Roll out the red carpet for the new year!

After almost two weeks of lolly-gagging around on my vacation (if you believe that, you'll believe anything; hang around cause I have more lies I could tell you...) I went back to work today. Work for me has a dual purpose. It's to sell flooring, organize my guys, make customers happy, provide a sounding board for sales reps and to earn that all-important paycheck. The second reason? (Yes, all the aforementioned was only one reason.) The second reason is that the flooring shop is where I write. So when I'm on vacation from the shop, I'm REALLY on vacation.

Not quite, but almost. Because I decided, after all, to sign up for the new 2yn class at Forward Motion, I had to come up with the kernel of an idea to jumpstart my own participation in the class. I spent most of my vacation *mulling* whenever I had spare time (not much). Until Sunday evening I was hammering away at an idea that just wasn't germinating. It looked like a good kernel, and maybe it IS. Maybe it just needs soaking for another year or two. Whatever its issue, it didn't want to sprout and be a novel just now.

Now, I've been reading George RR Martin's A Game of Thrones recently (and waiting, somewhat patiently, for book 2 to arrive back to the library, but I digress...) and tried to decide what I was liking and not liking about it. Too many pov characters, though their presentations at least are solid. I like the fact that Lord Stark has five kids, not because the writer needed a magical number five, but because each child has their own personality and thus serves the story in their own way. The youngest not so much yet, but I anticipate that he'll find his uses as the series carries on. I like the fact that there are several characters that I can't pin which side they're on. I suspect that the characters themselves might not know. And I enjoyed the whole medieval castles and war thing that sometimes gets over done in fantasy, but I've been avoiding it recently so it seemed new again to me. Well, not new, exactly, but not *same old* either.

And it occurred to me that while I've written a few fantasies in my day (three), none of them took place in these kinds of circumstances. Imagine that. Quests and travelers I have written in plenty, but no castles. It's time for castles, I thought on Monday morning, and threw away that dried up kernel of an idea that didn't want to sprout anyway.

So are you ready? Here's the basic premise for my next novel (2yn, and currently un-named): Being raised as a ward of the conquering king, a young prince seeks his future in the face of brainwashing by his hosts, an uncle who wants to retain his own family line as puppet kings, and recurring visions that offer him a brighter hope if only he can overcome the difficulties and hold the faith.

That's it. At this point, I have way more questions than answers. That's the fun of a new idea, I think. So many possibilities to choose from; so many paths the writer could take. It's that old *walking the tightrope in the fog* thing. You can't see where you're going, or what will grab you if you fall off. All you can do is inch forward and hope for the best. WooHoo! I'm gonna have fun inching forward with this one!