Vote 1986 Romantic Comedy--Or 1932 Gothic Suspense

Wow. I didn’t realize that so many of you would actually give me suggestions on what to write for a blovel. I feel very puffed up right now. Not in a way a hot dog puffs up on the grille, because that’s gross…but how a peacock puffs out its chest and is all “Look at my feathers”. Yeah. Like that.

So reading through the suggestions, I’ve come up with two different pitches. I wish I were smart enough to incorporate every single suggestion, but I’m just not. You get two choices. Cast your vote and I’ll start writing…hopefully post something this week. I’ll write a page a day and post a couple of times a week. This is the plan anyway. Oh, and both stories are set in Michigan. I’ve got to Represent, you know. It’s sort of a big deal for me that all my books be set in Michigan.

#1 1986—Backstage Romantic Comedy

Imagine a group of awkward punks hanging out in Monroe Mall by the waterfalls. They’re depressed. Desperate. And just aching to have an artistic outlet. One girl, 21, joins a local theater company. She’s strictly backstage, working on lights and sets. She feels invisible. And when she’s dressed in black and hiding in the shadows, she really is invisible…which is just great, because she can watch the love of her life onstage. He’s a local star, destined for Broadway, and he’s Not Gay. When the leading actress gets mono, our heroine is the only one obsessed enough to have learned all the lines. She’ll have to trade in her Sex Pistols shirt and comb out her dreadlocks and become a leading lady. But it’s not going to be easy. Or smooth. And maybe being a star and onstage isn’t quite what she imagined. Funny. Quirky. Beach read.

#2 Historical Gothic—Suspense/Mystery

This one is set in Traverse City in 1932 (or late 1800's), but it’s an imagined Traverse City. There may be elements of the supernatural. The story begins in the State Mental Hospital where a new doctor on his rounds sees a woman in the tunnels cleaning. There’s something about her. Something familiar. He examines her and after closer inspection is startled to see that she looks just like his dear wife, who died two years earlier. The doctor tries to rescue the patient by bringing him to his home: a gothic, Victorian era mansion. But he has ulterior motives. He’s so desperately in love with the spitting image of his wife that he tries to brainwash the woman into believing she IS his dead wife. And eventually, she is just confused enough to believe him, even confused enough to hear her ghost child calling out to her. Literary-ish. Moody. A little scary.

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