The Ideas Continue to Attack

In between teaching and taking care of my family, I try to find time to write and to plan for other projects. Lately, there seems to be just too many ideas that are attacking me.

Right now, I have several projects I am trying to balance:

• Writing for this blog on a regular basis, which I admittedly do not do enough.
• A companion novel for my novel Redemption. This one would take the mystical character from the first novel and introduce him into the life of a different character. Whereas the first novel was told from first-person POV, this one would be third person.
• A novel about an alien invasion, one in which the plot would be told through the eyes of the protagonist, yet done in a unique way.
• My "superhero" novel. I've always wanted to write a book about a superhero, but to do so on page is more difficult than I had thought. Finally, I realized I had a way to do this when an idea popped into my head for a science fiction/fantasy story. Although the main character will not be a traditional superhero, I think the story fits best into the "Superhero" story type as described by Blake Snyder in his wonderful book Save the Cat! I like to think of the story as "Indiana Jones-meets-John Carter-meets-TRON Legacy."
• I look back at my first attempt at a YA novel, Chupacabra, and while the story wasn't too bad, I've learned a lot about structure and character development since then. I remember how one agent said that your first novel is sort of like your "practice" novel, and I agree. Since the chupacabra phenomenon has died down, I have planned to abandon this storyline. However, I still like the concept of cryptozoolgy, and I have found a way to use the concept in its most basic, bare-bones form, and plan to develop it. Watching the television show Fringe is certainly inspiring for this.
• I am still planning on developing the nonfiction book about faith issues in LOST, and have mapped out the topics for each chapter. I just need time to sit down and to write it.
• I have also always wanted to do a book on spiritual lessons found in Hollywood films. I hate hearing how movies are full of trash today, as I think that they have great redeeming value. I remember going to see the M. Night Shyamalan movie Signs expecting a great science fiction tale, and left with a wonderful, unanticipated message about faith. I see this in so many films that I would like to bring all of these ideas together into one source.

I definitely have a lot of work ahead of me. That, plus my normal teaching job and taking several postgraduate courses over the summer will make life busy. I'm lucky to have a supportive wife who pushes me to pursue this. It may be tiring, but as long as the ideas keep attacking, I'll keep managing.