Over the past few weeks, I’ve been … let’s say fighting with myself on which of my ideas I should go with for this year’s National Novel Writing Month. Almost every single day has my brain sprouting a new idea that seems fucking brilliant until I try to expand it into something more than a single blurb, like, “A woman wakes up in her remote cabin and looks out her window to see a meteor hit the neighboring mountain.” Okay, where the hell do I go from there? I’m sure plenty of better writers out there could come up with an amazing piece of literature, but my mind just blanked after this image popped in my head.

It’s not as if I don’t already have three major stories in my head right now, anyway, first and foremost, my short story series, The Legion, that I have been rewriting for the better part of a year now. The second is Paradiso, a piece of science fiction I’ve been developing for about three years now, even going as far as submitting it to a comic book company for consideration. Obviously, nothing came of it, but that was a huge thing for me, that I’d gone as far as letting somebody reject my work instead of just publishing it myself. It showed a tremendous amount of growth in my confidence, even if it did crush me for a time. The third is Jill & Abby, almost a memoir, except fictionalized, about my struggle to heal after leaving an abusive relationship. I started writing that shortly after I realized I had escaped a narcissistic manipulator’s clutches without even knowing it, but I had to stop after it caused me to suffer several panic attacks. I feel like I’ve grown enough to approach it objectively now, but it will definitely be a struggle to keep my emotions in check.

So which did I choose? A little over a week prior to starting NaNo? That lucky bastard is Paradiso.

Well, that’s the tentative title right now, but it may change, seeing as there is a comic by Image Comics already going by that name. Mainly due to irritation that they unwittingly stole the name from me*, I have yet to read it, but due to it being Image, I will probably love it.

Anyway, I’m taking a lot of inspiration from Boogiepop Phantom, one of the first anime I watched outside of Toonami, and Mass Effect, with a hint of spaghetti western tossed in there. It doesn’t make sense to anyone else but me at this juncture, but I’m okay with that. So today – and much of tomorrow, seeing as I have the day off – is going to be spent outlining and streamlining the plots I already have prepared. I may even do some character sketches, in an attempt to at least somewhat be involved with Inktober.

Ugh. Wish me luck, I guess.

Art Credit: NaNoWriMo.org

* I know they didn’t. This is my vindictive, irritable side talking.