The Homework Never Ends I wouldn’t want to be with people without tears

Staggering, Unbridled Genius . . . and Wogs

When I was thirteen or so, I was decent at riding horses. I'm not sure how I allowed myself to be thrown off the back of a pony and land on my back. I'm definitely not sure how it happened twice in ten minutes.

For years after, I had really strange back problems. And yet all I wanted to do was ride horses again. I didn't get to again until I was seventeen, but during that time, it was one of my goals in life. I didn't have a problem with literally 'getting back on the horse that threw me'.

In November, I pounded out a fifty-thousand word heap of mess called The Singing Game. I'm not even sure I can ever salvage it, but it'll be a project. Now, NaNoWriMo is meant to generate raw text, so I definitely succeeded in 'winning' the month, but the knowledge that the book wasn't (and probably never will be) as good as the trilogy was painful. After all, I worked on the trilogy for five years and put a lot of myself into it. Trying something brand-new is daunting.

I really need to get back on the horse.

So here's the deal: As previously discussed, I loved Book of Eli. I came out of it with my mind buzzing. I'd been reminded of some ideas I had a few years back, just after I first discovered Sean Kennedy. It all started with their second show, introducing Scientology in an easy format. I edited it down even further (to just the good, entertaining stuff) and beeped out profanity so that I could get my parents to listen to it (still never could).

As the series continued, the anti-Scientology hilarity (which later became a hobby of mine) evolved into an anti-establishment sci-fi adventure. That's where I branched off from Sean Kennedy and started thinking . . . thinking . . .

Now, I can only give you a basic synopsis, not because I'm afraid anyone will steal the idea but because I haven't fleshed it out much.

The US mainland has been struck by several nuclear bombs* and is cut off completely from the world. The explosions were caused by either an anti-cult task force gone insane or the cult itself, the latter of which has become the de facto government and runs all fallout shelters. When the cult begins to make life impossible for nearly all survivors, a group of survivors defect and attempt to restore peace to the shelters. When things are at their darkest, a surprising force appears to assist the Wogs.

*Part of what's holding me back is that I'll need to do a lot of research into nuclear bombs, explosions, and fallout.

It's almost guaranteed that this is going to be my next writing project. Other than the necessary research, I'm ready to start outlining. But it's hard to get started, you know?

I'm fully aware that the above synopsis makes this story sound typical and overdone. I have a few original, creative elements that are getting buried in the ultimately cliched 'post-apocalyptic rebels against a dictatorship' story. Maybe I need to rethink it a bit.

Anyway, that's sort of my State of the Author Address.