So I Have This Idea . . .

I’m trying to figure out something I can do to put some extra fun in our interactions since we’re all under siege. I mean, that wombat instagram was great, but there’s a limit to what a wombat can do. So I had this vague idea–very vague–about five minutes ago and without thinking it through, I’m going to put it up here so we can brainstorm it because it has to be a community thing or it won’t work. Actually since I haven’t thought it through, it’s probably doomed, I get a dozen brilliant ideas a day that turn to be trash by the time the sun goes down, but I figure if this is an Argh community project, maybe we can do something interesting with it. So . . .

My first thought was to start putting up a short story or a chapter a week. I hate the chapter idea because I don’t like waiting for things, although if it was a new book I was writing, then the chapter thing would make sense because I wouldn’t know what was coming next, either, so I wouldn’t be withholding things, we’d be discovering them together. That could be fun. Except then you all wouldn’t be playing. (The other alternative was short stories, but I suck at short stories.)

Except all the books I have started to write I already know about, so you couldn’t play in those. So this would have to be a new book. Something that I have no idea what it’s really about. And I could put up a scene (not a chapter, have a heart), and then we could brainstorm where it goes next. And then I’d write that scene and we’d take that apart. A scene a week seems slow, but it might take a week to hash it out. And then there’s the fact that I slow down as I move through a book because there are more things to think about. And I go back and rewrite. And that would have to happen here, too.

All of which means I have no idea how this would work. At all. It may be an awful idea. It may crash and burn. But it could be fun. I think the only rule is that it can’t be about the virus or politics, but then again, a book with the virus in it could be a really cathartic thing to write for all of us. The trapped-in-an-elevator book, only trapped-everywhere.

And then I’d have to corral you all–Argh people have no boundaries that I’m aware of–and we’d have to talk about writing stuff, first drafts, structure, all of that, but you seem to be pretty patient with that.

So I’m throwing this idea over to you all. Anybody want to try this with the full knowledge that it could be a disaster? And what is “this”? Should we brainstorm a heroine and a love interest and an antagonist and start from scratch? Do you want to start with Surprise Lily since I have NO idea where that one was going (except she works in a diner and the hero is named Erik, but that can always change, remember Mort?). Or . . . what?

As I said, this occurred to me about ten minutes ago (now, it was five when I started typing), so I have not worked through any of this. Except I think it should be a romance and I think it should have a happy ending, should we ever reach an ending. Also the dog will not die.

Whaddaya think?

The post So I Have This Idea . . . appeared first on Argh Ink.