Writing To Do List (or Possible Death Warrant)

Having completed CPU12F Is Missing in what is record time for me, I found myself looking back at all the other non-weblog writing projects that are currently in back burner status, all conceived long before CPU12F Is Missing (though not before the original musically-inspired daydream that led to it), and was rather surprised by how many there were. Normally, I'm of the mindset that the less time talking about intentions, the better, and that even listing the titles of these stories would effectively extinguish their little flames. However, because I'm rather depressed tonight for reasons I won't bore you with, I felt like just making a little list of them. Call it a mental exercise, a test of motivation, or simply a way for me to let off some "mopey mist" if you'll pardon the dopey metaphor, I'm not even sure which is really the case.

Castlemass not a sequel to Ladyhorse, but set in the same universe of The Broken Continent and an arbitrary fifty years after the events of that story. It is written as a pair of fragmented journal entries from a clergyman and a royal handmaiden exploring, with the aid of an elven guide, an old manor house set curiously in the middle of an archipelago. The structure would have an interactive angle, where one could choose which side of the story to read first, only being able to select the other half upon finishing the original selection (via a link at the bottom of the text page). It would only be after reading both that a third section would become visible, an epilogue sharing the fate of the two characters.

Mission of Thuele This is ultimately a more refined version of Castlemass that abandons the interactive aspect and focuses more on the "his and hers" (not he said/she said) element of the multiple perspectives device. This would be a more visual project than Castlemass in that the text of the story would be presented as handwriting on scraps of distressed parchment, each with a "chibi" of the speaking character set beside their respective journal fragments. I'm currently still hammering out the characters themselves, but the basic plotting is more or less done.

Horizons (possibly canceled) This was originally meant to be written around November of 2010 with the intent of being finished by Thanksgiving.

It's listed as possibly canceled because of this movie's recent release. Granted, and at the risk of a bad pun, the distance between that film's plot and the plot of Horizons is astronomical, the only common thread between them being that they both deal with twin planets. However, Horizons (which is not set on earth, only an earth-like planet) deals with a somewhat primitive society lacking the sort of technology that would let them get a better idea of how closely their twin mirrors their own world whereas Another Earth is set on modern day earth and deals heavily with the implications of communicating with a global doppleganger. Also, Another Earth has a theme of second chances and the gravitas of difficult life choices, while Horizons is about an orphaned farm girl who hears something go bump in the night.
I haven't seen Another Earth, and I really don't care to (and early reviews I've heard have told me I'm missing nothing), but while I doubt many other people will, much less draw comparisons, even seeing posters for this film just feels like some kind of sign. It's not that I believe in fate, just that sometimes certain patterns and threads can become abundantly obvious and clear to us at opportune times and their message can often be, "Don't go there!" Stanley Kubrick had moments like that in his career, between his aborted biopic of Napoleon, fearing comparisons to the box office bomb Waterloo, and the canceled Aryan Papers, whose release would have coincided with Spielberg's Schindler's List, these are those missed opportunities that, on the whole, don't really result in much loss of sleep.
It's not giving up, it's just giving the floor over to that little voice in your head saying, "Oh, that's a terrible idea..." letting him get to and past, "... and here's why...." and finding that the little guy actually makes some really good points and isn't just a little contrarian out to ruin your day. It may sound defeatist, maybe even masochistic, but sometimes I don't mind being told, "You're wasting your time on this, go do something else." I even wonder just how many people on, say, American Idol, are genuinely relieved that Simon and Co. have told them they are not the next great musical sensation, how many just shrug their shoulders and say, "Ah, well, I guess I'll just have to do something else."

I'm not really sure where this is going, so for the sake of brevity, I'll end it here and see how I feel in the morning after I get some sleep.

Good night, and good luck.