Current Projects

Getting my frustrated self off frustrating topics, I shall now describe (for my own benefit as much as the few blog readers who are interested) my current writing projects.

Novels...

1. A historical fiction set during the legendary Romulus period of ancient Rome, telling the tale from the point of view of the denizens of the surrounding lands as this strange new city rises to power.
2. A bit of Biblical fiction inspired by a literal-if-outlandish interpretation of a single Bible verse. My mother came up with the idea a long time ago, and it rekindled my interest as an adult. It's the reason I haven't read The Da Vinci Code or Perdue's Da Vinci Legacy or Daughter of God...because my tale also deals with the many incarnations of Mary Magdalene.
3. A sci-fi novel where the idea came to me in a dream only a few months ago. I picture it as Lost meets Firefly meets Nell. I've had quite a few ideas hit me in dreams. This one scares me a little because it's the first time I've had to start quite literally from scratch (in any kind of non-scifi/fantasy genre, you have at least something to go on for your world) but I found that the world expanded very fast once the idea planted itself in my head.

Books # 2 and # 3 are still in the pre-writing stages, particularly 3, which is taking quite a bit of time to build the world the way I want it, while 2's main problem is all the Bible research required. # 1 is well under way, at last, after almost a year of hunting down every book about Rome that doesn't start post-Kings. (Rome did not HATCH out of the Palantine Hills, people, there was a kingdom before that Republic no matter how much Livy you believe!)

Screenplays

1. A law school movie--set at Georgetown Law. This came up in a discussion during my 1L post-finals bash: why do all the law school movies have to be at Harvard? Is it some unspoken rule? Harvard is SO boring...and there you have it. Most of my law school friends and colleagues know that if you do anything memorable in front of me, odds are you're going to end up caricatured in one form or another in my screenplay.

This one is making good progress as well, although it probably will not be finished until I've finished with law school, since it'd be rather silly to write a whole law school movie without finishing law school myself!

Fan Fiction (oh, what the hell, why not?)

1. Harry Potter and the Battle of Wills: a sixth-year Harry Potter fic that I'm co-authoring with my mother. It began as a lark last year, but now has become the most popular fanfiction I've ever written, and has a huge reader following, which is lots of fun. It's nearly done, and the first time I've ever worked with a deadline--namely July 16th, when the real book comes out!
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the White Sword: My readers of this story are about to kill me because I put it on hold to write Battle of Wills with Mum. Hey, it's not every day your mother gets into your fanfic! But this, as you can guess, is a sequel to the last movie, and involves the legends of sunken ships, a whole fleet of shipwrecked and long-dead pirates, the return of Barbossa, a mysterious sword, and the very-real earthquake that destroyed Port Royal in 1692.
3. Trumpet of the Swan: Although this has been one of my slowest projects, I'm very proud of it. It's based on Tolkien's The Silmarillion and The Unfinished Tales, namely the alternate history of Galadriel and Celeborn. In The Unfinished Tales, Tolkien was revising Celeborn's story to make him a Teleri prince, rather than a Sindarin in Middle Earth, whose romance with Galadriel began before the First Kinslaying. Trumpet tells that story that our beloved Professor never told, following the romance of the legendary elven couple through the Darkening of Valinor, The Kinslaying, and the flight of the Noldor.

So that's that. Really, just an accounting of what I'm working on, just for the hell of it. Not as exciting as the previous wank-fests, but hey, I figured I ought to get back to business sooner or later!

As for my reading list, I intend to get my paws on Wicked, one or all of Kate Rothwell's historical romances, a few narrative non-fictions like Caliban's Shore, and of course, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in exactly twenty-five days.