Novel Idea #2

For the second installment, this is probably best as a YA or children's book:

Using as many of the fairy tales you remember from childhood, write a story interweaving the stories into something that makes a logical whole world. Think of Shrek, only it doesn't have to be comedic, or too centered on nursery rhymes... remember, you don't have to make a whole series about it, though that worked well for several seasons, didn't it? Eh, Nick?

Feel free to go dark with this if you want to, turning the piece into horror, or selecting the more disturbing of Grimm's tales... whatever you choose to write about, even if you turn it into a modern crime novel, make it as realistic as you can, so that its fairy tale elements are woven into the fabric of the real world around us, but in surprising ways.

Or turn it into a poem, giving us enough clues so that we know who each person is, without your naming a single one of them. Let the glass slipper, the three bears, or the mirror tell us where we are and what you are drawing from.

Use the idea if you like, or leave it. I'll be back with more (let's hope I can keep this going through the whole month). 

Novel Idea #1

It's been too long, but rather than apologize, for the next 30 days--the ENTIRE MONTH of April--I'm offering a gift: 

Each day I will post ONE idea for a story, novel, children's book, screenplay, or whatever. And the idea is for ANYBODY to use. Feel free to write a story of your own from the idea, or use it as inspiration for whatever you would like to work on... or just use it to help you kickstart your own writing. 

Novel Idea #1:

Multigenerational family has a genetic mutation--they are born capable of transforming into merpeople when young. If they do so before they hit puberty they develop the ability to change any time they get into water, but if they wait until adulthood, the transformation becomes blocked. 

After centuries of being snared as selkies or burned as witches, they decide normal is better, so for more than a century they have forbidden any swimming or water exposure for all of the children until they turn 15. Everyone has been normal for several generations now, but parents are taught of the curse so that they can keep the normal cycles going. 

Until one member, secretly angry with the world, invites all the cousins to his lake house for a week. And takes them out on a boat and tosses them into the water. 

There you go... if you aren't into mermaids or fantasy, that's cool. Just check back here tomorrow for more. And let me know if you come up with a writing from this. I'd love to read it!

The Persistent Voice

I have three hours of Zumba today. I have to lug kids everywhere, shake, shake, shake all over the place to earn my income, dash to the store, do dishes, cook, tend to the house, get papers signed and faxed, and the list goes on.

Why am I still happy? Why do I have a cheesy grin on my face here, at the very start of the day, when no item has yet been crossed off? Because I also have a book waiting for me, the end of a novel I've been happily editing, a few good ideas to flesh it out, to make the climax nail-biting.

And I know, once I'm showered, once I've cleaned and fed everybody, that I'm sitting down here, at my beloved Mac, and working on it. That is the most beautiful thought I can imagine at this point.

More about that later. For now, it's off to make the kids' lunches!