I’m working on a new project at the moment … well, working on it mostly in my head, jotting down notes, keeping it close but not too close so that ideas can come without too much laboring on my part. The working title is “The Ruined Hours” and I even made a fake book cover to give me a boost of inspiration.
Manifesting a novel …
But that’s not the point of this. The point is, I’ve been idly looking through folders (part procrastination, part OCD organizing) and finding a lot of fun, unfinished stories from years of writing practice on my own and in groups. That there are so many beginnings and so few endings isn’t a matter for dismay or shame. In fact, looking at work you forgot about can inspire a new beginning and suggest an approach to the same story through a different form. (I wrote a NaNoWriMo novel in 2020 that was inspired by a 2-page opening scene for a screenplay, so I can safely say, this mining of your own work works.)
“The Ruined Hours” also started out as a low-budget film idea. I wrote a treatment for it at the time I came up with the idea (though I didn’t ever work out an ending). But I had worked out some of the themes I wanted to explore. So, re-reading it a couple of weeks ago, I realized this was going to be my next novel (manifesting manifesting!)
In a nutshell, three friends are on a road trip in Maine. Sig is a photographer with some dark secrets, trying to recover from a breakup with her girlfriend. Velika is Sig’s best friend, a woman who’s living multiple lives online. Evan is a formerly successful musician with a hidden drug habit. The purpose of the trip is for Sig to take pictures of an abandoned house (a very special abandoned house, details withheld for now). Along the way, they come across a witch (of the wicked kind) and some very unsavory locals and well … it all goes to shit.
If you have a cache of “old” unfinished stories, you might find gold there. I’m hoping to strike it rich with this one.