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!

Don't Forget NaNoWriMo--or Find Your Goal

Although I'm going through a BUNCH of unplanned stuff this year, I am also planning on participating in National Novel Writing Month (November 1-30)! And you should too!

Even if you don't write novels, sign up for it. It's FREE, and you can use the e-mails and inspirational articles from the Office of Letters and Light to use for any of your efforts--from painting to music to drawing to reading to weight loss to pretty much any goal for anything you have in mind. Just sign up, and everything comes to your e-mail… and it's more helpful than you might realize.

I have found it hard to keep going without goals, without a plan for the day, for the week, for the month, for the year. Without goals, I am unsure what to do next. With goals, I have specific tasks automatically ahead for me.

Remember, too, that we are 2 1/2 months away from the new year. Why wait until January 1 to set a goal? Why not begin that resolution soon?

My resolutions (BEFORE January 1):

1. Finish my mermaid novel.
2. Lose the weight I've needed to lose for more than a year.
3. Find a happy place with Richard's cancer treatments.
4. Sew several costumes (three planned so far--Elsa from Frozen, Queen Elizabeth I, Antebellum dress)

Not a lot, but one of these would probably keep me busy. What are YOUR resolutions before January 1?

World Building

I am in the thick of revising my second novel, but thoughts about my new one are creeping in anyway, and they are of a world I have not previously even considered: underwater.

Yes, I've seen Splash!, and I've adored Disney's The Little Mermaid for years. But Splash! wasn't about the underwater world, just about the mermaid's adaptation to land. Even at the end, when Tom Hanks follows her back into the sea, we don't really see the world they go to. And The Little Mermaid was far more concerned with the merpeople's distrust of humans because they eat fish, or a girl's desire to break the rules--oh, and the way Ariel's hair twirled around in the water (visually spectacular, but not something that will transfer well to a novel format). None of this will really speak to what I hope to write.

Uncharted territory. I like it. Even better, it's uncharted territory with rules, like writing a sonnet, for I have to obey the rules of undersea life at least to an extent so that nothing sticks out as stupid. 

It also means I can't just throw myself into writing. I need to figure out setting, create the lifestyle, and decide what rules I need, what rules I can break, and how everything is going to fit together. I need to do quite a bit of world building. 

I'm getting giddy just thinking about it!