A Writing Activity For the Ages

I've decided my New Year's Resolutions some days ahead of time. One involves my wonderful Moleskine!

For 2013, I will be keeping a fictional journal that I will write in every couple of days or so. The idea is to take a general character and setting and over the months and weeks, develop that character into something great and literary by this time next year.

I can also add problems and conflicts or resolve them. Since it's a record of a life, the trouble is keeping it too mundane. The first month or so will involve mainly exposition and then conflict, et cetera.

I'm not sure what premise to use. I have 3 really good ones at the moment.

I. A Victorian doctor discovers how to raise the dead -- but one wonders if it may be tied into his dark past as a doctor in a lunatic hospital? This story leaves plenty of room for suspense and dark comedy. I started writing something similar to this last year, but never finished. I had about 20 entries in that one.

II. A Bohemian writer in the early 1900s, in Paris, suffering from a broken heart, among other things. He finds a special message in the unlikeliest of places. I particularly like this one because it leaves room for exposition and the writer's thought process. Somewhat based off Moulin Rouge?

III. Detective in New Orleans. I haven't developed this one at all but that's the only idea, pretty much. Based off the song "Ravella" and the epic Anne Rice books.


Let's hope I can keep true to this resolution and come January 1st, begin to write this illustrious tale and make it something I'm proud of.

To the next!
-R