Looking for the Whooosh!
Hi all,
Perhaps you can help dig me out of no man's land? Appreciate it if you can.
I've been writing non-fiction for a while, and editing and twiddling and polishing and plotting for existing works - my own and others - and now I'd like to write a totally fresh project.
'How nice,' I hear you say. 'What is it?'
That's the prob. I haven't the faintest idea.
I fancy changing genres for the hell of it - perhaps something historical? Perhaps set far away? Perhaps even Sci-Fi?
I'm tempted to try a whodunit, or a wild caper. Something light and fun; something I've not done before.
I'd like to write 'Hitchhiker's Guide'. Oh, has it been done already?
I miss the whoosh of writing with abandon and would like to remind myself how that feels.
So particularly those who know how I write already (but others welcome), do you have any blinding suggestions for me? I don't mind doing a bit of research but don't want to get bogged down in it.
I've thought of using one of my older short stories as a template for a full-length novel (i.e. the synopsis already done?) and may do that.
Friends have urged me to write about my travels, or something set in Africa (since I lived there for a while), but that's essentially non-fiction again. ('I had a farm in Africa, below the Ngong hills' - oh, that's been done too?)
I want to find a new world and populate it with my imagination; to have the freedom to take the story any whacky way I please.
I've thought about adapting an ancient story to modern times - a Greek myth, or a Bible story, or a legend. Maybe. If I can think of a good one that hasn't been done.
In fact I have so many ideas but none of them with any legs; I'm tired of hopping along.
My pencils are nicely sharpened and I'm tapping my teeth. What's the next bit?
Any creative juices out there? Muchly appreciated if so.
Thanks.
Perhaps you can help dig me out of no man's land? Appreciate it if you can.
I've been writing non-fiction for a while, and editing and twiddling and polishing and plotting for existing works - my own and others - and now I'd like to write a totally fresh project.
'How nice,' I hear you say. 'What is it?'
That's the prob. I haven't the faintest idea.
I fancy changing genres for the hell of it - perhaps something historical? Perhaps set far away? Perhaps even Sci-Fi?
I'm tempted to try a whodunit, or a wild caper. Something light and fun; something I've not done before.
I'd like to write 'Hitchhiker's Guide'. Oh, has it been done already?
I miss the whoosh of writing with abandon and would like to remind myself how that feels.
So particularly those who know how I write already (but others welcome), do you have any blinding suggestions for me? I don't mind doing a bit of research but don't want to get bogged down in it.
I've thought of using one of my older short stories as a template for a full-length novel (i.e. the synopsis already done?) and may do that.
Friends have urged me to write about my travels, or something set in Africa (since I lived there for a while), but that's essentially non-fiction again. ('I had a farm in Africa, below the Ngong hills' - oh, that's been done too?)
I want to find a new world and populate it with my imagination; to have the freedom to take the story any whacky way I please.
I've thought about adapting an ancient story to modern times - a Greek myth, or a Bible story, or a legend. Maybe. If I can think of a good one that hasn't been done.
In fact I have so many ideas but none of them with any legs; I'm tired of hopping along.
My pencils are nicely sharpened and I'm tapping my teeth. What's the next bit?
Any creative juices out there? Muchly appreciated if so.
Thanks.
Comments
Subscribe
Visitor counter
Blog Roll Centre
Blog Hints
46 Comments
Why not give yourself a week to write each story - then stick each one up here as a blog?
Also, I'd say that almost everything has already been written. It's a question of *how* you write it that's important, bringing a fresh slant on something that's familiar. Think of all the romantic fiction and how it all deals with the same basic themes.
Off to the snippers. Good luck!
Aonghus, I'm not keen on too much written down before I start - I tried that with my second tome - planned each chapter and so on - and in the end I was too bored to finish it, because I already knew what would happen. I think I *do* plot intently - but I let my subconscious work it out so that it can still surprise me. If I write the plot down, it dies on the page, becomes too limited, it's born too soon.
Write yet more short stories? S'pose. Just bloody get on with it, Whisks. Er, please sir - write about *what*?
Spangles, thanks - I do read quite widely already - my latest craze is for Shriver's marvellous 'Kevin' - which made me wonder about a thriller format, and her central questions about the nature of motherhood - what if your child turns out like that? Now she's gone and written it already. The only genre I actively avoid, is Horror - because there's enough horror in real life, without making it up; and I don't like being frightened.
Santa Claus is real.
As Spangles says nothing should stand in the way of a good haircut - which I may use myself now I've arrived at it. I need 2,000 words by the end of the month. There's a premis in anything. My cat steals cheese, which makes her chunder (this is true btw). I have no idea where the addiction comes from.
The trick is what you do next. But you know all this. Good luck.
But I take your point about removing the pressure on yourself by saying it's just for you. And this allies to Spangles's point which I neglected to answer - I always write just for myself and say that nobody need ever see it. Not sure I could write to order in the way of writing for the market - I once tried writing a M&B - and just couldn't do it. And even resented it as well.
What about the recent-ish past 80s or so for a setting. I loved your "Gold" story from the Inter-City challenge and books like "One Day" show that the 80s nostalgia is alive and kicking?
My cat likes lavender furniture polish. It doesn't make her chunder :)
However, what I'm suggesting is that you might want to look at some of the fairytales as they used to be, or some of Hauffs' more obscure ones and rewrite in the genre of your choice.
I have one fairytale/fantasy brewing based on Plato's Symposium and a story cycle based on taking the same opening scene and then continuing the story in as many different genres as possible.
Thanks for your words about 'Gold'. I so enjoyed writing that - it's the kind of Whooosh! and Weee! that I'm missing atm.
Thanks Charlie; I've had a go at a fairy story or two in the past and enjoyed myself (which is why I wouldn't mind doing another). All good brain food.
This has nothing to do with your blog btw- I'm just thinking aloud.
Yes Tony, I'm certainly drawn to a re-telling. I enjoyed Margaret Atwood's 'The Penelopiad' - written from the point of view of Penelope, Odysseus' wife who was left at home while he yomped across the seas - and what happened on the domestic front when he returned. (Trouble!)
And isn't there a recent book about Mrs Noah?
I'm liking all these suggestions. Knew I'd asked the right crowd.
Debi's suggestion could be well worth a try, but if not, look for inspiration around you. Old buildings that may be haunted, graffiti on walls, characters on the street? You never know who you may be standing next to in a queue!
There are a lot of untold stories. For example, a lady I’ve been interested in since finding out, (but I don’t think my writing would do her justice) is Eileen Mary Nearne. She had no family and kept herself to herself. Last September she passed away in her little flat and it was only realised then that she had been a WW2 spy working behind enemy lines, sending coded messages back to England. She never told her neighbours or anyone what she had gone through. Maybe true tales will inspire you?
Hope you find 'it', but please don't stop posting your chicken stories!!!
Minxie, I remember you mentioning that when it happened and yes, it's bally interesting. As it happens, many of my short stories are 'whole lives with a secret' and it's something I'm drawn to. Not normal short story fodder, I concede.
Thanks to everyone's suggestions, I've been brewing away in my head all afternoon.
And no poppet, I won't stop my chicken stories - I hope that by doing something *else* I'll add energy to the remaining few I have to write - I've almost a book's worth (but am flagging at the last hurdle). Once they're boxed up and chirping away, the industry had better watch out - the clucks are comin' atcha!!!
And Tony, we'll let the 'middle-aged' pass for now (only for now, mind) and smile at your premise - but it's still too closely twined real life. I'm sick up and fed of having to weigh what I write about, against hurting the feelings of those I live near, or am related to, and so on. I want to carry on living where I am and carry on having the family that I have - but that's where my kind of non-fiction gets ticklish and to some extent, hamstrings me.
I'm hunting for something I can write with joyful abandon without worrying about hurting feelings - which is why hist-fic appeals, or foreign-fic - although I still know people in foreign lands who may see themselves in what I may write - whether it's there or not.
My pot is still bubbling, though. Thanks peeps for continued good suggestions - they're in the pot.
We all know that accidents just don't happen, they are a chain of sometimes related, sometimes unrelated events or a combination of the two. This chain of events could be tied loosely or directly to each sacrifce ... I never read Bunty, in fact I am a very poor reader so I may believe I have come up with something unique which has been covered one hundred times over!!! - ( I blush - shame on me!)
And don't worry again - Bunty comic covered all the main plots by the time I was ten. Whatever I write now, will only ever be a poor imitation; I know that.
I like your idea of 'accidents don't just happen' - because they don't in general - they're the result of a chain of events. Could have gone either way at each junction. Yes.
Now, was the sky really one inch lower? No, the sky is not a roof and we know that...right? But what if instead of knowing that, we accept that the astronomer was right, not because he measured the sky but because his maths was so strong that when he made the measurements, the sky became like a roof above their heads. What if as each new mathematical or scientific theory is created, it is not that we discover the universe, but we create it, but because we don't know that's what we're doing, we can't use it. But what if one day, someone realized?
No idea of that helps but hey, it amuses me!
You already have most of the research and perhaps an interest.
"teenage mutant ninja in-laws" is one of my projects.
This is remarkably difficult to do. Have you considered attempting a traditional novel? Joanna Trollope does fine in the library.
Mostly (but not always) it works like this for me: Take a scenario, drop in some characters and see what happens. If some sort of conflict arises, you've got a story (plot will then spontaneously occur).
So, really, when looking for ideas, the best thing to concentrate on is characters.
Mac x
Tfx - thanks, yes that amuses me too, the kind of bonkers thing that appeals.
Prop, oddly, I'd not considered fiction based on my recent non-fiction! Geri suggested something chickenish at the top and maybe you're right, that's the answer? I do want to go somewhere I've never been before though - venture into unknown lands in a different time and place. Just for the crack of it. I like the sound of your project.
Mike, yes, *isn't* it difficult to do! Whatever spews out the other end of this thought process may well be a traditional novel, but *about what?* Sorry to be pathetic.
Aonghus - yes, indeedy! I can do it when it's clearly labelled 'fiction' and it's only ever a strand of someone's real life anyway, never the whole red book (and usually what I think about it, not the actual events).
Wrath, isn't that odd, as I'm the other way around. Characters are easier for me than plots. Perhaps I should twist it all around then, and drop a character into a peculiar happenstance.
Mac, the fantasy world is a zillionfold more random than real-life (obviously). I'm very open to quirking up real life, but stop short of little green men.
Thanks you lovely lot.
Correction: I did recently write down a lucid dream I had which stayed with me. Difficult to say whether it was romance or lust; they're not always so easy to pick apart. Anyway, it involved someone I knew well but he's been dead 26 years. So much for that.
They say you should face your horrors, don't they?
Actually you've both cheered me up a bit. Thanks. It's good to talk.
too late to be useful but what works for me is music. Listen to something that moves you in some way (gets you dancing, makesyou tearful, makes you smile, sounds right to your bones) and write the story that fits the music and your reaction to it.
So far, of 7bn people on the planet this only works for me so there's room for more. good luck.
Ditto John - one at a time is best for me too. And preferably music without words. Hadn't thought of that before, but it's true for me. How odd.
I agree with one at a time. I can only write whilst listening if I'm writing a story where the music is integral and I rarely consider having the music playing whilst reading, because it's two lots of input for the brain to process.
I adore song lyrics that spark my imagination, but also love instrumentals (Sloe Gin John?). I've also tried songs in other languages because the sound of language is so evocative and it doesn't matter if I don't get the meaning of the words.
French = Piaf. Italian = Paolo Conte. Arabic = Khaled. Turkish = Idzel. And I nearly forgot about opera, especially Puccini.
Oh the possibilities are endless, if it works for you. I'm currently struggling with a story written around a Beatles track where the characters are in their 70s and he's Swedish. No connection to me or the track (A day in the life), it was a single line in the lyric that brought the plot to mind.
Shut up Mark, you're boring people...
For intensely emotional try: http://youtu.be/akbvhM4TpEI
I like 2 of your 3 choices and am saying no more. Ever!
Click here to sign up now.