Misty Thoughts of the Past

Sleep was all right. I woke a few times but wasn't uncomfortable. Tried to work on the story. Not sure whether I'm on the right track. I'm worried that I might make it like a - and then, and then, and then story. Each instance getting larger and less believable. Like the Daffy Duck cartoon when he's selling a script to a movie producer and he has to keep making it larger and larger, until, in the end, he has to shoot himself right there in front of the man's desk. I don't know if they'd make that cartoon anymore. It's a little too suggestive.

Anyway, Gene gets off the plane and then gets on a train and what's going to happen there? That was my original idea for the story but I kind of hate to stack a take over of a train on top of a plane crash. Plus as I lay there in bed last night I realized that the movie about the emergency landing after a bird strike just came out last week, so this story will look very derivative. It didn't even occur to me as I was writing it. I was thinking, this is really great. I read the flight attendant training manual and everything. Last evening I saw the trailer for the movie and it's just what I wrote. Verbatim, from the manual.

So maybe I have to bury this story for a few years. On the other hand, no one is going to read this story. So I'm good to go.

But there seems to be many more things  I could do with this character in the story. For once I have a little plot. He's going back to take care of the deaths of his parents and there are complicated relationships galore. It's a target rich environment, for once.

I can't just let this whiz by while I take a wild swing at it with a rubber bat. I need to make more of this story. I should freeze this portion of it and write several different endings to it. That could be a cool deal. Although no one would want to read all the different versions. I should start the multiple versions at the part where the engine explodes.

What are the options? More with the kid at the window. Put somebody in the seat next to him. Add a significant other in a complicated relationship back in LA. Let one or both of the people in the next row be killed. More injuries on the plane. He's injured. Don't forget about Teddy Sablonski.

I need to go back in the story and make Gene look a little more successful. He's making a living. Also his bag's a little beat up when he gets it from the plane.

More later,