More Story Ideas

Okay, I was on a roll with a part four WIP of Cherie and Aura at The Atelier Cafe and then I didn't save my post properly, so I have to re-write it and now I'm questioning the whole thing, so fuck it. I'm just going to record some more story ideas until I can concentrate again.

Last time, I described:
Ice, Queen of Summer

A Thousand Auras

Britney the Dwarf Queen

Beverlee Hills Mummy

Beware the False Moon

This time, let's start with:

Subs & Normies -- Pre-Rift Era -- Coral is a mermaid born with legs instead of a tail and no gills. I think at first, I was describing it as a genetic anomaly, and it is, but I think we're going to go with evolution. Merfolk evolved out of fish, and Coral is the next step but right now it's super rare. Literally one in a million. Anyway, if her issue sounds familiar, it's because you already read about Aura (of A Thousand Auras). I actually came up with Coral way earlier and Aura was born out of wondering what would happen to a baby born without gills and with legs instead of a tail if their mother didn't have the resources to take care of it. 

Anyway, I've never really figured out Coral's story, which is why I talk about Aura more. But I'll tell you what I know. Coral is a princess. Because she has no gills, she uses a mouthpiece to breathe underwater, and grew up expressing herself through sign language. As an adult, she works with deaf merchildren. 

When she was born, her parents set her up with a little cottage in a bubble under the sea, with a human nanny. As she grew, she spent plenty of time in the palace, wearing a prosthetic tail, playing with her siblings (I forget how many, I think it was like twelve or something). I think she was initially supposed to be super emo about being different, but I think she just becomes aware of other kids and people who are different, which is why she works with deaf merchildren.

My initial storyline had to do with an evil fiance who is trying to kill her -- or seem like he's trying to kill her. I can't remember. And she had an evil sister, which I don't think I'm going to keep. Basically, what happened was, I wanted an exciting way to start a story, so I had her racing through her little village to get home before her mouthpiece stopped working entirely. But then, I was like, okay, what if this is something that keeps happening because someone is tampering with her breathing things?

Another part of her story was her mouthpiece malfunctioning, her spares are not working either, and she almost dies but Lush saves her. Anyway, there was some royal conspiracy thing supposed to be happening, but I never really developed that idea because I didn't find it as interesting as I wanted to. I think I'm more interested in relationships than politics, and also I used to believe in meritocracy, so anyone could be rich as kings if they worked hard enough. The reason I stopped making princesses the main characters in all of my stories is because I grew up and am now disgusted by classism and colonialism.

Anyway, another part of Coral's story is that she ends up being a nanny in Connecticut for a deaf six-year-old. Her mother just died and the story is a slow-burn romance between Coral and the kid's dad. The concept kind of makes me gag now that I know more about grief, but if I make it slow burn enough, and incorporate the mother as an actual character, I think I can live with it. And, no, I can't just make the mother a deadbeat a) because I am a feminist and b) because I have a short story I tried to write once called Spotted Tom about the mom's twin brother who is grieving his sister and I really want to tell that story.

Since I have been developing Aura's story with The Rift and everything, I think that I want to make Coral a part of that story. She has a connection to Lush and to royalty, so if I make Coral's parents one of the four parties that is fighting to blow the world into four mini-planets, then we'll be closer to the action. And we can have Coral's parents be kind to her and still really selfish and greedy like all royalty.

Initially, I was going to have all four parties be anonymous rich assholes, but now The King from Beverlee Hills Mummy is one, and if Coral's parents are another, that makes for some more fun worldbuilding than evil strangers. I don't think I have any other characters who are this evil, but I might be able to develop some. Cherry from The Incorruptible Man would be an interesting choice. I'll try to talk about that story in this blog post so that you'll know who I'm talking about. I haven't mentioned that story on this blog yet.

The Incorruptible Man -- Pre-Rift -- Okay, this is a love story between a con artist (Tracy) and her mark, Fred. Tracy is leaving a toxic relationship (not abusive, he's just married) and looking for a new mark to distract her from her broken heart. She's going through a Google spreadsheet that she and her con artist contacts keep updated and comes across a man's name with a million dollars (fluid amount, I'll probably change this) as his net worth and an asterisk next to his name.

The asterisk leads to a note calling him The Incorruptible Man. Apparently, he's never been involved in con that involves him doing anything shady like the Pigeon Drop or Insider Trading. He's also never fallen for a love con because he's still simping over his dead wife. He, however, has been victim of multiple cons that rely on a soft heart and a trusting nature. And, if anyone ever approaches him with an honest request for help, he'll never refuse them. The note says that he can be used for an emergency but never to take more than $5k because he can easily recover from that.

Tracy is more curious than anything else. She wants to meet this man and see if he's as incorruptible as he's described. He is. He is the best man. I would marry him if he were real and I was capable of love. It's an age-gap relationship, which could be gross, but he gives her so many orgasms that I forgive him. It's a highly erotic story, very different from what I usually write. And, initially, I thought it would be platonic, but then I thought, what would it take for me to not be grossed out by them as a couple? And the answer was, her initiating, him being a genuinely good person, and him being a very generous lover. 

When Tracy tracks him down, she finds that his house, garage, and boat are all full of uninvited house guests. Not fair, they were invited. They invited themselves. Tracy's kicks everybody out (helps them find other places to go), cleans his house, and cooks him dinner (they've already fucked). 

For his part, Fred really misses his dead wife, Janice. He briefly married his wife's best friend but that was out of shared grief and ended amicably. He barely remembers that he was even married to Eve, usually only when someone else brings it up at a cookout or something. He finds Tracy attractive because she's hot and cool, but isn't really expecting anything when she asks to stay over. A lot of people stay over. She initiates sex, and he's a little touch-starved. He ends up being so over-enthusiastic with the oral sex for her that they both forget about him before falling asleep. 

He goes to work the next day, expecting her to be gone when he gets home. (As if she would, after six or seven really good orgasms. Like, REALLY good ones. All of them.) When he comes home to beef stew bubbling on the stove and a clean, empty house, he's conflicted. The reason he lets people stay with him is out of generosity, but also out of loneliness. 

And he's not an easy mark because he's stupid, he usually knows when people are lying to get money. But if he has it, and the other person seems to need it, he's willing to give it, whether they ask honestly or not. He has a policy of never loaning money, only giving it (This is based on a rule my mom gave me. She said friendships get weird when one person owes another money. So, if you have it to give an never expect it back, give it. If you need them to repay you, you can't afford to loan it. I'll probably have his mom be based on mine.)

Regarding plot, Tracy's on the run from a bad relationship, but she was already on the run from her old madam, Cherry, who she met after running away from home. Cherry and Tracy are only a few years apart, but Cherry was already a madam when she met Tracy. Cherry taught Tracy house to con as well as how to trick. Cherry can be charming but she's incredibly controlling and when Tracy wanted to leave to start a normal life with a nice young gentleman, Cherry stole all her money and slept with her boyfriend (to prove that men ain't shit. It proved to Tracy that Cherry wasn't shit).

She left to trick and con on her own, and Cherry has tracked her down several times, always with jobs that Tracy can't afford to refuse. She leaves a cherry blossom as her calling card because she's a psycho. In this story, Cherry finds out where Tracy is, kidnaps Fred and holds him for ransom. Tracy, who has been building a real life for the very first time in her life, is pissed. 

She has an ace up her sleeve. The way she rescues Fred and earns her freedom is by telling Cherry that she knows Cherry's real name. She knows where Cherry was born, and about her brother who is in a very expensive home. Cherry is shaken, but Tracy isn't done. Tracy is not Tracy's real name, even though it's the one that she gave Cherry when they met. Tracy had stolen the identity of a person who looked like and was close enough in age, but was otherwise unrelated. And the way that she came across the identity would make Tracy's real identity untraceable. (The reader will already know this. I hate twists that the POV character knows about but keeps secret from the reader until the pivotal moment. It always feels like a betrayal.) 

Tracy takes Fred, and leaves. The story ends a few months later, with a cherry blossom left on her doorstep. This time, Tracy knows, that Cherry is asking for help, not demanding it. I'm not sure I'm going to make that clear. Maybe have it on top of a stack of cash, the same amount Cherry stole all those years ago, or ten times that amount because Cherry's whole deal is making sure that people pay ten times more than what they ever stole from her.

This was an initially going to be a standalone book not related to any of my more fantastical stories, and it still will be. Cherry is the villain in this story, but not a main character, so she'd either get her own story or just be a minor character in The Rift storyline. I like the idea of Cherry being one of the people behind The Rift because that means I've figured out three of four.  Who should be the fourth? I'm trying to think of rich assholes that I've already created, but most of my stories don't have actual villains, just obstacles.

Also, I forgot to mention, but Cherry has her own romance going on, throughout the story with one of her bodyguards. It's a totally different vibe to Fred and Tracy (BDSM where as Fred and Tracy are gourmet vanilla) but just as erotic. Cherry is a horrible person but not entirely unsympathetic. I don't think she gets a happy ending, but she will get some happy moments.

Echo of Magic -- Pre-Rift -- Addy is a princess with one major enemy:  her twin sister Echo who slipped out, fell to the floor, and slid under the bed while they were being born. Her cries are mistaken as an echo of Addy's. She grows up, blending into the other palace children and being mistaken for Addy, usually doing something wrong, like sneaking food from the pantry or wearing rags or otherwise trying to exist. One day, the real Addy gets punished instead of her. Echo feels bad but also kind of good. So, she does it on purpose.

Addy gains the reputation with the castle staff and her parents and the entire kingdom as being a troublemaker who never takes responsibility. Addy's only friend is a frog named Seymour who resides in one of the castle ponds. He's in disguise until he's old enough to be married, and he and Addy plan, for years, to marry. On the wedding day, Echo ties up Addy and takes her place. 

Growing up, Addy and Echo are frenemies, often trying to get along but one child's selfishness or mistake gets blown out of proportion. By the time they're adults, they actively hate each other. Addy is good and Echo is bad, but everyone thinks that Addy is bad and that Echo doesn't exist because Echo refuses to show herself. 

Seymour is friends with both and often councils them both to grow up. Although he loves Addy as a friend, he does (to his shame) fall in love with Echo. He intends to marry Addy, but one their wedding day, when Echo ties up Addy and takes her place, Seymour marries Echo. She kisses him and he turns human. Echo finally makes her real identity known, and the entire palace and kingdom is immediately apologetic to both princesses, showering them with affection.

Echo's suffering is soothed and she tries to make up with Addy, but now, Addy is pissed. She can't believe that Echo has been torturing her for her entire life and the response of the entire kingdom and her parents is to welcome Echo with open, forgiving arms. Their apologies don't mean much when she sees her enemy being so embraced, so she leaves the kingdom.

My original short story ended with the kiss and Echo marrying Seymour. When I thought about making it longer, I had Addy go out and try to figure out why magic is disappearing from the kingdom, only to find that it's disappearing from the world. She has her own love interest, but she has to learn to love herself before she can love him. 

I think that, maybe, now that I have lush (see Worldbuilding) as my magic system for all of my other stories, I can use it here and have the reason magic is disappearing is because the avatar is taking it all back from humans who have been abusing it. So, rather than having her restore the magic, she learns to live without it, and maybe helps other people do so, as well? 

For Echo to have survived being punted around the floor after being born and not being fed and stuff, she must have had to rely on lush to survive, so having it disappearing from the world permanently makes her sick or weak or something. Actually, what if Addy's quest was given to her by her parents and Addy agrees publicly but privately decides to find out where the magic is going in order to prevent it from returning, permanently? Then, when she realizes that it really is gone forever, she feels petty and returns to help Echo adjust.

I always intended for the girls to reconcile and go on their own adventure together. So many of my villains are based on my cousin who I loved once but who turned into a sadistic nightmare (Ahmose, Cherry, Echo). Addy is based on me, that's why she's so good the whole time. I never turned evil because I didn't want to prove to my cousin that she was right to hate me, that there was some secret evil in my heart that only she could detect, but that meant that being good always felt performative, and Addy was my chance to explore that aspect of myself. What is goodness? What is authenticity? Do you have to be perfect, in order to deserve love? That kind of stuff. Losing my mom answered a lot of those questions, for me. 

For one thing, I figured out that when other people were in pain, it was my instinct to help, not hurt. For another, I realized that choosing to perform goodness was a reflection of the kind of person I was, not just wanted to be. And, my mom was far from perfect. She was capable of great cruelty and great generosity, and when she died, I would have sold my soul to The Devil just to be able to experience three more seconds in her presence. (In fact, it was The Devil never showing up that sped me along the road to Agnosticism. That, and Jesus not showing up.) All that to say, no, you don't have to be perfect in order to be loved. Regarding deservingness, I've been loved and hated without deserving either, so "deserve" is a nonsense word to me, now.

Anyway, I have no idea what their adventure would be. In real life, my cousin stayed evil, and even got worse, so I no longer have any hope of reconciliation and don't even know what that would look like. It would be fun to explore a universe in which a character ruled by jealousy and greedy was able to reform, though. I could explore the relationship I always hoped to have with her.

Blog Post / Story Ideas

I've been writing every day for the past month. It may not seem consecutive if you look at the dates on this blog but that's because I've written on my other blogs and sometimes I've worked on something here for a couple of days. This is the longest streak of writing that I've ever done where it didn't feel like a chore I was rushing through to get to a final result. 

If depression is a terminal illness, I think it's about to get me. But I've had one dream since I was in kindergarten -- to be a writer. So, that's over forty years of hoping that I'll finally start being a writer tomorrow. Needing to be successful at it so that I can quit the job I hate and have people I'll never meet think I'm awesome. 

I made an attempt last August, and I've regretted my failure every day since. And I'm not being vague because of some worry about the algorithm. I just don't have any desire to trigger any sad person who wanders through the internet and trips over this post. I plan to try again, probably as soon as the next episode takes over, but right now I'm tired and discouraged, and the worst part is that today (or yesterday, since it's 1AM) was the second day that I haven't written anything since I started writing every day. 

Why is that the worst part? I think, because writing every day, even a character profile or a story idea, has helped me get into that mindset --  you know the one. The zen one. The dopamine hit that comes from winning a game of Solitaire. It's a dumb thing that didn't matter, didn't make me any money, and it wasn't impressive because no one knew I did it -- or would be impressed if they knew that I did it. But I was impressed. Because I felt like a Writer. 

The thought behind writing every day is not to save me from the next job that I'd rather die than do, but that if I'd gotten into the habit of writing something small every day forty years ago or twenty years ago or two years ago, I'd have something by now. I wouldn't die without having accomplished the only selfish goal I've ever had.

But, much as it sounds like it, this isn't a pity post, to lament my stumble. I'm going to list all of the story ideas that I can think of that I've already come up with in my life. Some I've written about already on the blog, some I haven't. Some, I might come up with as I'm writing. But I'm going to record as many of them as I can until I get tired. Because I need that Solitaire win before I lay my head down so that my dog can wake me up too early to take her on a walk I don't want to go on but will probably only partially regret. 

Here we go:

Ice, Queen of Summer -- Rifted Era -- Ice is royalty from Winter, the planet that ended up furthest from the sun during The Rift (see Worldbuilding page for more). Winter and Summer have had centuries? millennia? of bitter war, but the only chance at bringing the Earth back into one planet relies on an alliance. So, the princess of Winter marries the king of Summer. On their wedding day, they save each other from a terrorist attack aimed at keeping them apart. They fall in love and help bring the four mini planets back into one Earth. Her name is Ice. I forget his name.

Other notable figures from other stories. Aura (of A Thousand Auras, Britney the Dwarf Queen, and Beware the False Moon), of course. Also, The King and Nakia from Beverlee Hills Mummy and Lush from A Thousand Auras and Subs and Normies and if Darcy gets her own book, from that one too.

A Thousand Auras -- Pre-Rift, maybe partially Rifted Era? -- Aura was born to a mermaid mother but due to a genetic anomaly, she was born without gills or a tail. So, her birth mother takes her to the beach and hands her to the first stranger she can wave down. This ends up being Britney (of Britney the Dwarf Queen). 

Aura has the ability to travel to different worlds. Basically, she can think of a place she'd like to visit, like a planet made entirely of candy or a universe where unicorns and pegasi are real and clouds are like trampolines that you can bounce around on. This story takes place, I think when she's sixteen, but I might start younger, like thirteen. Anyway, it occurs to her to wonder what the Auras in alternate universes are like, and that's her main adventure for this book. 

Britney the Dwarf Queen -- Pre-Rift Era -- Britney is a teenager who has run away from Connecticut to California in order to make her way in the world as the first famous fashion designer for little people (Edna Mode does not count. She is short, she doesn't design exclusively for little people). This puts a halt on Britney's ambitions, and she takes the baby, Aura, back to Connecticut to raise.

Turns out, the baby is magic. Aura takes Britney to a world where Dora the Explorer is real, and Britney quickly realizes that stories are Aura's trigger. Since Aura is a baby, Britney has to keep the baby from anything that might trigger her sense of wonder. And we follow Britney as she navigates the raising of a very special baby, her love life, and her dreams.

This might be a story that takes a few books to write. That, or I'll be speeding through the early years. The story that the title comes from is one day, Aura is exposed to the idea of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. She's intrigued by the idea of little people working together in a mine and living together and being musical and she takes her mother to that world. Britney ends up becoming queen there, for a time.

Beverlee Hills Mummy -- Pre-Rift Era -- Nakia, a retainer sacrifice from ancient Egypt was ripped from the Afterlife, waking up in her old body. The King had returned to the living, and that meant she had, too. It's her mission to track him down and rescue him from whatever trouble he's gotten himself into so that they can return to the Afterlife. Her search for him takes her millennia, and brings her to modern day Beverlee Hills, where her bandages aren't really questioned. She fits in with the locals, let's say. Her story revolves around what it means to be human and learning how to trust when betrayal is pretty much inevitable. When she finds The King, that's not the end of her journey. He refuses to return to the Afterlife. He likes the Life too much. He suggests that she make the best of it. And she does. But she doesn't forgive him for a long, long time.

Both Nakia and The King are huge players in bringing the world back together after The Rift and they are minor, but notable characters in Beware the False Moon.

Beware the False Moon -- Mended Era -- Jane is a prophecy baby. She was born at the right time and place to fit a prophecy that says she's going to save the world from an evil king. She grows up on a small farm just outside a village that celebrates her, her whole life, for saving the world, even though she hasn't done it yet. There's even a statue of her in the center of town, and as she grows up, Jane expects to resemble that statue, any day now.

When the time comes to set out on her prophesied quest, a long-lost half-brother comes to town and claims that the prophecy is about him, not her. She is relieved because that sense of heroism has never kicked in, and according to the moon, it's time. But, the prophecy isn't called The False Moon Prophecy for no reason, and it turns out Jane IS the hero. 

She sets out on her quest with a team of villagers and friends. Her best friend is a shape-shifting unicorn named Bear (who is really Aura with amnesia that happened when she helped mend The Rift). As the quest goes on and Jane completes all of the tasks the prophecy foretold, she starts to feel like a hero, and maybe it goes to her head a bit. 

But, she was right the whole time. The prophecy was written by The King (of Beverlee Hills Mummy), kind of as a joke. Like, when everything in the prophecy that he made up actually happened, it'd be time for him to return to the Afterlife. It's actually Nakia (the MC of Beverlee Hills Mummy) who figures it out. She doesn't break it to Jane particularly gently, but Jane, a bit high on her own supply, doesn't believe Nakia and continues on.

The big reveal that The King isn't evil (just kind of an asshole) and that the prophecy was a work of imagination BUT that The King IS ready to return to the Afterlife, and he wants Jane to dismantle him -- well, this is a bit of a shock to Jane. She finds that she can't do it, and Bear has to do it. As the story has gone on, Bear has been regaining his memory as Aura, although remembering it as stories. Seeing The King again makes her realize that she's Aura. She helps The King return to the Afterlife and then she goes into a complete identity crisis and just kind of poofs into nothing, herself.

The sequel, which I haven't named yet, is an exploration of Jane's identity crisis, grief over missing Bear, and getting to know her half-brother. I think her agoraphobic mother joins her halfway through. When Aura comes back, she joins Jane's quest group as a stranger. She's a little hurt that Jane never mentions Bear. Also, that Jane doesn't seem to like Aura. I think at some point, Aura tells her story, the same way that Bear used to tell stories, and Jane figures out that Aura is Bear and they both cry and hug and Aura says she's not Bear but that she is, and she ends up with the name Beaura, which is fucking adorable.

Beverlee Hills Mummy Series Potential Expansion

 I've been working on the outlines for the Beverlee Hills Mummy Trilogy. Right now, I have three books separated into three seasons each: fall, winter, and spring (following the school year) with summer being summarized or referred to. But, I'm working on the story beats for the flashbacks and they could all be their own books, so I'm wondering if I should re-expand the series. I initially was planning for twenty books but that ended up feeling daunting, so I shortened it to a trilogy. JUST a thought exercise, I'm going to CONSIDER turning it back into a longer series.

I was thinking that because I want to explore Nakia's life after high school. Not "the college years" so much as the transition into The Rift. Nakia gets maybe a book to come fully into her own and then Aura shows up and is like, "hey, your old god/king is trying to rip the world into four pieces, and I need your lush in order to save it." Nakia has to come to terms with her mortality -- again -- but it's not even that easy, because we'll need four anchors, one on each mini-planet, kind of like magnets that can be flipped to bring the worlds back together at some point. 

The four will be Aura, Nakia, The King, and...maybe Coral? Oooh, or Darcy! Darcy would be interesting. She's Aura's birth mother. So, to bring the worlds back together, Nakia would have to work with The King and Aura would have to work with Darcy. That MAY be a bit too much drama. Other contenders of existing characters are Coral and Tom, but we could also make Lush (the AI avatar herself) the fourth? We'll see.

Anyway, I thought it might be too tragic for Nakia to finally have a real life only to have it ripped away again, but she's not like a battered kid who grew up wanting a spouse and 2.5 kids and a white picket fence. She just wanted to be comfortable in her own skin and a solid sense of belonging, whatever that looks like. She also has a bit of a savior complex, so as long as she gets to keep her friends, I think she'll be okay.

Okay, let's get into the extended series. First, if each season of each year (fall, winter, spring) is a book, that brings us to nine books. Then, if we follow her around for another three years (one normal, chill year), one leading up to The Rift, and one after The Rift, would that be three more books or nine more books? Let's examine that.

The reason each season should be one book in the main body of the series is because we're exploring the flashbacks (Egypt, Atlantis, and Havenford) in detail as well as dealing with a full house staff and the Jackie storyline. So, assuming Nakia spends less time living in the past, she is in college and doesn't have her staff anymore, and we're not following Jacki around, the books won't need to be as long.

BUT, do we WANT all of those things? AND, even if we don't, won't Nakia have new friends and new experiences that we could fill a book with? We also want to keep an eye on the girls. And, it's not much of a tragedy for Nakia to lose the life she's building if it's not currently important to her. I do want it to still hurt. And even if Nakia is flexible with what the world looks like, this is going to be incredibly destructive for the people in her life. It would be interesting, too, to see the different levels of damage done to rich people versus working class and poor. 

Also, frankly, I the Afterlife scenes are some of my favorite, and don't necessarily want to drop that just because we don't like The King right now. We can also get more nuance on Ahmose's character, follow Jacki's hijinks, and meet new people.

Okay, you've convinced me. Let's make the three years after high school one book per season. However, unlike high school, I think we definitely need summer included. Summer is kind of a lost season when you're in school (it was for me, anyway, but that's probably because I didn't have friends), but in adult life, you don't get three-month vacations from your obligations. So, that would be twelve more books on top of the nine. That's twenty-one. Hm. That's even more than I originally intended to write.

Although, originally, I wanted this to be a never-ending series like Sweet Valley High except with a linear storyline instead of all standalone books. Also, what if we DID include summer in the base series? Then we'd have twelve books for the base series and twelve books for the sequel series. OR, should we have three prequels, three bases, and three sequels? That would be thirty six, if we did one book per season, per year.

I don't know if I want a prequel series, though. Yes, we could give each flashback its own series, but those stories are so grim and are used as a basis to contrast with Nakia's new life. If I WAS going to do a prequel series, it would follow around Thai, China, Candy, and Ophelia. Hm. Okay, I kind of like that. If we explore their friendship pre-accident and directly after, writing about it in the base series, we'd have a lot more information to pull from to make the world feel lived in. Each season could be written from the POV of one of the girls, too. 

Okay, so I'm writing an outline for thirty-six books, instead of three. To be honest, this is about how many I wanted to write anyway. I only lowered it to three because that sounded achievable. For now, I'm going to finish the outline for the three. I have Book 1 mapped out, am mostly done with Book 2, and have a bit of Book 3 done. All that happens if I do expand the series is that the outline of the three books becomes an outline for nine books and we just fill in plot and character development.

I will say that I'm far more confident in writing a compelling trilogy than a hexatriacontalogy. Thirty-six books sounds like I'm trying to get away with filler but the truth is that I think I just have that much story, if not more.

Okay, good talk.

Story Idea: Time Travelling Writer of Rights?

I was thinking about time travel today, as I often do and realized, I think, once and for all that if I had a time machine, I would not go back in time and kill Hitler. Not baby Hitler, not teenage Hitler, not grown-up Hitler. I am, sadly, a pacifist. What I would do is go back in time and cure homophobia and sexism and racism and transphobia and all of the stuff that makes the present day a human rights violation for, what? Eighty-five, ninety percent of the population?

All of the atrocities in history come down to some charismatic asshole thinking that he (usually) deserves more than everyone else, but he doesn't have more than everyone else, and that seems unfair. So, what to do? Let me look down at my naked body and make a list. Anyone who doesn't look like this should be subjugated. Yeah, sounds good. Let me gather up all of my similarly genitaled and pigmented folk who also want more than what they have, and we'll do something about this together.

At the end of the day, genocide, rape, and theft aren't about lust. They're about power. Social constructs are built or exploited in order for a ratio of few to fuck over a ratio of the many. So, if I had a time machine, I'd go back in time and remove any parts of the Bible that can remotely be used to justify a hate crime, and write, instead, all of the stuff Jesus said over and over and over and over until people walk way from the book with a toothache instead of existential dread. I'd go back in time and re-write all of the history books, scrolls, tablets, cave paintings, whatever in order to show that we, as humans, have mostly just been chill with each other since the beginning of time (whether it's true or not).

So that, in modern day, if some asshole wants to get up on a pulpit and fear monger about a group of people who fit a social construct, trait, or preference, people will look at him and be like, "bruh, wtf are you talking about?"

I'm not saying it would be an easy job. It would take probably a bunch of time travelling writers to keep up with the new dictators and pillagers, and then, of course, we'd have to look out for the assholes who go back in time specifically to do the opposite (writers of wrongs). There's always one. 

So, yeah, that's what I'd do with a time machine. And I think it would be a cool story to read/write. It would have to have enough plot to keep it from seeming preachy, but it could be really fun.

Story Idea -- Sudoku Slaughter

 I watch the documentary "Wordplay" last night and had an idea for a murder mystery story. "Wordplay" is (in a nutshell) about contenders in a crossword competition. This one dude always comes in third and has a bit of a complex about it. 

I thought about someone who wanted to do a guy like that a favor, like his wife, maybe, who kills his competition so that he can come in first. Missing, of course, not only the point of competing in the first place, the rush that comes from being and beating the best -- but also the fact that these guys aren't just competitors, they're friends.

So, in my story, the third place guy would of course figure it out. He'd send his wife home in order to protect her, but they'd end up divorced.

In the documentary, the third place guy finishes first, but missed like two squares that he forgot to complete, so he ends up coming in third again. It's honestly devastating to watch (the documentary was really good) but a moment like that would be great in the story.

There are a couple of things. First, I don't really care about crossword puzzles; I'm not good at them and don't find them an enjoyable version of challenging. But I am a Sudoku fiend. I have eight Sudoku apps on my phone (all by Cracking the Cryptic because the other ones I tried are garbage) and play almost every day unless I get stuck and frustrated, in which case, I'll play Solitaire for a few weeks. The point being that I don't really want to research what makes a good crossword puzzle and how to make up clues and stuff that I can slip into the story, but I WOULD be willing to do that for Sudoku.

Sudoku has an interesting history and even though its popularity is more recent than crosswords but there IS a competition that has been running for twenty years, and it wouldn't be difficult to come up with a fictional one based on the real one.

I want the main characters to be two people who want to compete in this competition. I think the competition is still going but most of the people who played the year the murders happened haven't competed since. You have a building full of puzzle solvers, so a lot of people figured out who the murderer was but didn't want to expose her because they wanted to protect the third place guy. 

So, these are a couple of young people who come in, wanting to have fun and not understanding why all of their fellow contestants are also young and why there's just a pall over the proceedings. Maybe one of the two wants to understand and the other one doesn't care, and they can be foils for each other. Maybe the one who doesn't care is the one who accidentally finds out more information.

Anyway, we could have people involved in the competition who were there the year of the murders but they aren't competing. Maybe they're judges or the puzzle creators or whatever. If I wanted to go real dark, I could have the third place guy there and have him attempting to murder the nosy kids in order to protect his ex-wife. His life sucks now, anyway. His friends are dead and a decades-long obsession has been tainted.

That's all I came up with. It's much darker when I write it out but I'd want it to be like a Marple mystery where there's an emotional distance. I think writing about the competition aspects would be fun. And there were a lot of people in the documentary other than the third place guy who I thought were interesting. I will say that I noticed a sea of white, mostly male faces. I imagine Sudoku is a bit different, but then again the main two guys I watch on YouTube are white British dudes and my nemesis, Phistomefel, is German. I can never solve his puzzles without looking at hints. I hate him. Anyway. Just wanted to record that story idea.