New Directions

In the past few days, I confessed (separately) to my boyfriend and one of my best friends the method I use to put myself to sleep.

I tell myself stories. I have done this for years now. In fact, I remember some warm California sleepovers a long time ago during which my best friend and I imagined our own fantasies in virtual video cassette form and popped them into imaginary VHS players. (Oh, by the way, we were two of the founding members of the Weirdo Club. WWRTW!) In those days, our fantasies involved becoming figure skating legends or dating Nick or Brian from the Backstreet Boys. Over the years, my storytelling methods lost their literal translation from life to the screen in my head, and I focused more on the details of the stories themselves. I started seeing my novels come to life, my characters like actors in a play while a voice over described what they were doing and how they felt about it.

The past couple of months, my novels have moved off the stage (though I still retreat into their comforting embrace in daydreams), and a more sordidly detailed sort of setting has taken their place. An entire soap opera of characters and drama has gradually taken shape in my head until I can lie contented with insomnia for hours, imagining the various misdeeds and ill-begotten children of that world in my head. Having confessed this silly secret to my boyfriend, his reaction was "well, why don't you write it?"

Me? Write down all that smut and ridiculousness? I mean, I secretly adore watching General Hospital, and I can't say I haven't forgotten all of the outrageous stories my girlfriends and I used to play with our Barbie Dolls. But write it? I feel like that would be a betrayal to my other stories - stories that may involve sex and illicit relationships and murder, but have nowhere near the "watching the train wreck" feel of an actual soap opera.

However... A serial soap opera could be fun. And seeing as I have the characters and plots already formed, why the hell not? It will be entertaining, and, hey, there's a reason soap operas and thrillers and Harlequin romances sell so well. Besides, there's always the plus that this will make me post/write something every day.

The real question is - is anyone interested in reading this crazy stuff? And if not here, where could I take it?