Into the Void

All right, where are we at?

I'm alternating randomly between coming up with new ideas for the next draft of The Long Road and writing pithy nonsense for my romantic comedy. And amidst all that, I'm wondering what I should do for Camp NaNo in July.

So I have a lot going on. I'm multitasking, by which I mean I'm doing several things at once, but none of them particularly well. I need some kind of structure, some kind of schedule. But that's just not working for me right now. Right now I'm just writing when I want to, and not writing when I don't want to. Not efficient, but better for stress levels.

Me being me, instead of focusing on all the things I'm already working on, I'm going to talk about what I might want to do for Camp NaNo.

Sure, I could use that time to work on one of my existing projects. But the rom-com is never, under any circumstances, to be written under a deadline. It's my fun, screwing around project. And The Long Road has already taken up November and April. It's not taking up another NaNo. Now, I know people who spend every NaNo working on the same story, just endlessly working on it for years. Draft after draft. And that's fine. But it's not what I want to do. I'm trying to not hate my stories, so I can't force them on myself too much.

July is an opportunity to try something new. And right now, I have no idea what that might be. And that dark unknown void is kind of exciting. It's an oncoming storm, and a collapsing star. It's what lies under the bed and waits after death. It's the far side of a world yet undiscovered, drawn vaguely on a map with the warning, "Here there be monsters."

I have about a thousand story prompts and snippets of ideas. I collect them, like you might collect coins or Pez dispensers. (Which I also collect. My interests are varied and peculiar.) A lot of them give me that glimpse into the dark, at the genesis of a story that might be. It's just a matter of picking one and helping it grow into all of its potential.

I'm still experimenting with genres. I'm convinced that I'm going to find something that just clicks. Then it'll be easier, and the words will just flow and the plots will make sense. That's probably just wishful thinking, and everything is going to be hard work. Lame.

Some dummy once said, "Write what you know," which would be a good starting point, except I don't really know anything. Don't get me wrong, I know lots of things, but I don't, like, understand people and emotions and the "why" of it all. You know, basic character building things. Maybe I should write about robots?

Maybe I'll write…

• About someone who makes a phone call right before their tragic demise. Now they're stuck in the phone lines, in the wireless, randomly connecting to old numbers, trying to get their message out to its intended recipient.
• About a rash of murders in a turn-of-the-century mining town, before the whole place was obliterated by fire.
• That space story I was going to write a year ago.
• A treatise on the ineffectiveness of 1890's disappearing guns beyond ten miles.

Either way, I'm jumping into the void.

I'll see you Wednesday.