco-satire, not a post-apocalyptic hero story, not even so much a tale of bonding… But an homage. A thank you. A preserved set of memories. No more multi-year adventure in a foreign world. No more side-characters. No more unnecessary drama. Memories, and a context in which to bring them forward, one by one. And untangle them. Like some of my best poems, this will be as much me working things out in my own mind as producing something worth sharing.

So here’s hoping this one actually gets finished.

Eventually. Not right now. (Friggin midterm on Thursday is going to rip me to shreds…)