I have a habit of not getting the wonderful ideas I have down on paper. Call me a perfectionist that wants it right the first time. I'm against outlining, but at the same time I feel that what I do put on paper isn't quite up to my standards. Case in point: there's this one original novel that I've been stuck on for a really long time. I don't want to get into excessive detail, but here it goes...
It's a psychological thriller with tinges of dark comedy set in a dystopian urban future concerning a neurotic, depressed Molly Ringwald-lookalike in an existential crisis who volunteers for her estranged, alcoholic scientist father's (Michael Caine) mega-corp-supervised human enhancement experiment after strange occurences at her school while her mother is supposedly on an unnaturally long business trip. She is "redesigned" into her dream self via gene therapy, physical conditioning, and some psychoanalysis, and begins to live her life on the edge, little knowing that she may have stumbled upon a conspiracy of other redesigned youth doing the wetwork of her father's colleague, a one-eyed Aryan prettyboy sociopath (who looks like James Spader) who is a candidate for a Nobel prize and a celebrity in the redesigning community of the future for his research and development. Further complicating matters is Ringwald's equally neurotic investigative journalist frenemy-with-benefits (who looks like Anthony Michael Hall), a Japanese cyborg femme fatale playing all sides, an evil Dick Vernon, and her new yuppie friend (Lea Thompson) who may be tied into the conspiracy. All the while, Molly Ringwald begins to doubt her own sanity. Writing soundtrack is composed entirely of eighties hits.
Sounds crazy, right? That could be part of the reason why it's hard to get down. The plot borders on Evangelion-esque levels of haziness, the characters can be a little hard to sympathize with, I can't come up with any good dialogue, the humor is lame, and in general, the project is a nightmare, but like the Molly character, there is something within me that wants me to go into the darkness to find the light.
_________________
Yes, I'm still alive.
12 Aug 2012, 10:17 am
Good luck with the next chapters!
