A couple of years ago, I started a Dystopian piece called Underground. I imagined it being a book, but then a short story contest by Almond Press came along. I tried to adapt Underground as a short story. It didn’t work too well, and I didn’t win. And then I abandoned the story all together. The last few days, I’ve been thinking about picking it up again. I tend to do this when I’m having a hard time with one story, jump around and see what else I should work on instead of focusing on what I need to. The problem is the story has a billion moving parts, and I need to plot it out and work out all the details of the society–doing this amount of world building is a bit overwhelming to me. And when I’m overwhelmed I under perform.

I’ve also thought of exploring Urban Fantasy a little bit more. I did a mash up piece, Urban Fantasy and Alternate History, for Chuck Wendig’s Terrible Minds a few months back, titled The Wall. You can read it at Adventures in Lululand, my other website that I’ve been neglecting lately. What’s there not to like about killer fairies? I may expand this story, as I had a lot of people interested in the concept. I did a smaller short story, Berlin, as a follow up for a flash fiction contest too.

Both of these ideas are sitting in my mind, taking up space, as ideas tend to do in writers’ heads. But at least I know I have ideas I can explore if my current work-in-progress doesn’t pan out.