[ 07-06-03 ] [ 7:36 p.m.]
[ Ideas for a novel born at Miller Park ]

Have I ever mentioned my great ambition to one day write a bestseller that might take its place among books like Harry Potter? Well, if I hadn't before, I did now.

Anyhow, my ambition exists on several levels, three, to be exact. One, I'd like to start a book and complete it, not start a book and let it sluff off because I get bored with it. Two, I'd like to write a fantasy novel about characters in my own world that one day you might see fanfiction on the internet about. Three, I'd like something of mine to have a cultist following, ala Harry Potter and the six billion, nine hundred and ninety nine million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine Harry Potter fans. (Just one more, J.K., and the whole world is your fan!)

Okay, maybe I'm being a tad unrealistic here. Very rarely does a book come along that captures and enraptures literally billions of people around the world into saying made-up words like "Muggle" and talking about non-existant sports like Quidditch. By the time the next book like that comes along, I'll have been long buried, and with about fifty layers of people buried over me.

It would still be nice to have a fan, a true reader, and not just someone who gets to that status on a technicality (for example, being my mother, father, a relative, my best friend, or anyone else I've developed a personal relationship with.) I can only dream of being stopped in a restaraunt by a fan and have them compliment me on the next book in the series and add their two cents worth on what they think should happen next. And even if I don't get stopped for autographs everywhere I step, I'd like to see a work of mine on the New York Times' Bestseller List.

Even if it's the last book on the list.

At least that would give me some kind of idea of how many people are reading.

Of course, to have people reading, you actually need to have something for them to read. Just sitting here talking about my future plans as a famous author is not going to do a bit of good if I don't have material I can send off to a publisher six million, ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety times before being published. (I'm into 69 today, can you tell?) I do not currently have anything in my contingent of written stuff on my personal computer in my room that is even close to fit to being sent to a publisher. Mostly, because it's fanfiction slash, stuff about a couple of race drivers and the personal lives that probably aren't accurate. Most of the characters I've written about aren't mine because they either belong to someone else or belong to themselves. To write a fantasy fiction novel, which is what I hope to someday accomplish, requires having one's own characters, one's own setting, one's own plot, one's own ideas.

I have in my head right now the tiniest seeds of what could be this first novel. I've had countless inspirations for fantasy books and whatnot before, a few that actually turned into an admirable chunk of work. When I was about eleven or twelve, I had an idea about a contingent of homeless teenagers determined to survive, and I wrote about two hundred pages of short stories about them (which I still have, stowed away somewhere.) When I was eight, I wrote a long short story about a girl who grew wings overnight. Even back when I was about six, I was writing stories about dogs that could talk. I've been writing as long as I've been able to, and I've had ideas for fantasy worlds pop into my head, but lately nothing has sparked my interest.

Before I describe this latest fantasy world that lives in my head to you, a word must be said about my creative spurt, if that's what you call it. I get inspiration from very strange things. Not as strange as a toaster or a couch or something along those lines, but places. Houses, buildings. If it looks interesting to me, often I can find a way to change it into what's required for a potential fantasy land.

Which brings me to what I was doing today. (This is getting really long, isn't it? Meh, I apologize, but I'm not done yet.) Today I went to my first Milwaukee Brewers baseball game. (Brewers over Rockies, 3-1.) Although the game held my interest most of the afternoon, I was in awe of the stadium. Miller Park is a huge and absolutely lovely ballpark. She looks as though she's put on her Sunday best, all color-coordinated in forest green; she reminds me part of an airport, part of the Mall of America, and part of Lambeau Field. Needless to say, I fell in love with the place immediately. And it sparked my interest, so immediately it was transformed.

Try not to laugh here.

My idea, currently, is a little rough, but it's of Earth a few hundred centuries from now after all the land has been flooded over and the planet is entirely water-covered. (Kind of like the movie Water World, if you've ever seen it, except that there's no saving grace patch of land that they're all trying to find.) On Earth in this day, humans had been living in water for generations, and had found out how to build around it, to accomodate themselves, to make cities for themselves, basically, in bubbles made out of steel. (I'm still working out how they managed to accomplish this, but I think eventually it might have something to do with an Albert Einstein of the time working on his Noah's Ark while he knows the world is flooding.) Anyway, the biggest of these cities is the one based off of Miller Park, called Mandaeryn (you say it like mandarin, you know, the fruit.) Within Mandaeryn is a nice 10-caste-system with one or two very noticeable personalities within each. My current plan is to highlight their seperate stories while showing how they're all destined to come together in a disaster that nearly kills them all.

Oh, goody! I'm beginning to sound like a bookcover blurb!

Okay. It's a bit rough. But it's stuck in my head, and now it's demanding to be written.

So will my fantasy waterworld of Mandaeryn ever float with the public, or will it sink into the Marinas Trench? I won't know unless I try.

I think I hear Microsoft Word calling my name.

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