Thread: So What Are You Writing About ?

Haha. I believe Sen has a point.

so to poke this thing back into existance...

This year im writing "Hell's Tea Party"~ about a bunch of political/spiritual figures who escape from a government psych hospital after being mind wiped... can they save the universe?

Mine will be a fictionalized account of my move to a big city at 18. Will sensationalize all the triumphs and pitfalls that this entailed, including the usual, dabbles into drugs, tumultuous relationships, first forays into independence and the trials of trying to find one's self in a daunting new place. I've wanted to write this for ages, even had a 3000 word false start once (scrapped it), but I think NaNo is the perfect vehicle for it. Will be fun to just write, without getting bogged down in the desire for everything to be perfect. It's my first nano, and my first novel. I also have a couple of really rough, really personal journals from this period of my life to use as a reference. I've been reluctant to open them up for a few years, but now I guess it's time.

The title will be 'Wet Paint', because during this period of my life I was seeing at least three 'wet paint' signs every single day, without fail, and I interpreted this as a sort of sign that it was a relevant phrase for me to know. I like the idea of it. Wet paint is, on one hand, a fresh coat, an attempt at something great. It's leaving your mark, and that seemed pretty relevant to my idea. Another way of looking at it is that wet paint is vulnerable, it's not yet set, not yet permanent, and so it's in a stage of fragility before becoming bold and permanent. This, also, was relevant to where I was at the time.

Anyway, everyone else seems to be quite prepared, which is great to see. There's something really inspiring about this whole thing, and I don't care if that smacks of naivety, this is going to be really fun.

Sounds like good stuff so far!

I'm writing something sci-fi/futurish. There is a floating city over Venus (perfectly plausible, see this article) which has two main functions; serving as a head of operations for a sulfuric acid-collection and processing facility (the stuff rains like water on Venus) and house the Casino Orange, a pleasure palace for those who want to see the solar system. Anyway, the protaganist bought a one-way ticket to the city and subsequently lost all of his money (it was his inheritance from his recently deceased father). He has no other relatives or wealthy friends to bail out so he's stuck on the city. I'm still kind of in-limbo with where to go next but there are plenty of ideas swirling around in my head and hopefully when I sit down to write tonight I will have a clearer idea of the story's plot.

I'm working on a story (my first attempt since I gave up in frustration some years back) about a man who after an accident in string theory research has his somewhat latent ESP abilities awakened and brought to the fore. This has caused the government to become concerned and secure him away until they can assess his threat.

During this time, he interacts with an attractive female psychologist with an interest in parapsychology (an interest driven by the death of her fiance and a desire to believe life does not end with death). Her belief is that she is there to help the protagonist gain control over his mounting precept that he is becoming a god. Her more true reason for being there is that the DoD chose her partly because of her profession, but mainly because of her attractiveness, believing a female may help to quell a male mind with growing power.

It's intended to be more a psychological and social commentary than a sci-fi thriller. I got the idea from the aired pilot episode of the original Star Trek. The episode sticks out in my mind as one of the most provocative of all the original series because of this idea of a mortal man becoming a god, but still having very human fallacies and drives.

I picked writing back up since I've been unemployed and have lots of time to think. The current status is outlining characters, story structure and progression while I think of a start.

I was thinking about doing a story about a woman with a past history of mental instability who, as a 30-something-year-old mother and wife, begins exhibiting the symptoms of Capgras, which is the delusion that people you know have been replaced by impostors. I have a general direction that I want to take the story... not sure exactly how it will play out at this point, though. It's going to be mostly a somewhat dark drama (maybe somewhat similar in tone to "American Beauty") but it will also have elements of comedy and light-heartedness. Capgras is not the entire focus of the novel, although it's an important part, and the story will be more about the breakdown of her and her family than just her illness. The husband and the kids and several other characters are all going to play pretty big roles as well.

I'm writing a story entitled: BLINK.

A fictional story told as seen through the eyes of Mark Tortelli, a man with friends that owe other people. Mark becomes a walking case of "right place, wrong time" as he is forced into various situations in which he has to help his friends fight off those whom they are indebted too.

The main concept for this story is that it's only seen through Mark's eyes and no one else. From the beginning of the story to the end, completely Mark-Person (Instead of 1st or 3rd person lol). All his friends owe dangerous people and he has one day to fix all their problems. The one advantage that his friends all have is that...their enemies don't know Mark.

For some reason, I'm imagining Mark Tortelli as Chuck Norris.

Originally Posted by VanishingSpy

For some reason, I'm imagining Mark Tortelli as Chuck Norris.

Lol. You never know. Could be his son.

I just started a short story called The Windseeker. It's about a successful writer who's Cherokee mother died giving birth to him. As a result, he has never sought out or found this part of him which is lost and has always felt a void in the white upbringing of his father. He has been guided by a whispering voice on the wind since his early teens. He credits this voice (privately) for his writing success. This voice leads him to a clearing in the Appalachians--a beautiful place, where he has a life-changing encounter. The voice instructs him to keep this experience to himself, which he does not; he writes it, turing it into a best selling novel. As a result, the man is now being punished with a painfully mundane existence -- cursed with the worst case of writer's block for over a year, until he sets off in search of an answer as to what exactly happened to him that day...

Hey NaNoWriMo'ers!

I just signed up! First time ever. Woohoo!

My novel synopsis..

A widower accepts a job as a terracutter on a distant planet then struggles to return to earth when crew members begin acting strangely.

Very much looking forward to this challenge.

That sounds sorta like Philip K Dick's Galactic Pot-Healer. We'll see how you treat it. This will be my fourth nano. All successful so far.
Still thinking children's book but I don't have anything solid to go on beyond that. Maybe not. So far I've done two sf novels and a long sf/horror piece. I have some characters beginning to knock around, sitting in some cobwebby rooms in my head, but their dust hasn't even made me sneeze yet.
Anyone else thinking of nanoing this year? I missed last year but we usually have a contingent.

I plan on doing a story including a girl whose blood is not only resistant to disease, but when mixed with certain other compounds, can heal other people. I dreamed about her, so the real concept is still a little shaky. I hope to have all of my research and some of an outline done before November. So far she's not my main character, the story is told by a different character who suffers from Hereditary spherocytosis, which causes anemia. The setting is in the Victorian Era, but I plan to take the characters out of London and into a more adventurous setting, and I do want to add a little steampunk.

Katastrof, your story sounds really funny and I'd love to read it!

Originally Posted by MrWalker

I'm going to do a man narrating his fall into insanity. It's a rather unoriginal idea, but it'll mostly just be rambling, because I can't write a decent story. It should help me stop criticizing my writing so heavily and just write, though..

It's all in what you do with the idea...

My concept for NanoWriMo is about Capgras Delusion (as mentioned earlier in this thread.) Annoyingly enough, I have recently read about a published work called "The Echo Maker" that is apparently about someone suffering from this delusion. I was not under the (pardon the repetition) delusion that I was the only one to have ever written about this particular affliction, but it is a reminder to me that there's hardly any truly original ideas left out there...