Well that's a novel idea...
Oh, and I mean that thread title literally. I have novel idea. Rather... an idea for a novel. And I think it's fairly good, too!
Some of you may know me well enough by now to know that I've got a bit of a creative side to me, and I love to write. I usually write short stories and poems, because I can complete them in anywhere from a few minutes to a couple hours, start to finish, as the ideas come to me. That makes them great for a student with a busy schedule and often crazy lifestyle.
Well, in the last week I've had a professor come to me with one of my homework assignements i'd recently turned in (it was supposed to be a "short essay" - most students turned in a paragraph or a page... I turned in 4 pages. Over-writing is a typical thing for me...) telling me that i write well enough that i should look into maybe trying to turn my talent into a bit of $$ on the side by writing articles for magazines and that kind of thing. I told my mom about it and she thinks my persuing a part-time writing thing on the side would be good for me, both financially and career wise. And my girlfriend, who loves my writing style in essays and short stories, thinks that I should try to write a novel.
Now, I've given the novel thing plenty of thought in the past. I've even started a few. But I always start them of like I do with my short stories... from the beginning, with the intent of just making up the bulk of it as I go, following a very, very basic pre-planned idea in my head of where I wanted to go with it. And I always end up hitting my first roadblock along the way, getting frustrated, and giving up.
But then yesterday morning, I woke up with a couple of ideas for characters in my head. I even had an idea of the kind of setting I wanted to put them in. But I didn't have a plot for them yet. So I sat down and started creating a sort of summary for myself of where I wanted this story to go using these characters and this setting. The next thing you know, I had a really cool idea (or at least... I think it is anyway), for what i think can be a very powerful and suspense-filled story. And it's definitely got enough of a plot to be easily long enough to be of novel length. Now the only catch is... I still have to write it.
Here's a real barebones summary of what I've got going right now. A preview, so to speak. The actual summary I have written for myself is over 2 pages in length, and that's just to outline the main plot as it evolves.
Todd grew up in a small, rural town nestled in the base of the mountains. He spent half of his childhood practically living in the woods behind his home with his two closest friends, playing and hanging out at their top secret fort, CastleWood, hidden deep, deep in the woods, and known only to the three of them. Life is good for the three friends, until one day when a tragic accident leaves their trio suddenly numbering only two.
Now ten years later, Todd is revisiting his hometown once more, this time to say a sentimental goodbye to his first house, which he had just recieved word had burned to the ground, and also pay tribute to the new residents who had been killed in the blaze. But when the fire investigation turns from accidental causes to arson and premeditation, Todd suddenly finds that he himself seems to be the only one in town unable to procure an alibi, and strangely enough, plausible witnesses who have always been there for him in the past, are now putting him in town just days before the fire.
Facing imminent arrest and conviction for a crime he knows he didn't commit, Todd goes into hiding, right back into the very woods in which he grew up. He knows that he's safer there than anywhere else. He can go back to CastleWood, to stay there, in hiding, for as long as it takes for the police to catch the real killer, or at least until they realize they have pinned the wrong man.
But something else is happening that Todd didn't anticipate. There's someone else in the woods with him, and it's not the police. Someone who seems to be following him, stalking him. Faced with this, Todd realizes that the real maniac responsible for setting fire to his old home and killing those four people, is right here in the woods with him. But of course, this shouldn't really be a problem, should it? He's confident that he knows these woods better than any man alive. But as both the woods and the chase grow thicker, Todd begins to consider another chilling possibility: What if whoeever was following him... isn't really alive at all?
That's all I want to give away for now, just in case I do actually end up going through with finishing the book. (Heck first I've got to get started with it... all I have now is a summary and chapter 1!) I'm a bit concerned as to how long this project might take to complete, and whether or not I should even bother attempting it, or if it will just join my growing pile of abandoned projects. I've got school and stuff to deal with now, and then full time work 5-6 days a week over the summer break. I don't have much time to write. My biggest motivation for continuing right now is the fact that the story is so fresh in my head. I'm just afraid that, like my last attempts, the first roadblock i come to will find me getting frustrated, short on new ideas, and ready to throw in the towel on what could possibly be my best story idea yet. I don't want to give it up. But I just have enough failed attempts in recent years to make me more than a bit pessimistic about my hopes of ever completing this.
Anyway, sorry for the excessively long post just so I could whine at you (I told you I tend to write too much!). I just needed to vent this. But much thanks to anyone who actually reads it. http://www.disneyworldtrivia.com/for...ies/smiley.gif
