Okay, so I’ve been tagged in what is apparently a game of blog tag by my friend Cara. Hooray for RSS feeds. I have to answer the question
A Novel Idea:
If I could write a novel about any subject, what would it be?
I also have to tag several people to answer the same question on their blogs (and trackback here). If they don’t do so, that means they don’t love me enough to read my blog. I hereby tag Nathan, Ben, Berck, Sydney, and Mom. I would tag other people to whom I’m not related, but then I could hope to only get a response within several months. All of the above mentioned have to tag 5 other people… or… you’ll catch athlete’s foot the next time you use a public restroom.
So. What would I write a novel about? I’ve never understood how someone writes fiction. I love to write… but only about capturing slices of reality. I wouldn’t know what to do creating a world that doesn’t exist.
That isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy reading fiction. I especially love science fiction, where EVERYTHING… setting, species, constellations… are created out of thin air. But I think I lack the ability to lie that easily. I can paint a watercolor of a landscape out my window; I might even be able to paint it from memory. But to just come up with it out of my head? Not so easy.
I’ve tossed around the idea of writing a political thriller about the real power bosses in government. But I’d have to be making all sorts of stuff up, because I haven’t got a clue. I’ve also thought about writing science fiction short stories. (I come up with great ideas all the time, like what really causes Alzheimer’s isn’t a wasting degeneration of brain tissue but a temporal shift. But then I’d have to flesh the idea out with, like, characters and settings and stuff. Sigh.) Dang, I could make a bundle if I churned out cheap romance novels. And most literary intellectuals of the 20th century made their living writing mysteries (minus Lewis and Tolkien, who had the ability to write fantasy).
So I settled on a novel about a non-traditional relationship between a 21 year old and a 14 year old who fall in love but must wait 8 years to get married.
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