Dinner with Twinklebrain

At last! This dinner has been cancelled something like five times, due to BB being ill, Twinklebrain being ill, me being ill, Twinklebrain’s cats going AWOL and, oh I don’t know, pirates attacking the back of the house.

Back to pirates later. Dinner was pretty cool. Afterwards, we talked about the idea for an event I had some time ago, and have since been trying to turn into a synopsis for a book. The boys were great, and we fleshed it out so well I am forced to admit that:

a)Yes. OK. I like it very much. I have not had a driving idea so strong in years. Theme and construction feel very original. Everything’s been done before, I suppose, but this seems very new.

b)It could be what Twinklebrain called ‘The Classic Perfect Event.’ But of course, players would do for that! But if we chose the right players, it could be something extraordinary, add their own creativity and stand well back!

c)Turning this into an event would take a vast amount of work, as much work as turning it into a book. The difference is that the vast amount of work needed for an event would be among a group of us, and would incorporate great emotional and little other reward, presuming it worked at all. A book would mean all that effort would be mine, but there is more likelihood of financial remuneration.

Hmm. My instinctive feeling is that the theme is more original as an event than as a book. But again, I haven’t seen anything like it out there in either form. So the plan continues: Book now, maybe event later. The structure of the book makes perfect sense.

One problem is that it entails a small amount of semi-realistic writing, about cars and skyscrapers, police work and guns, and this is something I just don’t know how to do. Yesterday, I wrote the start of a cute (well somewhat sinister, but I liked it) fairy story. Easy. But this? And I am so slow. It takes me hours to write something, even something I’m good at/inspired by. BB’s plan of me banging off a few paragraphs between shifts is optimistic to say the least. I need long silent stretches of time, with no noise around me. Still, I’ve trotted out thousands of uninspired words for publishers over the last two years. There will be a way. I just have to think about it.

Dreamt I was a pirate last night. Our crew was betrayed, I leapt around swashbuckling, and at one point I pushed some hapless landlubber against a wall and kissed him passionately, only to look again and see he was an old friend of mine, looking somewhat aghast. All this and no Johnny Depp. My subconscious hates me.