Plans

The boyfriend asked, “When does it calm down?”

He was fetching the toddler’s pyjamas, I was looking for a nappy. Just regular bed time rituals, but I knew what he meant. “Four,” I said. “No, maybe five.”

I’ve done the mum thing before so I ought to remember the details, but every change is so gradual. I’m not even sure there can be real calm when someone depends on you so much; but the toddler’s two and a half now and I feel I have a little more room to breath. I don’t know whether he’s easier or I’m coping better with motherhood, or perhaps it’s something else? Maybe I’m more relaxed about work and family, just happier these days? I feel ready to make plans and I believe I have a chance of seeing them through.

I have far too many plans, and my time away from work and family is limited. I need to choose just one plan to work on. This is one of those self-indulgent ‘me me me’ posts, I’ll talk to myself  and hope the discussion will help me decide what to do. Good old ‘me me me’ posts. Isn’t that what blogging’s all about?

My potential projects are writing ideas and business plans. Three fiction, three non-fiction, and two work plans. I keep thinking of more half-ideas, but I’m going to trust my head instead of notebooks, and these are ideas that  float to the top of my mind regularly.

Non-fiction ideas

A challenge blog

I joked about those challenge books, but of course I’d love to write one. I think this style of writing suits me. I’m a blogger at heart, which means I’m my own favourite subject.

I sometimes have problems committing to a project, so by doing X interesting thing for X length of time I might get to the end of  it. I’m not bothered about seeing my name on some lump of paper, so a challenge blog would be a good exercise.

It would also mean I could leave this blog and move on to a more positive project, something that’s the opposite of  ’not writing.’

I’ve written a few challenge blogs in the past,  a comedy sketch every day for a month, IWantAnAdventure.com, Silly Fun Stuff To Do With Kids, and my favourite blog  about stickering at Tooting Bec tube station.

Here’s some of my challenge blog ideas.

Everyday magic

No one believes in magic any more, of course not - not even me. In the past there was superstitious awe at churchy things, optimism inspired by scientific discovery, or the wonders of some old woman who could curse your chickens. All of that was complete nonsense, but I believe this was nonsense that enriched people’s lives. We have no magic these days, I think that’s sad. I’d like to try to change that, this would be an experiment in believing in something, anything, every day.

When I was low after splitting up with a long-term partner I decided to find magic  in unlovely Tooting Bec. Of course I knew it wasn’t really magic (shhhh, don’t tell!) but looking at it the right way I could always find something special about the place. I turned banal things into wonderful Tooting Bec magic,  part of that was  a stickering game, it was silly but I believe  it helped me find confidence in a life on my own.

So I wonder what would  happen if I invented and believed in a new magic? What would be my magic thing today? Perhaps a teacup, or maybe the colour orange. Where would a belief in the colour orange lead me?

I would find something to believe in as magic every day.

A sticker every day for a year

A challenge to make and stick a sticker every day and write about it.

What would I draw?
Where would I stick it?
Is it possible to stick stickers in a small town in secret?
What would people do if they noticed my stickers?
Would other people start stickering too?
Would I find themes, or get stuck for what to draw? 
What if nobody liked my stickers and I got an ASBO?
If an ASBO is a bit of paper could I use a Pritt Stick to stick it somewhere?

A year of National Awareness

Do you know there’s a National Sandwich Week, and a Be Nice To Nettles week? There’s traditional high days and holidays, and there are lesser ones like Oak Apple Day. There are hundreds of saint’s days, Saint Florian was the patron saint of firefighters, and his day has become International Firefighters Day. There are also  brand new special days that I could celebrate like International Talk Like A Pirate Day  and Steak and Knobber Day.

Some weeks of the year I’d have to multi-task. 9th-15th May is National Doughnut week, Christian Aid week, and also M.E. Awareness week; and on May 12th I’d need to find a rhyme for Limerick Day.  

I could combine the lot.

There was a young christian with M.E. he liked munching a doughnut or three,  he was chronically fatigued, but did a good deed,  he sold sugared buns for his charity.

I want to get up early for International Dawn Chorus Day, I’ll do that whether or not I write this blog.

A pretend travel guide

I’m never likely to go on a real adventure travelling the world, but I could have some pretend trips to  interesting places. I’m going on my first pretend holiday soon, I’ll see how that goes.

Celebrity Twitter Baiting

Celebrities are so approachable on Twitter. It would be easy to set up fake accounts, tease them, get them to say daft things and write those up on a blog. I’m probably not cruel enough to do this, but it could be funny.

Non-blog non-fiction

My PokerSite Story

My company has been involved in every high and low of my life,  the story involves so much drama, relationships lost and found, stalking, rape, murder, and customer support password resets.  The book would be a love story to the best company I know, although  I would never publish it unless they thought that was OK. I joined PokerSite.com when it was only a day old, I expect I’ll serve them till the end.

History book

I came across a story that intrigued me about an eighteenth century woman who believed God spoke to her, so she wrote down the words… Bear with me, this isn’t a God book. It’s a fascinating story because it’s about belief and doubts. No, it’s actually about a magic box!

The eighteenth century prophetess fought for her words to be recognised by the church, but  the church wasn’t interested, so she locked her prophecies in a box. This box was  guarded by her followers, who agreed that it would only be opened with twenty-four bishops present at ‘a time of grave national danger’. The box can be traced through the centuries, it was even weighed by the post office on one of the journeys between custodians.

Towards the end of the first World War a group of ladies became interested in the prophetess, they formed a society, and went as far as placing  ads on London buses appealing for twenty-four bishops to open the box. 

I discovered so many amazing characters when I researched the story, even Marx has a part. I read that in his youth he was a believer in the prophetess and her box of wonders. 

The story turns into a kind of ‘choose your own adventure’ story around the 1920s when it’s reported to be in three places at once.

In 1927 a famous ghosthunter claimed to possess the box, he opened it in front of an audience in Westminster Hall. The contents of  his box are in a library in London.

There are reports that the box was given to the British Museum for safekeeping. They were  helpful when I asked them about this.

A religious society claim their members have the box.  The charity commission forced the wealthy society to spend money, so they made a website. You can now apply online for a linen square blessed by the prophetess. They’ve posted 41,000 linen squares to Jamaica.

I don’t really know where to take this story.  I could present it as a mystery, leave it up to the reader to decide where the box is? I could put a poster on a bus, ask the bishops if they’d get involved in opening it?

Everyone projects their own beliefs on to this box. I think I know where the box is now, so some of the magic has gone.

Fiction ideas

Poker Novel

The heroine is given the password to a poker account that contains millions and she tries to find out why. This story uses my behind the scenes poker knowledge and it’s a fun romantic thriller. It plays with the Isuldur1 mystery.

To non-poker readers, Isuldur is an anonymous online player who plays for millions, or he’s Viktor Blom avoiding a tax bill.

Space rocket book

This is about a British astronaut who goes to space and goes a bit nuts, when he returns home he won’t talk about anything he saw. He  worries his wife by building a rocket to attempt to return to space. It’s all a bit sentimental, to do with a lost child and being a perfect dad. It ends up with us thinking he’ll use his  makeshift rocket in some heroic suicide mission, but he’s letting the ghost of his space-mad dead kid fly it.

Yes, I do like Field of Dreams.

Ghost story thriller book

This is a horror/thriller but I can’t say too much because the best bit is the twist ending. I love my clever twist ending. You’d never guess! Well, I hope not. Well, you’ll certainly never guess if this is all I say.

It’s about being a parent,  a woman adopts a baby, but he’s hard work and she begins to lose her life to him. The  horror film implication is that it’s some changeling child.  Is he evil? Is she mad? There’s all that stuff  going on. There’s a creepy history setting that may or may not be a MacGuffin.  It might be Blair witch meets… Hmm,  About Schmidt? Some film about loss. It would have to be directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

The changeling idea and the space rocket one could be either  screenplays or novels. I’d need a very good reason to go back to screenplays, I’ve had three doses of screenplay hell in my writing life. I’m not good at writing for other people. “We love this, we’ll make this, can you change this bit ?” You don’t like the ideas, but do it anyway. ”Thanks, but we’ve decided not to make it.” You stopped liking it, it showed, it all went bad. So you feel like shit, and get a job at a poker site answering emails.

So yeah,  books or blogging, and being in control.

Ideas

I work for a brilliant company, I’d be mad to leave and do my own thing, right? Probably. But I do like the idea of being in charge of something.

Twitter betting

I have no idea how to do this, it’s some vague idea that friends tweet #IBet and a webpage notes that, and then the friends can moderate the results to keep score between themselves. If they want to settle up for real money then that’s up to them. I like the silly pretend bets I have with my boyfriend, it would be a more organised way to do that.

I set up prediction contests for my company, an other idea is to do something along those lines.

Other idea

This one is a lot more commercial so I’ll keep the details to myself. I’d like a partner for this because it’s quite a big thing for just me. That’s all I’ll say. If you may be interested in helping get in touch. Yes, I am a bit desperate to find someone to help.

If you’re wondering why I’m so open about all the other ideas it’s because I know how hard it is  to take an idea and turn it into anything, let alone anything that’s paid for.

If someone likes one of these ideas and wants to use it I hope they’ll write to me. I’ll almost certainly give my blessing. Whereas if you do it without asking I’ll hire the most evil lawyers you’ve ever seen, and I just noticed it’s nearly 1am and I’m too tired to be funny, but imagine the nasty stuff  they’d do to you. So there.

I’d also be flattered if anyone thought any of these good enough to steal.

And the winner is…

I don’t know. I wish I had enthusiasm for one idea instead of all of them. I’ve done work on most of them, and more, if I’d spent that time on just one plan I’d have finished something.

I need my creative life to calm down as well as my family life, when does that happen?

I don’t know. It’s time for bed.