Superheroes and Ranchers

So this post is going to be short and sweet, since it's currently midnight and I need to get up early for work. Yesterday was my first day back on as a full-time worker at my job (I'd taken much of the spring/summer off), and ... it was a nine-hour shift and I had new shoes that I hadn't broken in yet. That was just the start of what went wrong.

Anyway, I'd like to take a moment to talk about two stories floating around in my head that were inspired by Sew, It's a Quest, but in genres completely different from Fairy Tale Retellings.

The first is HaV Academy, my Superhero Boarding School Dystopia. You may have heard me talk about it before because I actually have several chapters written. You see, back in the good ol' days when NaNo wasn't blocked on our wifi router, I was quite a fan of the roleplaying forums. Maryanne was quite fond of the forums, too, and kept putting herself into stories. One of them was for a Superhero Boarding School where the students were assigned hero or villain at whim. Maryanne went villain, and her brother, Peter, was a hero. (Healing touch tends to be more a hero thing, ya know?)

She also devised a brilliant new backstory for her parents within this world. Robin was a rock-powered villain while Robert was the plant-powered hero. Rosamond was a girl that Robert liked and Robin frequently made him rescue, while Eric was her civilian friend/fiance.

The roleplay soon fizzled out and I never actually got the chance to share this backstory. I locked it away in a box in the back of my head and never dreamed it would ever see the light again.

But then, one Sunday (I don't remember when it was, just that it was most certainly a Sunday because I was at church) it just came back to me and just wouldn't leave me alone. Within a few hours, I had plotted out most of the major plot points that are to this day the main cornerstones of ROCKS. What's more, I wanted to tell this story. I realized, however, that I couldn't tell the story without changing names. Robin was an obvious change to Roxanne, while I had to consult a baby name book to find out that Riley means heroic, so was a good choice. Eric became William because ... William. And Rosamond ... actually, her name's still in the air. I'm leaning towards Fern, though. Or possibly Lily.

The story has come a long way, and few of the characters even have the same personality they did before (save possibly Lily/Fern/Rose), but it's still a "what if Sew was a Superhero novel" idea.

The other idea rattling around in my head is newer, and doesn't even have a title beyond "Sew, It's a Western." And it's exactly that. A "What if Sew was set in the wild west and isn't a Fairy Tale Retelling." It's more of a fun what-if, and I haven't had a drive to write it, but I do feel like talking about it.

Robin's now a rancher, Robert's a preacher, Eric's the sheriff, and Rose (the only one to have had a name change thus far) is the schoolteacher that both Eric and Robert are sweet on. Robin and Eric's feud is now mostly driven by Eric. There are some other changes, but I'm too tired to think of them right now.

So swing by Anna's blog where her brother interviewed Robert!

And there are free books, but I'm too tired to hunt down links. CinderEddy and Tears, Frogs, and Laughter.