Plots Available To A Good Home

As I've mentioned before, the novel I'm working furiously to finish right now isn't my first attempt. Or even my second.

Now, not all of those would-be novels are consigned to either my junk-heap or content to rest in the ghost of my dead hard drive (RIP 2000-2004). Two of these incomplete would-be tomes are waiting their turns, or waiting for me to complete some intense research. A third might see the light of day as a screenplay (which given its history is fitting.)

Flashback to the summer of '98. While I was probably one of the few people in my graduating high school class to not have Comedy Central, and therefore, miss out on South Park's debut, I had found myself absorbed in a show called Buffy The Vampire Slayer (not from the beginning, but close). Faced with my first summer in years where I didn't have a summer reading list packed mostly to the gills with stuffy old books I had no interest reading, I figured "what the hell, I'll write a Buffy script and see if they run it." Obviously I had no idea how TV writing, or professional creative writing worked, but hey, wikipedia wasn't around, and people didn't even really use Google. My hook was that it was going to be a special "Spring Break" episode of Buffy, where they go down to Florida, or somewhere near a large body of water, and they encounter some Lovecraftian cultists bent on raising one of the Old Ones, and of course, Buffy and the Scoobies would thwart this nefarious plot. Then, a bit later (ah the days of dial-up, pre 56K Internet) I found on the semi-official site, The Bronze, that they did not accept outside script submissions. Not being a big fanfiction person (what's the point if you don't actually see it?) I decided to expand and adapt it to more normal teenagers. And then late in my first semester at UGA, I joined a band, and the story was forgotten.

With ScriptFrenzy (a similar, but not as strenuous, contest to National Novel Writing Month--a 20,000 script in the month of June) starting soon, I'm thinking about going back to it.

Some of the others...not so much. So here's two plots of abandoned novels I have no major use for, but you might:

1. Working title(s): Full Circle, Just a Bunch Of Stuff That Happened. A genetically modified government super-solider escapes, turns evil (don't they always?) and takes over the mafia, with the eventual goal of world domination. But the original thrust of the novel was going to be on how this mafia-CIA/FBI/etc. conflict messes with the sort-of-but-I-didn't-pull-it-off-54,000-words-in-related lives of over a dozen characters. I was trying for the bastard offspring of Stephen King's The Stand, and Altman's Short Cuts more or less, and it was my first attempt at a novel. So I can't say I lacked novelistic ambitions...

2. No working title: A postmodern collegiate bildungsroman. Over educated, smartass son of an Amherst prof is a freshman at UGA. His "failsafe" prom date shows up on the bus his first week of class...only she's had major plastic surgery and is now both smart and, to our narrator, groin-grabbingly hot. The movie script he wrote as a joke for his dad has been picked up in Hollywood and now he's rich. His agent though, is an embodiment of the Native American Trickster god, Coyote. And it was supposed to be a variation on the genie story where he gets everything he thinks he wants, but also somehow trapped inside a script he wrote...and I couldn't figure a way to reconcile the two threads easily...plus the protagonist was shallow and greedy enough that one person that read an early draft of chapter one compared him to the reprehensible narrator of Martin Amis's Money...and I didn't want to write 300 pages in that voice. But maybe you do...or can think of a better comeuppance for him.

Friday Happy Hour: Quick Shots

*This picture is just begging for immature captions--have at it.

*Almost finished with that new story. I'm having issues with the ending--mainly I can see the story ending in two different ways, and I kind of like both. Any thoughts on a "Special Edition DVD" short story format where you get both endings?

*The job search continues, slowly...and I'm not discouraged. Taking the first job offer that came my way--more than once--is part of the reason I'm in this mess now. And as the temp agency continues to put more money in my pocket than my old job did, I still think this new plan of being as picky about employment as I am about who I date will pay off. Sort of ironically, the time searching for a new job, while also working 40 hours, blogging, writing, recording songs and trying to get a new band together doesn't leave me with enough time to consider myself good serious dating material for anyone. So any ladies eyeing me as your potential boyfriend: you should probably look elsewhere right now.

*There are only two new episodes of LOST left this season. I'm going to devote a longer blog to why I love this show (it's the only show I make sure I watch weekly, and I'm a barely reforming TV junkie that watched almost every episode of The OC's horrid third season). If you haven't it watched, it's probably pointless to start with these final episodes, but if you feel sporting, give it a go. And who knew Ben's dad was Napoleon Dynamite's Uncle Rico?

*El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead is the best hip-hop record released in 2007 so far. If you don't have it, go buy it.

*While there are tons of blog posts lamenting the decline of Book Review sections in major newspapers, they are missing the upside: Dan Brown fever has passed, and really talented authors are getting mainstream print media publicity (though to be fair, it's established folks, like Chabon, Pynchon, Cormac McC, and DeLillo getting the pub.

*Jonathan Lethem's newest, You Don't Love Me Yet: not bad, but it felt too light on character and plot to warrant being called a full novel.

*Irvine Welsh reading this saturday. Given that several very very cool and happy things happened in my life following the last reading I attended, I'm hoping history repeats itself (and shh, don't tell the world, but Butch Walker's in town this weekend too...)