Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Ideas

An idea, an idea, my kingdom for an idea...oh, here's three!

Writing is a funny old thing. For ages I've been trying to come up with an idea for a lengthy piece of fiction - a novella or even a short novel. Something to break the final bits of the creative block that's plagued me for a couple of years now.

Ideas came, and ideas went. None of them seemed good enough. Not one of them had the legs to carry them into being.

Then I started reading a (terrific) novel by another writer, a book I've been asked to provide a blurb for. And something began to stir.

Ideas are curious beasts. The title of the novel I'm reading lit a spark inside my brain; in turn this spark reignited three old ideas that I'd cast aside but always rather liked: ideas that might have made three decent short stories but didn't really stretch to anything longer on their own. Yet once combined they started to writhe and transform into something stronger, something better.

Now I seem to be working on a novella that's straining to be a novel.

The working title is Edgeland. I like that. It's simultaneously mythic and intimate, and hints at many layers beneath the original trio of ideas that formed it. Indeed, here's an extract from my notes, a brief piece of dialogue that will find it's way into the tale:

Notice how it’s always three with these things? Say the devil’s name three times in a mirror. 3am. Three days until you die. Three. It’s always three – a powerful number.”


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