Works In Progress

I seem to remember mentioning in a previous entry that I tend to have a ridiculous number of writing projects on the go at any one time. This is both encouraging and frustrating. Encouraging, because it suggests that I am not lacking when it comes to inspiration, and gives me plenty to be getting on with even if the ideas dry up for a while. Frustrating, because I rarely seem to get anything finished: even when I do by some fluke manage to follow an idea through to the last sentence, it is promptly filed away in a drawer or Word document and never looked at again. For reasons of personal vanity, and also for my own future reference, here is a list of projects that I am working on, as of 11.52 pm on Sunday, 6 June 2010:


SHORT STORIES

“No Going Back”, a medium-length story about a wealthy, middle-aged Chilean woman looking back on how she betrayed her youthful ideals during the 1973 coup.

“Hands” A very short story in which a man contemplates his wife’s hands. That’s not quite it, but it’s only a tiny piece and I don’t want to give the whole game away!

“All Our Yesterdays” My current project: a longish story about relationships, bereavement and the writing process, among other things.

(Untitled 1) Written for the prompt “A moment of failure”, this untitled, unedited little piece is written from the point of view of a man who set out to assassinate a former schoolfriend who has become a brutal dictator, but lost his nerve at the last minute.

(Untitled 2) A very long short story, possibly bordering on a novella, about a couple in Berlin during the 1920s and 1930s – so, a flagrant violation of my usual rule of only writing about what I know! I haven’t worked on it for over a year now, but I still find myself thinking about it on occasion.


NOVELS

“The Jess Landau Chronicles” A rather breezy, very first-novelish (but not entirely autobiographical) novel about a girl in her first year at Oxford. This is always designated as a priority project in my head, but always seems to get neglected nonetheless.

(Untitled) Kind of a hybrid realist/fantasy novel about a troubled teenage girl who takes refuge in her overactive imagination. Definitely the most ambitious project I currently have swirling around my overactive brain, so it probably won’t see the light of day for years.


ARTICLES (mostly academic-related, to be written after submitting my Masters thesis, and for the most part spin-offs from said thesis).

1) one on the Chinese explorer and seafarer Zheng He and his image in Chinese public diplomacy today, particularly in relation to China’s relations with the developing world.

2) one on China’s role in Sudan’s North-South conflict (as opposed to its more publicised role during the conflict in Darfur).

3) One on China’s evolving attitude towards sanctions at the United Nations.

4) Departing from the China theme, I also want to write two articles on Tolkien for possible publication in the Cambridge Tolkien Society’s journal Anor: one about female characters in Tolkien’s writing, and one about metafiction and the creation of a fictional manuscript history for Tolkien’s works.


FUNNY STUFF (purportedly)

“Beren and Luthien : The Musical!” Er, enough said.

“Silmarillion Missing Scenes” 12 scenes which aren’t explicitly described in Tolkien’s early mythology, but which must have happened. Warning for extreme plot and character distortion.

Finally, a ridiculous number of political song parodies, at various stages of completion. These will only see the light of day if I am ever successful in my aim of founding a British equivalent of the Washington DC Capitol Steps.