Agents and Publishers who are interested in building a career with a writer like to know what other ideas are in the pipeline, so as writers, of course, we have no shortage of ideas, usually. I started at 23 with an idea for a collection of childhood vignettes, but having been through so much therapy about my childhood, that world I had to escape the emotional chaos of my family has lost its rosey vaneer... Much of the inspiration I have had since has been inspired by women in my family, with the exception of my current project, so there may be a theme.
Here are the more serious projects I have considered, researched, or can put together a description, as well as listing some projects or themes I would like to see more from publishing overall.
Isarina and Darius (Soleria Prequel) (not begun) Speculative Fiction
Readers want to know more about what is happening in the head of Darius in the first book, but we only see what he allows us to see. In addition, there are descriptions from the MC about what life was like growing up and the kinds of toxic environment she wants to improve on. There was also a third sister who has died before the beginning of the book. Rather than continuing where the end of the first book leaves off, I would like to write the life of the previous Sultan and the lives of the children growing up. Watching the dynamics of the siblings growing up, answering the questions what made Darius and Isarina into the people they are in the first book. More books could continue in the future in the adventures of the characters of the first book, but currently I am not ready to think about what adventures they have next.
Psychedelic Kool-aid Acid Bus Ride Through the Looking Glass. Creative Non-Fiction written as Fantasy. Adult.
Two years ago I was admitted to hospital and rushed into emergency surgery. The following week was lost time - a seven day medically induced drug trip. With chapter by chapter horrors verging from the surreal to every woman's worst nightmare, and a lot in between. The body of work exploring drug trips by women writers is small, and this would make a great contribution. Sisters of the Extreme meets Through the Looking Glass.
Normal Lesbian love story. Adult. Contemporary. #ownvoice
Laura proposes to Stella, and Stella says she's not ready. Laura gets out of the emotional attachment because she has a horrible homophobic boss in a job she needs to pay off her debt, and her mother has a terminal illness. She cannot give herself emotionally to a girlfriend who is not giving back the same investment. Cast of friends include her black male friend (who wanted to date her) turned relationship coach, her bisexual friend she wants to date who is chasing a toxic guy and communicating instability to Laura, straight friend who hooks up with Laura and sends her confusing messages about her sexuality, and straight couple that Laura helped get off the ground and love Laura and Stella together.
Over the next year, Stella stays in Laura's life for support, introducing her to new women she is dating. Laura has little emotional energy to get out in the dating pool, and is not great at it, anyway. At Laura's birthday party, Stella tries to make a move, and Laura pushes her away. Laura calls Stella when her mother is hospitalised to meet her to be there for her, and Laura organises a birthday party for Stella with the straight couple, who observe or assume the women are together. Will Stella move on or can she unbreak Laura's trust? Laura's mother sees Stella and Laura together for Laura's last Christmas with her mother, and wants to know her daughter will be happy before she dies.
Men and Women (Sereme and Abby Lowe) (WIP) Contemporary Fiction
My first novel is 70% complete and needs reworking. Younger Sex and the City. 20 somethings in Manhattan navigating professional school and early stages of career development in a post 9/11 pre 2008 crash world - Pre social medial and pre smart phones. Sereme is a divorcee with abortion guilt from college, and a toxic marriage, reinventing herself after J-School as a reporter at the NYT with good instincts in a changing publishing world. A love triangle told differently with the two women character arcs growing past the antagonist man who is involved in both their lives as they out grow him.
Jaan the Finn (first draft completed) Children's ballad
A different kind of singing Viking, think Tom Bombadil meets Don Quixote. This Finnish Viking travels to stand up to bullies and tyrants, going where he hears the call, and singing as he goes with his drummer boy companion.
Milldred and Ethel (research begun) Historical Fiction, Family Drama
Millie Murray is the youngest of seven siblings in a post industrial ySouth cotton mill town. Her eldest sister Ethel is her closest friend and role model. Millie knew their father the least, who died when she was young, at the turn of the century before women could vote. Turning 18 and beginning teacher's college in 1929, she is more interested in the romantic fairy tale of her older sister marrying a Marine and travelling the world than women's rights as the Great Depression hits her rural agricultural community, her family feels the impacts less than most. She pursues her own fairy tale meeting a Marine pilot and eloping, moving to Seattle where he leads aviation advances as flight engineer planning cross continental and trans Pacific flight paths. After the birth of their first son, her world comes crashing down as her husband dies in a test flight. She sues Boeing after being awarded only $5000 in compensation, and is forced to move back home with her mother. As the US enters the Second World War, she must leave her son with her siblings on their farm as she goes to Washington to work as a Naval secretary. After the war, she must say goodbye to her mother who has helped her through her tragedies and leaves her the family house to sell to support herself and young son. Travelling to Tennessee, her 11 year old son meets another boy his age, who has a widower father, and she sees the hope of a new life for her and her son. (inspired by real events)
A Manhattan Miss (not begun) Historical Fiction
A German woman who grew up in a toxic Jim Crow South returns to Manhattan from beginning her career abroad in Amsterdam. She is a survivor and never letting toxic people holding her back anymore after seeing her widower father crushed by the death of her mother and his business destroyed by the KKK. Returning to the US after studying and beginning her career as an advertisement executive for Elsevier is a shock, but Manhattan in the 1980s has more diversity to offer, but the dating scene for a single woman corporate executive is limited. She ends her first long term relationship of several years because of the lack of commitment. Refusing to go to bars and sporting events to meet men whose interest do not overlap with hers, she continues her global adventures rafting down the Zambizee and Amazon, appreciating native culture and giving back more than she takes to the economies she visits. In a Thatcher area, being a woman in a man's world of publication advertising, she has few role models, and only her grit and thick skin to get ahead. (inspired by real events)
The Education of Women (not begun, only rough sketch) Historical Fiction, Family Drama
In 1969 Yale admitted their first undergraduate class to include women, "to improve the student body experience for the male students.' The following fall, Stephanie arrives in Cambridge, Mass, to enrol in Harvard-Radcliffe, her mother having married young before pursuing any advanced studies, is shocked by her encounter with a man walking down the hall of the co-ed dorms in a towel to his room. (inspired by real events)
This summarises the ideas to date which I have considered are stories which need to be told.
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A book I would like to see, but do not know if I would be able to write:
If we are going to write any more fictional books about Nazi's, we need to start writing family reality, not romantic depictions. Here is an example of a treatment I could see:
Germany 1930s Wiemar Republic. Historical Fiction. Family Drama.
Upper Middle class German family sees tense relationship between widowed father and educated daughter who have been raised on German Protestant principles of well being of all. She moves in social circles with Jewish friends. As the Nazi party is elected to Parliament with a very small amount of support, and the poison and toxicity of their grown start to become evident, daughter and father are in agreement that the fascist government is taking turns which are not tolerable. For years, father and daughter take different approaches of influence to stop the direction the government is headed, but when events make it clear they are past the point of no return, father and daughter face a cross roads, and hear heart breaks as she issues her father an ultimatum. Stuck in his ways, he is forced into illogical positions which are rationally irreconcilable by political peers which have undermined his principles, but he cannot seem to let go. For her, she watches him abandon the principles he instilled in the family throughout her childhood that all people have value, and that logical debate and reason should be used to consider the best path forward in decision making.
More things I would like to see in fiction:
No more "does she get the guy" themes. I would like to see more imagination and originality on these themes. Does he get the girl? Does he get his act together not to let the girl get away? Does she get the woman?
More mental health issues rather than "romance" in relationship development. Her journey dealing with anxiety and self-sabotage in being able to handle or build a healthy relationship with someone of any gender.
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