Does he have a vision, or does he have a marketing catchphrase? If you look back over your work, is there a common approach? (I hate the word theme, it reminds me of Pinterest)

wrod, I know. Even "vision" sounds like I'm gonna be cutting pics out of magazines any moment. I guess it's not the end of the world if we don't work on something together(Damn me for always looking for the cinematic ending) but it does make me wonder if I'd have been a better writer if I had a more long-range view of my work.(Although, pique aside, maybe my instinct that he's playing the grand piano isn't completely wrong,either. Even if the best insights don't usually come with "screw you," attached.)

Ok, I've got a character facing a dilemma about a big secret she unearths while investigating that could have big consequences for the people she's got her eye on. Initially, she was just gonna drop it, and the machinery of bureaucracy would sort of chew them up, and, fade to black.(Which is, I confess, what's probably most likely in real life, without crippled private investigators. Also, she could have angst about how her own ambition turned out badly for someone else.) downside:probably my protag wouldn't seem like a hero anymore, and I want her to...not more than life itself or anything, but I at least want her to get credit for good intentions. Probably would have been easier to write if I hadn't become attached to the couple she's watching(Which would be something she'd need to watch for also, natch.)

I could flip it, and she reports to her mentor(and by extension the insurance company he's employed by) that she didn't find anything and everything with the couple is as it should be.Which I like for making her fairly noble, but it might make her look like a bad investigator, as well as someone that an old friend stuck his neck out for and kind of got jammed. Or some kind of "Rockford" middle ground I haven't found yet...

Could you build something into the story that she could report but that wouldn't get the couple in trouble? . Like they weren't involved in the big issue, but she discovers that they are guilty of something else? It would help to know the big issue—if it was laundering money for the mob, for example, she could omit that, but "discover" that they were tricked into using the business that did the laundering.

That could work...

So, I find myself thinking about writing.

I have three basic ideas. I have had them for a long time - one really dates from when I was in high school and I "published" a version of in sort of a serial format on Usenet in the 90s (rec.music.phish and rec.music.gdead to be precise. It made a sort of sense at the time and got a good response). That's good right, that I still have these kicking around?

Anyway, now that I am feeling like maybe I could work at writing a little, I don't know where to start. I have thoughts about all of my pet ideas, and occasional new thoughts, but knowing me I need to establish some kind of discipline and choose one to focus on.

And part of my trepidation is - I'm way way way out of practice. Anything I work on will probably suck more than not. And these long gestating babies, I don't want them to suck.

That metaphor is terrible.

So the ideas, named with the shorthand I use in my head when I think about them:

The Eightfold Path - this is the oldest idea and has some work on it in existence although I'm not sure I can find any of it again.I might have it backed up on floppy drives. It might still exist on the 'net somewhere. That might not matter, the characters and plot are pretty present in my head, starting from scratch would not necessarily be a bad thing. It's potentially a rich universe. I wish I had made it a webcomic 20 years ago despite my total lack of artistic ability, at that time that might have been okay.This is the one I am probably the most afraid of screwing up. There's a lot of research I could do for this but I feel like I could also just write and insert/fix researched stuff later.

Briar Rose - fairy-tale-centric. My instinct is to focus on this one, it has clear parameters and would benefit from outlining and so forth, which would be good practice. OTOH, I also kinda feel like I could go get a degree in folklore in preparation and it would only make it better. Have done some work on it which I think is actually available to me but might need to be discarded. Shrug. Would probably go well with my need to beat back the blackberry bushes that have taken over my backyard.

Gene-modified Camelot Thing - also potentially a rich world. Have done a little work on it. Super dark, which might be cathartic to write or might just be crushing. Definitely would require research.

I don't know why I am posting this, exactly. Just wanted to put the thoughts somewhere outside my own head, mostly. But if anyone has any sort of advice I wouldn't mind hearing it.

The first thing that comes to mind is backstory. Pick a character from one of your worlds and tell us about her or his home life, his school days, her apprenticeship in the hat shop, his days in the stable, her days in the garden. How she hates the aunt who runs the house where they're both servants, how he loves to play hooky from work and go fishing. Whatever. Just get into that world through the eyes of that character, understanding that nobody's ever likely to read any of this, it's just for you, and for the character. Or pick an outside POV character and describe your character from that viewpoint. Any bit of non-essential narrative, description, vernacular, that will help you slip into that world would be good.

Oh, that's a great idea! Thank you!

Also good to start with the one with clear parameters, simply because structure, etc., can be reassuring. And I know how you feel wrt being out of practice. It really is true that the only thing that fixes that is words on paper.

Also also -- you can't be afraid to fail. Believe that there is no failure, there's only the way you're going to tell this particular story at this particular time.

Also also also -- revising really is the most important, essential part of writing. The raw stuff is just building blocks. You make them into a structure, and you might have to sand down some corners, or remove a few blocks entirely, or paint a bunch of them different colors, but they're where you begin.

Disclaimer. That was probably for me as much as for you, because I'm starting to write again, or I want to start again, and I am terrified to do it. So here's to taking my own advice?

Oh! Last alsos, I love Bev's idea, and I also super love that you'd like to write again!

Thanks very much, Amy! That is a good bunch of alsos.