While I have tons of random ideas that never go anywhere, I do have some I enjoy playing with. I try and keep them all, since I never know when I need some inspiration, or when things might fit in where I am otherwise missing something.
The bulk of what am toying with now fits into two worlds. The one I am have mentioned the most around the site, and that has the most work is my fantasy world, Shadow and Light, Earth and Stone. The rest fall into the modern fiction realm, all sitting in a town called Hollis.
Shadow and Light, Earth and Stone:
In junior high (yes, that long ago), I played a bit of Dungeons and Dragons, and I made an attempt at making my own campaign world. It didn’t go far at all. Years later, when I started having ideas for a story about a couple of thieves, I started pulling names from the old world. And that is pretty much all that remains of the old campaign world I had, names of places and people. It is for the better, the old stuff was pretty terrible.
As for the new stuff, it revolves around a young thief named Gibson, who worships the Mistress Shadow. At least, the bulk of what is written revolves around him. The first three stories chronicle his exploits as he makes his way through the city of Saramis. He struggles to discover what happened to his long dead mother (also a Shadow), finds his first true love, and saves the world from a budding evil that has been festering in the Church of Light.
After the events in Saramis, Commander Daylight begins her journey to root out the rest of the corrupting influence and rebuild the Church of Light to its former glory. As she discovers the secrets revolving around the divinity of the Gods themselves she has to decide just how much is shared and how much is hidden from a faith that is dedicated to finding the truth.
A plea for help lead Gibson, his estranged father, and two rangers, Terry and Jeri, that helped raise Gibson to find a cure for a Terry. Knowing the affliction is druidic in origin, they search out the missing druid enclaves, abandoned for hundreds of years, for clues as to what happened to them and where they might have gone.
After those, the ideas are far less linear. There is a lot more, tons more, but it doesn’t really have any cohesive bond yet.
Hollis:
Hollis has sort of become a catch all. I wrote a story called Canisters. It is a modern story. Everything in the story could happen, as in no magic, mythical beings, etc. Basically, a total departure from the fantasy stuffs. As I was modeling the city in my mind, it started to evolve. And while I had never named the city in Canisters, I found myself pulling locations and history of the city from it when I started writing my next modern fiction story, Welcome to Hollis. The stories themselves are completely independent and unrelated, they just take place in the same geographical location. Since then, more ideas fluttered around and they fit perfectly in Hollis.
Canisters: A lifelong obsession with cameras has led Daniel to both teach photography in a small tech school and run his own studio under his home with some friends. But photography hasn’t always been good to him, and he is reminded of that every year on his birthday. Trying to ease the blow, Connie, a constant source of annoyance and amusement, and his eventual step-sister, comes to visit. Meanwhile, one of his closest friends is trying to hide a secret that has gone terribly wrong.
The House (what I am now calling Welcome to Hollis): Will is returning to Hollis and Junction Fields after a terrible attempt at college to attend his aunt’s funeral. His aunt had raised him since middle school when his parents expatriated to Europe for work. His intentions were to make sure everything was in order after his aunt’s death and leave as quickly as possible, but he quickly falls into old habits of taking advantage of those around him. Little does he realize that those old habits are coming back to bite him.
McSec: Marc and his friends are high school students working at his father’s store, McCormick Security Electronics (McSec), learning the ins and outs of security systems and installations. But what his father doesn’t realize is what they are doing with that knowledge on the side. Their exploits become more brazen as Marc’s obsession for a classmate, Justine Tailor, grows to dangerous levels. Meanwhile, Tzim, an investigator working for the security company McSec and his competitors use for their back ends, is looking into some oddities that are popping up in the system.
Of these three, Canisters is the only finished story. And by finished, I am talking first draft stage. McSec has seen a lot of love the past few days, and note wise, is rapidly catching up with The House, though The House has far more actual content written. I have a few other ideas bouncing around, including a possible followup to Canisters (actually, two unrelated/incompatible plot lines), but I really want to flesh out the outlines for both The House and McSec before putting too much thought into them.