I’m at that point in my writing where I’m not sure what to work on next. I finished up a few pieces, and have some ideas, but I don’t know where to start.
Maybe if I list my ideas and vague plans, that will help:
The hamster story. I wrote a long essay for this literary journal about the year that my childhood friend “Noah” (not his real name) got hamsters, and the hamsters had babies and ATE THEM. That same year, from what I remember, Noah’s neighbor, a young boy named Robert, was hit by a car and killed out in the highway in front of their houses.
I keep thinking this is one story but maybe it’s two. One, hamsters, and two, Robert.
The Robert story. See above.
The time I almost got a tattoo but didn’t. Included would be: the dream that made me want to get a tattoo, my ex’s affair and our divorce (of course), going as far as to visit a tattoo parlor with a drawing, putting down a downpayment, going to the Tattoo Convention, filming my parents as I asked them, “What if I got a tattoo?” Then in the end not getting one, and even forgetting, years later, that I wanted to it in the first place.
Pitches. I’m thinking about sending in a couple of pitches to this women’s magazine. One might be about how my dating prospects seemed to dry up when I turned 35, and another may be about how politeness and manners are overrated, basically a dealbreaker piece about how “lovely manners” were masking the OCD and neuroses of a guy I dated, and showed that he actually cared more about how he was perceived, rather than others’ feelings.
Lying. I want to write a story about how I constantly lie to my parents, and have since I was a kid. I tried writing something for this Asian American magazine I want to submit to, but I can’t get a handle on the angle. The story is just blah. So maybe it shouldn’t be for the AsAm mag? Dunno!
The book. What book, you may ask? Don’t know that either. I feel like I should be working on my next book, but I don’t know what it should be. That corporate mystery which I find so incredibly boring? Another memoir? I feel like it should be obvious, that it’ll come to me and whack me over the head. Of course this is more a long-term to do.
MB always manages to finish project after project, and people ask him how he does it. First off, we don’t watch too much TV. Sure, we’ll watch from about 8 to midnight, but never during the day. We also spend a lot of evenings and weekends just working.
But he also says just to take things one at a time, and to just do a project when the feeling strikes. Not to put it off, or jot it down and tell yourself you’ll do it later. Basically, “just do it.”
Now I have to decide what to do.