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The Idea

At any given time, there are at least fifty ideas bouncing around in this head of mine, competing for my attention. When the voices in my head start to feel ignored, it tends to go like this...

"HEY!!! You hoo!!!! Over here!!!!!"

"Screw him! He's a crap idea! I'm a thought worth your time!"

"Hey asshole, who are you calling a crap idea?"

"Throwing paper airplanes onto the roof of the building across the street is a crap idea."

"Screw you! It sounds like fun to me."

"The roof of the building across the street is at least four stories higher than we are... like I said, you're a crap idea."

Oh, the screaming could go on for hours. And just for the record, the other idea was crap too. I should seriously evict the majority of them from my head.

But I don't.

Do I allow them to roam freely in my brain because I am a super-duper guy? No. I let them stay because amongst the really awful ideas lurk a few gems.

OK, I also allow them to stay because, frankly, they've got nowhere else to go. Believe me, the last thing you want to see is all of my crap ideas wandering around downtown Portland. If you think "Got a dollar? Got a dollar" is annoying, you can't imagine how annoying my ideas can be.

A month or so ago, one of the gems I referred to a moment ago fought his way through the crowd of crap ideas in my head and made himself known.

A voice said "What are the consequences of finding everything you ever wanted, and knowing it wasn't meant for you. Or was it?"

HOLD UP!!!!!

I slapped my hands against the sides of my head and shook violently, screaming "Who!?!?!? TELL ME!!! Who?!?!? Which one of you said that?"

But everything became deadly silent.

"I asked you all a question, dammit! Which one of you ideas said that? Tell me now or this is going to get really ugly."

All of the ideas quickly scurried to the back of my head, leaving me with the sensation of being on a carnival Tilt-A-Whirl ride. Whoooooooooooo... Everything started to spin.

Just as I began to wobble, one idea found himself shoved to the front of the crowd. All of the others were pointing at him and muttering "Him! He did it. He said it. Not me! No way man. It was HIM!"

"Well? Idea?" I asked, rather sternly. " Was that you?" I wasn't trying to scare it or anything... but come on! It's a long way from throwing paper airplanes on the roof of a building to the consequences of finding that which your heart desired the most, only to realize it wasn't meant for you.

I needed to know what the idea was talking about!

"I was just thinking..." the idea began to reply.

"Yes?"

I could feel all of the other ideas cowering to the back of my head. They realized that one of two things was going to happen. Either this idea was crap too, and there would be more head shaking, or the idea was brilliant, in which case, all available intellectual resources would be required to work together to bring it to life.

In other words, no paper airplanes onto a roof four stories higher than mine.

"Well..." the idea continued, "I was just remembering that you'd said something about wanting to write a novel someday, and I was thinking about something that might have the making for a great plot."

"...yeah?"

The idea went on to talk about some real life stuff, which led me to excitedly interrupt, and it would get even more excited by my excitement and interrupt me... and so it goes.

Before I knew it, paper was scattered around my living room as the idea and I hashed out a complete and thorough plot.

And it was good.

And that brings me to the nonsense going on here recently. You might have noticed a countdown on Jalpuna.

I decided I needed to take two weeks off of doing anything creative in my free time so I could dedicate as much energy as possible to working through the complexities of plotting out a novel.

I posted the silly countdown as a way to still have something going on here, and to give a hint about when I'd be back with something... Also, it served as a deadline. I do my best work under a deadline, whether I like to admit it or not.

That's the working title of my novel. "Monday Grace." The title is based on the Mother Goose nursery rhyme I posted yesterday, as well as events that weave through the story. I'll be posting the story here as I write it.

I have yet to figure out how text written here equates to pages in a book - but - I'm aiming for over 50,000 words, which seems to be standard for a novel.

The first 1,100 words are taken from a piece of fiction I posted here a few years ago. I removed it from the site once I realized I wasn't going to be writing short stories here. I thought that having some fiction mixed in with my blog would make it confusing to a reader... but now, I've decided to turn that short piece into the beginning of a much, much, much longer story, and I've got another 2500 words or so written, plus pages and pages of character outlines, plot outlines, notes, and assorted important thoughts.

So...

That's where Jalpuna is headed, at least for a while. I'm going to take a stab at writing a novel, and I'd be thrilled if you followed along.

I'll start posting my story as I write it, with the first part coming later today, and the second part on Tuesday. I'll make it clear when I'm posting pieces of the novel, verses regular posting... and I may end up posting extra stuff here that won't end up in the novel.

Long story short: there's only one way to find out if I can actually write a novel. I have to try.

Here goes nothing.

::::: | Filed under: the novel
::::: | Posted Saturday, Apr 14 2007 at 12:04 AM
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