I am currently surrounded by a mass of post-it notes, none of which are helping me plot out my latest idea. That’s all right. It’s a very dark story and I can only hold dark for so long before I start trying to bring in a clown. I’m always wanting to add in Mercutio–the only redeeming factor to Romeo & Juliet for me.
I am never in a state of creative happy medium. The fields are either full or fallow, with nothing in between. It’s like I can only sow magic beans that all crop up overnight–no growth stages. Right now, I am having a hard time with various ideas competing for attention. So, I’ve done what is easiest first, and keep going back and forth between it and my serial killer story (see above–dark.)
I have finally plotted out a novel based on my first trip to NYC, which includes all the highlights of mistaken identity (more than once), a midnight train to DC, shoplifting (not by me!), fraud (not by me!), an attempted mugging (sadly, of me), drug requests (hilarious OF me) and offers (to me–SPOILER–I just said no), vandalism and tresspassing (is it mine if I didn’t know I was doing it?), terrifying gangster boys, unbelievably stereotypical mafia boys (really!), a doppleganger, an MTV veejay, a break in, ticket scalping, a chase through the underground, a few slaps in the face (literal, and also my face), a police chase, a visit to Snow (in case it goes bad, you always go to Snow), a missing staircase, a landlord meltdown, a homeless man’s sacrifice, a hotel shower, a David Lynch movie (like this whole thing wasn’t one), a probable murder, and a decision to go home. Because my life has always been stranger than fiction.
The follow up novel will be based on my coach tour of Europe, and will include more of the same, only this time with more tourist attractions, drunken Australians, lecherous tour guides, and cute Italian boys. And the flu. The flu will be its own character.
The hard part is weaving a thread through it all, so the stories aren’t just a collection of things that happened to me on my way to the Colosseum, so to speak.
And maybe I’ll finish it off as a trilogy, novelizing my unfortunate incarceration. 8 hours in the clink ought to be worth a few thousand words.
The Outside Lane 