I'd Like to Write This Story... 

[Title shamelessly stolen from Zach.] 
 
Brooklynguy has a book idea.  I'm not really revved up about it, but it's doable.  Just needs some research and time and work.  I really do think I'd be good at nonfiction.  Sometimes I hit a groove and can explain things in a very understandable way.  Heh and sometimes not. 
    Oh all the books I have wanted to write...Actually I have begun one.  I started a novel in high school and have added a chapter here and there over the years.  Science fiction murder mystery.  Protagonist is a stellar cruise ship pilot with a lot of dirt and wildness in her past who is ready to settle down and have a family.  Enter mysterious stranger whose arrival is coincidental to the death of a political figure on board.  The murder ties into a porn/prostitution/sex slavery ring, well you can see the possibilities.  Sad thing is, I'm not particularly interested in doing it anymore.  You have to work out how you are gonna handle everything, and my tactic so far has been to write whatever hits my head and then to tie em all in somehow later.  So I have lots of individual scenes throughout the story, but no linkage yet.  That means I have a lotta thinking to do.  And not much quiet time to do it in.  Plus, one or two of the chapters truly stink and have to be rewritten.  The part where the heroine and hero find out what the villain is up to, though, I'd never change a word. 
    "Write what you know" is a saying that comes round every now and again.  I fall into a trap with that, though.  When I write what I know, too much detail gets in and it becomes tedious.  But I should give it another shot. 
    I come from the deep rural South.  My mother's family never recovered from the Depression.  My father's family was steeped in motor oil and axle grease.  Throw in cotton hoeing and catfish farming, gang warfare (yes, in rural Mississippi they do have local groups of the more nationally known gangs), hospital society, good ole boy politics, tornadoes and floods, rice farming, deer hunting with dogs...well, there's a lot to work with 
    Then there's photocopiers, though I'm a bit rusty now.  There was a time that, because I had worked in so many places with so many different kinds of copier, that I became the local copier guru.  I was the one yelled for to do the toner and unjam the paper and open and close all the hatches, as well as perform magic tricks with documents and images.  "Write what you know" rather suggested that I write a book about copiers, with all the little hints and surprises I'd found out over the years.  Dull as toast eh?  And only useful to a small segment of the population.  And only interesting to a fraction of that.  So, it didn't come about. 
    Most everything else I know about has been written about already, mostly by IDG, makers of those "Dummies" books.  So, guess I'll pick my brain and watch my life for awhile and see if any ideas pop up.