Friday, October 24, 2008

Intended Use

When I conceived the idea for my blog, it was meant to be a wastebasket of sorts, a repository for possible ideas that I could dive back into if needed and find inspiration for a story or poem. I haven't done much of that, but I thought today might be a good day to toss some things away and see what happens.
I write every day with my Creative Writing students. And I've got a notebook half full now of the beginnings of stories and poems. Actually, most of the poems are complete, but the stories...I get tired of them and move on the next week.
Here are the kernels of the stories I've begun. Do any of them sound like they should be continued?
1) a fractured fairy tale in which a princess has grown up as a changeling, raised by a family of disguised fairies who want her for her human vitality. She eventually finds out she's not the same as her foster family and goes out into the world in search of her identity. It's got a wry tone so far, with a winking knowing narrator.
2) Pauly Malucci is a taxi driver in NY who always lands the night shift. One night it's so humid everyone seems to be at home in front of an air conditioner, and Pauly is just driving around looking for a customer. He sees a body lying in the partial light of a street lamp and stops to investigate...and lands in the middle of a murder scene.
3) Gregor Samsa (remake of Kafka's "Metamorphosis") wakes up one morning from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into...Underdog. What does he do? Does he decide to keep his new identity or find a way to revert back to his slightly boring self?
4) This one is finished, but could be polished. A woman tells the story of her abusive husband and justifies murdering him. It's an experiment with an unreliable narrator, but when I read it to my students, they didn't get that she was unreliable. So either they're slow or I need to do some major revisions.
5) Memoir about finding out I was pregnant with Jared, how it felt to be pregnant and have a baby at this later stage in my life, how he has changed our lives.
6) Science fiction: Captain David Stark and his crew are stranded on an alien planet which appears to be uninhabited. But then strange things begin to happen with their sensors, things like the sensors showing signs of life but nothing appears on the view screen. Are there aliens? Are they invisible? Are they hostile or friendly? Will Capt Stark ever get home to his family?
7) I'm working on this one now: Arin Maxwell owns a small bakery in a small town, and her business is failing. She keeps baking and fills her shop with bread, but the customers walk past her window, looking in with hungry eyes, but walking past. A man comes in one day, beefy and sweaty, asking for protein bars. She turns him away. Then when she goes to deliver the day-olds to a shelter run by her friend, Josie tells her even the women at the shelter don't want bread anymore; they're all on the low-carb diet. So Arin decides the time has come to take on the MAN and get her customers back...

What do you think? Any good ideas here, or should I scrap them all and keep starting over?

2 comments:

Quentin said...

Sci-fi all the way!!

Carmen Palmer said...

the nyc cab driver one has me hooked already!

the memoir sounds interesting, and timely, as well.

good luck!