Taking a break, and developing a new idea

I determined I was becoming jaded and depressed while trying to finish my "latest" story, A Far Sun. I needed to take a break and get away from the story awhile, so I did. I am.

I began looking through some other writing projects I had. (And you know A Far Sun is/was one of those projects began long ago and never finished, until now. Well, it's almost finished.) I found some pages I'd originally written back in 1993/94, originally about the inevitable divide that would be caused between the have Nets and the not have Nets. Yeah, the premise was that the Internet would create a bigger social/cultural divide than what we have, today. Cheap PCs and the Woolly Wild Web have allowed even idiots to get on-line.

The problem is the story was based on what we thought back then about the interwebs. A lot of stuff has happened in the intervening 15 years, so the original premise is no longer valid. Or interesting. Can't undo history, as it turns out. But don't you know I can rework the premise, keep the characters and the opening scenes, and make it into a different story, a better story with all kinds of twists and surprises!

So that's what I'm doing. I'm developing another story. I don't have a good/final title for it, yet, but the old title "Rider on the Storm" isn't too bad as a working title. This story will be short, as in about 25K words. (All right, I know I suck at predicting story length, but really, you have to trust me, here. It has to be short, or I won't be able to finish it in time. In time for what? Dunno.)

Last night I read the story (i.e., what I have so far) out loud to my wife, just to test it and get her initial reaction. Yeah, she was pretty confused, which really means TOTAL FREAKING SUCCESS!!11!!eleventy!11! It's supposed to be really unobvious what it's about. That's most of the final punchline. The reader can't find out what's really happening until the end. That I know what's going on and that it all makes sense ... well, that's a good thing, I think. Heh.

I don't want to give it away, but it's a SciFi love story. Oh, and it sorta involves time travel. Heh. Believe me, I'm lovin' this idea, cause it has all the elements I really like in a story: love interest/romance, alternate worlds, interesting/unusual ideas. Science fiction essentially asks the question "what if ..." then provides some sort of answer to that question. Musings for the thinking geek.

I'm going to whip through the first draft pretty quickly. I'm already past 9K words, which is a little past 1/3 of the way. (Or almost half.) Yep. Seems just about right. I know what major scenes/events are going to happen, and I know most of what needs to occur to bring about the ending. The only thing I haven't figured out, quite, is how my male main character will save the day at the end. He has to do something to allow the story to end; I just don't yet know what that will be. *sigh* (But I think it has something to do with the transcendence of one's memory. Can't say more, though.)

On a final note: Writing this story tells me I can take an idea--any idea--and blow it up into a story. I'm a good story teller, and I enjoy making things up to relate to my readers. I'm funny, punny, clever, and I know how to put a button on a scene. The only mystery is why it took me (more than) 50 years to come to this realization. All I can say to that is: better late than never.

I think this story will be submitted to EscapePod. I mean, why not? (Except that it's too long, based on the submission guidelines. I will work on making it work.)

Now I know what they mean when they say "Today is the first day of the rest of your life."