Desperately Searching for Title

[kaitou]

I'm looking forward to the start of Nano.  I finally got my idea!  And I really, really like it too.  Really.  I was having a hell of a time, so I just locked myself in my room until I had an idea.  This approach usually works for me.  Not that they're always good ideas, but the pressure helps.  Anyway.  Before I get to the actual idea, I thought I'd show you how I got it.  I think it's interesting.  But just in case you don't...

I decided to listen to some music while I worked, and pulled out my pen and a pad of paper left over from one of Dad's old contracts.  "Argent Automotive Systems...We Fix Shit With Tape"  (Love this pad of paper).  First CD I listened to was Denki Groove's Best Hits.  They have a song I love about riding the SL train.  Which made me think about a show they had on TV when I was in Japan where a guy rode the SL lines, the little side lines that run out in the middle of nowhere, all across Japan. 

Notes:  SL de ikou.  Train. 

The second CD was one Kim burned for me.  And the first song was the one from the Garden State Sountrack, you know, where they sing that "there's beauty in the breakdown."  After that was a song called "4 Minute Warning" about the end of the world. 

Notes:  gentle hero.  little sad, little lonely.  End of the World. vulnerable.  wildflowers.

Then I started looking around my bookshelves and picking up random stuff.

Notes:  Lemony Snickett.  Asia/Europe?  1920.  Final Fantasy--Airship.  cowboy.  manga.  Full Metal Alchemist.  magician, schoolteacher, treasure hunter, scholar.  Little of each?  Route 66 A.D.  And we'll all float on.

So, to wrap things up.  My hero, for now known as Frank, was a war reporter.  The war is over and his country lost, being absorbed into an empire.  Everyone is pretty much okay with this.  But Frank is convinced that the world is going to end.  So he decides to take this remaining time and ride the rails across the empire, the new country of his that he doesn't know, to the other side, and the ocean.  And he knows that when he gets to the ocean, the world will end. 
On his way he meets Lucy (also a for now name) and her young son Joe (likewise).  They're on their way to meet the family of her husband, who died in the war.  The three of them will travel together, seeing the mountains, forests and deserts.  Small kindnesses.  People selling boxed lunches through the windows of the train at the station.  Country dances.  And on the way they put their lives back together. 

It's kind of like Kino no Tabi, without all the depression.  The *actual* Beautiful World.  And, uh, no talking motorcycles. 

Comments

[melf42.livejournal.com]

Yay for NaNoWriMo ideas! It sounds great; I could never pull something like that off. I like your locking-yourself-in-room-taking-furious-notes approach. Maybe I should try that. Or denying myself chocolate until I have something workable.

I already have a pretty workable idea going which came to me randomly one day. It involves a woman who can hear inanimate objects talking to her, which provides an excellent source of random word-count-increasing opportunities.

However, I won't be able to try NaNo this year on account of the JLPT being December 5th and me Going Big and doing Level 2. :/ Well, there's always next year.

Not nearly enough of my kids have heard of Denki Groove. What's wrong with them?

[flidgetjerome.livejournal.com]

Even though I knew the idea, it's still really interesting to see how you put it together.

. . . and 'four minute warning', damn. Wierdest choice for an boyband refugee solo debute ever, that was.

[m-steelgrave.livejournal.com]

Hot diggety damn, I can't wait to read this.

[velithya]

Sounds cool. ^_^