FifteenthApostle

Laptop had wonky screen. Still under warranty though. Sent it to get fixed. Won't get it back for two weeks. Am writing this on smart phone. Is hard. Don't bother commenting. Too hard to reply on this thing. Having no laptop sucks. Already suffering withdrawl symptoms. Bye.

Hi. Now I know I posted a journal just yesterday, but I felt like doing another. You see, I asked for inspiration from you guys, and it seems I'm already getting some!

To recap, I asked you guys for ideas on what kind of original story I should write. I've actually had some ideas for a while, but writing yesterday's journal and reading your replys seems to have stoked up the fire. So I thought I'd actually tell you about some of the story ideas I've had (one of which I just came up with today) and ask what you think of them.

Now my ideas range from 'vague concept' to 'fairly well thought out with some plans laid down'. Nothing is ready to write yet, but you may be able to steer me toward one that you'd like to hear more about. I'll lay out my ideas in random order along with my current thoughts on them. Here goes.

Unnnamed Project.
This is the story that I eventually intend to publish. It does have an official project title, but I won't even tell you what it is. I am not going to tell anyone anything about it until it actually gets published. I'm only mentioning it here to note that I don't think I'm ready to start working on it yet. Ideas are constantly trickling in, though. This is what I will make my living on some day.

Superior Human Project.
This is just a vague idea that I almost certainly won't go anywhere with. It's just an idea I had, and I thought it would be cool to share it with you.

Here's the pitch.
A secret agency, probably government, gathers together a team of people to do the usual thing. Each of these people has some kind of natural gift that makes them useful in their own area of expertise. That sounds pretty cliche, but the trick is, their gifts are so incredible that they appear supernatural ... even though they're not. For example, one character is so good at reading people's facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, etc. that he appears to be able to read minds. He can practically tell what you're thinking just by glancing at you. Another character, probably some kind of martial arts expert, has trained his body to such an extent that he can perform physical feats that seem impossible for a normal human.

There'd be a whole cast of characters like this, but I can't be bothered thinking of any more right now. The trick is, even though their abilities are perfectly natural, they act as though they're supernatural. They willingly deceive their opponents into believing they're up against super humans.

That's about as far as I've taken the idea. I don't see myself using it. It would probably work best in a 'real world' setting, which doesn't interest me as much as a fantasy/sci-fi setting. Plus I think it would be too complicated.

Sky Riders Project.
This is one that I've actually spent a lot of time on. Back when I was trying to come up with an original idea to publish, this was one of the contenders, but I let it slide. Maybe I could resurect it.

The pitch.
A ragtag team of outcasts are trying to make a living in a dangerous world, while also trying to stay one step ahead of their past lives. On board their flying ship, they travel the world looking for any way to scratch some cash. But when they try to salvage a crashed sky ship, they find far more than they expected, and perhaps more than they can handle.

Inside the crashed ship, they find a survivor, and she's carrying something that every major power in the world would be willing to raze continents to get hold of. The crew now has some tough choices to make. The smart thing to do would be to walk away. But they might not be that smart.

I think this story may be worth pursuing. It has a lot of room for development, and quite a lot of flexibility. I haven't even decided what type of setting to put it in. It could be fantasy, or steam punk, or sci-fi, or any of the above plus a little post apocalyse. The idea takes some inspiration from Firefly, I should note. I have a rough cast of heroes already laid out. And although I don't have much of a plot, I do have an idea for an ending.

Does this intrigue anyone? This idea and the next one are the current front runners for my 'practice' original story.


Hell Guard Project.
I litterally thought up this story concept today! I've had several elements of this one floating around in my brain juices for a while, and now they're coming together. I think I might be able to stay interested in this long enough to get something done.

The pitch.
A young man is recruited by a shadowy organisation. It's purpose, to keep supernatural horrors from destroying his beloved city.

Sounds cliche, yeah. But that's kind of what I want for my first original project - something that borrows a bit from other works. This one is inspired by van Helsing, but I have different ideas on style and tone.

I'm working on a victorian steam punk style setting in my own fantasy world. The action will center around a huge city of stone and cast iron sky scrapers. I'm thinking trains, wild west era firearms, zeppelins, and loads of quirky gadgets. One of the supporting cast members will be a gageteer. I'm also thinking oppresive government under the thumb of an even more oppressive, corrupt, politically manouvering, witch hunting, at-the-stake burning, inquisitorial, and decidedly unreligoious, religious heirarchy.

The heroes, meanwhile, are working for a new and officially 'blasphemous' religious group who are desperately trying to hold back the evil that is corrupting the city while the 'official' religion only makes the problem worse.

I have ideas for a handful of characters so far. The central hero is still in the works, but I want him to be a slightly in-over-his-head type of guy with a tendency to put his foot in his mouth. I want a fairly light tone to the story with a touch of comedy to balance out the heavy monster fighting elements. There will be action, mystery solving, moral and social dilemas, and romance for sure.

As previously mentioned, I only came up with this story today, so there's still a lot left open. I don't even know if I'll still be interested in it tomorrow morning. I feel like I can go somewhere with it, though. This, or the previous one, could be the 'practice' original idea I'm looking for.


Okay, that's it for story ideas. I don't have any others that I can think of right now, though there probably are some floating around in the darker corners of my brain space.

I also wanted to talk about some of my general interests in fiction; which genres I like, etc. and also what kind of things I will never do. But I'm running out of time, so that'll have to wait for another journal.

For now, please tell me what you think of my ideas, and feel free to ask for more information on any of the above projects (excluding my super secret unnamed project, of course). I would love to talk to you about these ideas and hear your views. I need feedback.

Also, I am still looking for new ideas. It is possible that none of these will pan out. As requested in my last journal, please keep bombarding me with any story ideas you can dream up. They don't have to be interesting or original, just "X character archetype does Y thing in Z setting" would be enough. I am open to anything that isn't too weird, complicated, or offensive.

I need sleep again. I look forward to reading some of your views and ideas when I wake up.

Good morning/noon/afternoon/evening/night, watchers!

So I've posted a new chapter of Soul Fire at last. What shall I do next? Another chapter? That's an option. It's not the only option, though. Those few who bother to read my journals (or any of my mad ramblings) may remember my intentions to expand my horizons and look at working on something new. I spent the last few weeks working on Soul Fire chapter 46 because I wanted to get it finished and out of the way. Now that I'm between immediate projects, I have a decision to make.

A tough decision.

Now, I don't want to quit Soul Fire. It's the only thing I can do some real writing on at the moment. Any new project would take a lot of time and planning to get off the ground, and I need something to keep my writing cravings at bay. I mean I like planning, but I have to write something properly every now and then. I'm afraid I'd forget how if I didn't.

Problem is, I've never tackled two projects at the same time before. I may be inclined to ignore one and focus exclusively on the other. If I was better organised, I could perhaps work on each project in shifts, but I don't know if that would work. And I've barely started this journal and I'm already rambling.


Let's get back on track, shall we? In my last journal, I asked your opinions on what I should do as a second project. At least three people recommended that I write a 'practice' original work - something I've built from the ground up, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, but not intended to be published. That idea appeals to me quite a bit. What I lack, though, is an idea to build upon. I spent a sold week, after writing that journal, trying to come up with an idea which could really hook me. Something simple enough that it would be easy to write, but not so cliched that it would bore me. I found I have a bit of a problem in that regard. I don't really know anything about writing something that isn't fan-fiction.

Oh, I can come up with ideas. I can roll along with them for a while. But I soon discovered that every idea I had simply would not work as a written story. The ideas I was coming up with felt more like comics, anime, graphic novels, or something like that. I began to fear that I was too deeply rooted in the genre.

Now clearly part of that problem stems from exposure to the medium. I still watch anime every day during my lunch break, and I read the latest Naruto chapters every week online. My head is stuck in manga/anime land. You'd think that the solution would be to read some damn books, but I have a problem there, too.

My standards for literature are impossible. And I mean truly IMPOSSIBLE! I hate everything I read. Part of the problem is that I read from an author's perspective. As I read, I find myself picking the story apart. I can see the author's thought process. I can decipher why they wrote specific scenes, why they included certain characters, how they've structured the plot, etc. I'll be thinking "Oh, they sent the character there in order to set up this plot hook," and "ah, this must be the 'dragon' character archetype," or "yeah, this'll be the scene where the big plot twist is revealed."

And damn does it make a story boring! I blame you, TV Tropes!

Another problem is that I find very few stories that I consider worth my precious time. A few years back, when I started having this silly little authoring dream, I picked up a few novels for inspiration. I specifically picked novels from long running sagas (preferably the first volume) because I figured they would surely be good to read if they had kicked off such a popular series. I began with the first book of the Wheel of Time series. And I hated it. I found the plot to be terribly cliched, the characters were cardboard cut-outs, the events were pointless and strung together flimisily, the romance was entirely tacked on, and the ending felt like a cheezy rush job. (SPOILER) Seriously, it's just "The hero teleports to where the bad guy and his army is, he goes all shiny and blasts them all to oblivion with the poorly defined super powers that he suddenly and unexplicably gains control over because ... well because the plot required him to, I guess!" (/SPOILER)

That was a tremendous waste of time, but I was overseas and I needed something to read on the planes (all six of them) so it was going to be wasted time anyway. Next I tried another fantasy adventure novel. I won't even dignify it by trying to remember its name. I got about half way through and dumped it, mainly because of the villain. The mistake the author made here was in his attempt to force the reader to hate the villain. He tried too damn hard. I began to hate the villain so much that I didn't want to read about him anymore. I didn't want to see the hero defeat him, I just wanted him to not be in the story! Also, the events were boring, the setting felt like a two year old created it, and there was rape.

Then I tried some sci-fi novel. It was the worst yet. I think I managed to drag my way through about three chapters. The writing style was agonising! It was just so hard to read! The author was using these horribly long, droning sentences to describe utterly unimportant settings and explain things that didn't need to be explained. He went off on huge tangents, so long that you completely forgot what the scene was supposed to be about. And the villain was fast becoming as cartoonishly evil and over-the-top as the last one. So I dumped that, too.

Problem is, all three of those stories were supposed to have been written by acclaimed authors with loads of fans and long running sagas to their names. If their stoires were the best on offer, what kind of kitty litter was the rest of the stuff on the shelf? I couldn't bear the thought of wasting any more of my time and money, so I gave up! The only things I've read since are the Harry Potter books. I read all of them, and I can see the point, but I could go on criticizing them for hours, too!

My standars are just too damn high! ... Um, what were we talking about again?

Great, I've been ranting.

Ah yes! I was talking about my problems with breaking out of fan-fiction. Now to get back on track, I really, really want to get beyond fan-fiction. I want to be a full time professional author! That is my life's dream! But I can't do that with fan-fiction. I NEED to break out!

While I was writing Soul Fire chapter 46, I began to have some serious doubts about where I was going to be able to take the story. As I said to somebody in the comments (SPOILERS AGAIN sort of), the way Hitomi badmouthed Naruto in the first scene was almost like my views on everything that is wrong with Naruto the character and why I don't like him as the hero of the story (Sort of SPOILERS OVER). In truth, Naruto has never been my favourtie character, and there are plenty of reasons I don't think he makes a good hero. Note please that this is not the reason I treat him so badly in my story. As I've been trying to explain in my comments (MORE SPOILERS) the attacks from Hitomi are a plot hook intended to provide an obstacle to the Naruto Hinata relationship (SPOILERS END for now). The real problem is that Naruto is just not the kind of hero I want to write about.

I want to write about a smart hero who solves his problems with wits, not by bashing his head against them. I want to write a story that really gets the reader thinking. I want complicated plot threads, mysteries, difficult moral decisions. And most of all, I want a character who grows and develops into my kind of hero, not somebody else's.

Now I could try to force Naruto to change into something vaguely like the kind of hero I want ... but even the thought of doing that feels sickening. The real Naruto is not the hero I want, and with the character's 'foundation' already laid, he never will be. I can't rip up the Naruto character and remake him in my own graven image. The result would not be the Naruto that you (and Hinata) love. If I continue with Soul Fire, my version of Naruto will eventually change, perhaps quite dramatically, but he will have to remain predominantly Naruto.

So to bring this journal to something vaguely like a point, I'm going to ask you a few questions.

1: What kind of original story do you think I should write?

2: How much do you think I should change Naruto?

3: Can you recommend any novels that you think I won't absolutely loathe?

For the first question: I'm looking for a basic plot hook here. Something you could describe in one sentence. I just want all of you to bombard me with ideas. I'm not looking for anything too complicated or bizarre. I want this to be quick and easy to write, remember. Don't worry at all if you think your ideas sound stupid or cliched. Anything you say could potentially inspire me. I am asking for any and all ideas. I probably won't pick one specific idea that you give me - I just want to use them to stimulate my imagination. I repeat: throw anything at me! Just as long as it's not too complex or weird or offensive.

For the second question: I know there are pleny of AU fics out there where Naruto is completely different. I've read a few and I never really liked any of them. If I make major changes to my version of Naruto, I want them to be as realistic and natural as possible. I don't want them to feel forced. I won't completely flip his character and make him a genius or anything. I just want your opinion of how far you would tolerate my changes. Tell me where I should draw the line. Should be be somewhat smarter? More sensitive? Less obsessive about his dreams? Less obsessive about Sasuke? Wittier? Less perverse? More chivalrous? Moodier? Happier? More easy going? I'm just throwing out traits at random here. Feel free to do the same.

For the third question: I don't know if I'll actually read anything that you reccomend, I just wanted to have a third question in there. If you do recommend something, please give me a few details. No spoilers of course, just a bit more than "I like this story". At the very least, tell me the genre(s) (fantasy/sci-fi/mystery/adventure/romance/etc.), the target audience (children/teen/adult), and tell me a little something that you really liked about it. No spoilers, again, just mention an aspect that you remember most about it.

Regardless, let me hear what you think. Your comments will have an effect.

Bye for now. I need sleep.

So, another year has passed and a new year has dawned. My three weeks of Christmas holidays are over and I'm back at my 'money job' again. No more time to goof off. I've got to start making some plans.

As I said in my last journal entry, I spent my holidays getting some desperately needed rest. After having regained the energy lost to that horrifying stomach bug which cost me the last week before Christmas, I went camping with my family. Five or six days of utter sloth interspersed with bouts of backbreaking labour (carrying water containers up steep hills, building sheds, digging holes for the disposal of human waste), was good for me, I think. It wasn't as quiet and relaxing as I'd hoped (the kids got a mini quad cycle for Christmas), but I managed to unplug and clear my head. I really needed that.

The rest of my holidays were spent trying to figure out what I want to do with this nice shiny new year we've all been given. I said in my last journal that I would be making some important decisions. That was a bit ambitious. I've never been any good at making decisions. In fact, I'm still not sure what I want to do. I have come to a few general conclusions, though.

My first decision is that I absolutely do not want to get another one of those stomach bugs ever again in my entire life! Yes, they were that bad. I had three of them last year, and my number one goal for this year is to make sure I don't have any more. To that end, I'm going to train myself to pay more attention to my health. I have a tendency to ignore the signs of sickness and pretend things are 'not so bad'. Looking back, I should have been able to see my health problems coming. I'll spare you the gory details, but my body has ways of warning me when it's not happy. I need to start paying attention to it. What I know for sure is that the main cause of my troubles is stress. Two people have said it to me on completely separate occasions now, and I've finally listened. When I get stressed, I get sick. So that means I need to cut down on stress.

My next decision is ... well it's less of a decision and more of a general intention. I want to broaden my horizons. Prior to getting sick, I spent eight or nine weeks working obsesively on one project - a little fan-fiction called Soul Fire. Perhaps you've heard of it? My intent was to break myself out of my cripling tendency toward procrastination, and it sort of worked. I feel a general urge to get something done all the time now. But it also showed me that an obsessive, singular focus is not such a good thing for me.

I was working on new chapters of Soul Fire every day except Sunday. I refused to let myself take breaks, or work on anything but the new chapters. I tried to set myself a goal of one chapter per week, which would have completed the volume by Christmas. I truly obsessed over this. "I have to finish this chapter by the end of the week" I told myself, over and over. It actually worked the first few times, and that got my hopes up, making me even more obsessive. But, inevitably, I began to slip. Chapters started to take more than a week. At first I tried to keep to my Finished Before Christmas dream by pushing myself to work even harder. "I didn't get it done in a week, but if I finish it by Tuesday I can still get the next one done on time. I'll just have to pull some late nights and work all day Saturday." Even when it was clear that I wouldn't finish the volume on time, I still made myself work just as hard. I told myself that the important thing was to keep working no matter what. In hindsight, the result should have been obvious.

So to get back on track, I want to broaden my horizons. Obsessively working on one aspect of one project is not the way I want to go. I need to diversify. I can't just crank out new chapters of Soul Fire like a machine. My mind needs something else to engage it. As I've said over and over, Soul Fire is not my dream. I want to write my own original stories. I want to be a full time professional author, and I can't do that with fan-fiction. I need a new project to carry my interest when I've overdosed on Soul Fire. I need something different.

...But what?

That's what I'm trying to work out right now. I've decided that I definitely want to work on something else, something different from Soul Fire. But I can't decide what that other project should be. I have several vauge ideas, but I don't know which one to pursue.

The first option is the original work that I eventually intend to publish. At the moment, it's still just a collection of ideas floating around in the melting pot. I don't yet have enough of a framework to build everything upon, but the ideas are gradually expanding and solidifying. This will eventually be my first published work. I intend to build a career on it. I just don't know whether I have enough to push forward with it yet.

Another thought I had was to create an original work as a kind of practice run. I've thought of writing a short, lightweight story, not to publish but to teach myself how to write a standalone story from start to finish. I could take a fairly generic setting and storyline, borrow ideas from other works, and see what I could do with it. I think it could be a good exercise. I wouldn't want to publish something too simple and cliched, but I need to know how to write a proper story. One of the problems with Soul Fire is that it's more like a weekly series than a novel. Like I said in my last journal, it has no planned ending, and it has no clear goal or direction.

Other ideas include a second Naruto fan-fiction, a fan-fiction based in another setting, and some short comic/doujin projects. I think I'd prefer something original, but I could run one of these on the side. Regardless, I absolutely have to expand. I can't do Soul Fire alone. I will get sick of it.

Now I want to ask for your opinions. I really, really want to hear what you think. Please give me suggestions. I need to pick a direction here, and you may be able to steer me a little bit. This is what I will be working on for the rest of the year. You might get to see some of this stuff. Please tell me what you want to see! Even if it's just a few brief words, make a comment. Tell me what you like and what you want to read. I will be grateful for any feedback at all.

Grandma got run over by a reindeer,
walking home from our house Christmas eve,
People say there's no such thing as Santa,
but as for me and Grandma, we believe

A very merry Christmas to all!


Also, thank you to those who noticed it was my birthday two weeks ago. I'm 32 now and it feels ... exactly the same as it has for the last five years or so. Seriously, when you get to my age, it's just a random number. Then you hit 40 and everything is supposed to start going down hill, aparently.

So what else has been going on? I doubt anybody noticed, but I've been extra quiet lately (not that I've ever been particularly deafening). Up until a week ago, that was due to a somewhat misguided mission I'd set myself on. Those who bother to listen to my mad ramblings may have noticed that I've been working extra hard on Soul Fire as of late. This may not have reflected all too clearly in my chapter release schedule, but I have indeed been applying nose to grindstone with excessive vigour. I never said it, but I'd actually set myself a private goal. At some point, about ten weeks ago perhaps, I made the decision to work every weekday evening and every Saturday without fail until Christmas. The intention was to test my resolve and to train myself out of my natural tendency toward lazyness and procrastination. So, did I succeed?

No! I worked myself sick! Literally! A week ago, I caught a nasty stomach bug, the third I've caught this year. And it's taken three times for my body to get the message across to my overconfident mind.

"You are not capable of working full time at your money job and spending all of your free time working on your writing! So stop it!"

Message recieved. Time to take it easy. Oh, and let me make it clear: I AM OVER IT NOW. DON'T SEND ME A BUNCH OF GET WELL SOON MESSAGES. Oh dear. I just remembered somebody sending me a comment warning me not to overwork myself. And I was so cocky as to tell them I don't do that sort of thing.


Thank you, whoever that was. Perhaps I'll listen next time.

Anyway, the point is I've reassessed my priorities. I spent the week up until Christmas recovering from my illness (once again I AM FINE NOW). That was a week I would have otherwise spent feeverishly working on Soul Fire. Am I now going to make up for lost time by diving back into my work? No. I like to imagine that I am wiser than I was a week ago. I am going to take the time that my body and mind need to get back on form. However long that is.

With Christmas almost over now, I am looking forward to a camping trip with my family (I live in the Southern Hemisphere, remember. I'm not going to freeze to death). Several days spent completely unplugged should be just what I need. I am going to spend the time relaxing, and also reflecting on my work in the year to come. I'm going to look at where I am, where I've been, and where I want to go. When I come back, I will be making some important decisions about where my focus will be. Will it be upon Soul Fire? Will it be elsewhere? Shall I broaden into a wider range of projects, or focus entirely on one?

At the moment, everything is up in the air (figuratively). I don't know if Soul Fire will even be with us in the new year. Perhaps it will become a side project, worked on as-and-when I feel like it. Or perhaps I will reinvest my passion and march forward with it exclusively. I don't know. I need time to rest and reflect. But as I've said, one day it will have to be laid aside. I have no ending planned for Soul Fire. I don't have any clear goal to work toward. If I did plan an ending, it would only be for the sake of ending it. And somehow that doesn't seem right.

Well, it's time for bed. That's another Christmas come and gone for me. Time to make use of my precious hollidays. Here's to not wasting them on video games again. Or perhaps that's just what I need? I'll be seeing you in the new year, perhaps even with a fateful decision. Peace be with you.