Yesterday was an odd day, during most of which I had the attention span of a hyperactive gnat. When that happens, my mind usually spends half the day in a frenzy, where random ideas sprout and then pop like soap bubbles in a wild chorus of mixed metaphors. And I'm on a vaguely stream-of-consciousness mood right now, so allow me to offload some of them.
It started with a semi-dreamy state in the morning where for some weird reason my mind was on superheroes. Well, maybe not so weird: I had re-read Identity Crisis late the night before after following a bunch of random links online that brought me to a review of the 2004 Brad Meltzer penned lead-in to Infinite Crisis, a review that I had never read before and that made some good points about the story. (I can't retrace the review right now, I'm sorry.)
Anyways, for several reasons, I had superheroes on my mind, and was reminded that at some point in the past I wanted to write a smut story set in the DC universe, with Batman as the protagonist. I pondered that yesterday morning, trying to figure out which characters I'd want, and the general plot, and I knew it had to involve Zatanna and her magical powers to give the story a good old MC twist, undoubtedly prompted by the mind-wiping showcased in the aforementioned Identity Crisis. There's a dearth of good smut about DC superheroes, sadly. The only good stuff I know of is by Dimitri, which you should check out.
But I'm not going to write that story, at least not now. I made a bunch of notes, and if I'm still feeling the love when I have some free time, I'll see what I can do. Too much on my plate, and that's without even taking Real Life into account. Besides, there is that other story that I want to write first. I asked whether you'd all be interested in seeing how I develop that story, and a few of you chimed in and said “yeah, sure,” which is good enough for me. I've set up a blog, Project Leapers: Development Blog, where I will be detailing the development of that project, as well as post in-progress drafts. It's empty right now, but I'm hoping to start filling it come early 2012.
This churning on new story ideas made me think about other things I want to write. For instance, I would love to revisit Doctor MacKenzie's therapy group, the one that I introduced in Pride Cometh Before A Fall, but I have no actual story to go with that just yet. Perhaps once a suitable MCForum contest arises, I'll produce a short for it in that universe.
In early 2009, I wrote two chapters of a story I tentatively called Love Got Me In Here and Love Got Me Out (bonus points if you catch the reference without googling it), the story of a woman that goes to see a hypnotherapist to help save her marriage, and gets more than she bargained for in the process. I wanted it to be a love story at heart, and it looked like it was gearing up to be a dozen chapters long, so about a hundred thousand words. I think I found a way to merge this story with The Adjusters story line, down the pipe, so I'll get back to it soon.
And then there was this crazy idea I had last year after a marathon session watching Caprica with a bunch of friends. This is what I wrote at the time:
I really like the holo that they have in the show, and it has managed to foment a twisted story idea. Let's see if I can give the step sheet for the few scenes in my head that flashed during the show:Again, not sure if this goes anywhere, but it's there, maybe usable, maybe not. (Feel free to steal any part of the above if you so wish.)
(1) A scientist rediscovers Zoe's technique for recreating a personality inside the holo.
(2) He creates a copycat personality of his wife (or girlfriend or significant other or person he desires).
(3) Taking full advantage of the non-reality of the created avatar (we're not talking emotional AI here, or are we?), he lavishes upon her all his pent-up sexual desires. (Say the avatar's original is either not in a relationship with him, or the relationship is troubled).
(4) Over time, he comes to “love” the avatar more than the original, if only because he can control her fully.
(5) He figures out a way to swap out “personalities” when a person is in the holo, and an evil plan hatches.
(6) He lures the original into the holo, switches her personality with that of the avatar, and proceeds to live with her, leaving the original in the holo world, trapped, or at least, unable to reintegrate the real world.
And then after dreaming up new story ideas and remembering old story ideas, I started thinking about interactive fiction again, and there went much of the rest of the morning. This post is already getting too long for me to get into that and start ranting about IF, so I'll postpone that particular bunch of ideas for next time.
In the meantime, I'll leave you with a story on Storiesonline that I dismissed the first time I came across it but after an email exchange with a reader gave it a second chance, with a much better result this time. It's Taking Olivia, by Mr Hyde: “As revenge for cheating him out of his livelihood, Richard Hunter kidnaps the seventeen year old daughter of his ex-business partner. Nothing could prepare him for the events that followed.” It starts slowly, but picks up by the fourth or fifth chapters, and develops into a nicely crafted well-rounded story with quite a few hot moments. Worth a read.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving if you're in the U.S. If not, just raise a glass to your favorite harvest god/goddess.
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