So I quit writing yesterday. Don’t worry, it didn’t take.
I had a really bad day that blew up into a major depressive episode. I had myself convinced that I was mistaking a love of fiction for a desire to write, that I was fooling myself into thinking that just because I can write well that I should be a writer, and that my idea for NaNoWriMo was a loser.
Well, as it turns out, that last one was actually correct.
I do love to write, I’m just a little stuck with UC right now. And I love to write fiction as much as I love to read it. So I’m sticking with it.
However…
My idea for NaNoWriMo, a “good old-fashioned disaster novel” featuring the world’s only above-sea supervolcano going boom, is a tired cliche. I could write it, but it’s not likely to provide the kind of passion I’ll need to write a whole book in a month while holding down a day job.
So instead, I’m dusting off a concept I’ve started before but never finished. The working title is “Homeworld” and the high-concept pitch for it is “Bill Gates goes to Mars.” After NASA mothballs any manned Mars missions, the richest guy in America decides to fund the trip himself, with one condition: he gets to go.
There’s more to it than that, of course. I’ve got three main characters, all convinced that they’re the real protagonist of this story and with three mutually exclusive goals and motives. I’ve also got a natural three act structure: getting ready to go to Mars, the long voyage in a tin can, and what happens when they actually get there.
This is actually going to be my first real attempt at hard SF, at least until we get to act 3, hehehehe, and it’s a meaty enough story with strong enough characters to get me through the month.
Now I just have four days to learn everything there is to know about Mars in general, Cydonia in particular, and the nuts and bolts of Bob Zubrin’s Mars Direct plan. While we’re doing a weekend office move at work and the Broncos play Indy on Sunday.
No pressure…
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