"Tomorrow's Bones"

Here we are, four days into July and Camp NaNoWriMo... and I haven't written a single word towards my word count goal.

That is because I originally planned on writing Ireland: The Banshee's Cry, which some of you may have heard of. However, I changed my mind. Why? I'm not sure. I think I decided I would much rather write something else. I still want to write Banshee's Cry, don't get me wrong, but I have other story ideas too, and I guess I just decided I wanted to write one of them instead.

In the end, though, I ended up deciding to write something that wasn't even a plot. It was a mash-up of various genres and characters that I came up with a long time ago. Let me explain.

Once upon a time, when I was about twelve, I watched Sherlock Holmes. You know, the movie with Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. in it. I've always been a mystery fan - I read Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, and various other books as a kid. As a young child, I read Nate The Great, if any of you remember those books. Heh, when I was about nine, my mom bought me a detective kit for my birthday. I donned her trench coat, a hat, and the special plastic sunglasses that allowed you to see who was behind you, and went out into my yard to solve nonexistent mysteries with my brother.

(And my mom was none too happy when she realized I was getting my fingerprinting powder and such all over the patio table...)

Anyway, a few days after watching Sherlock Holmes, I was outside thinking about three things - the movie, my writing, and the really odd-looking and (or so I thought) mysterious stain on the pavement.

Somehow, I decided that the stain was poison and someone had been murdered. I also decided this would make an awesome story. Another thing I decided was that, even though I knew a lot (perhaps too much) about various poisons and toxins for my age (writers know these things), I would much rather not do the research.

As a remedy, I decided the story would be sci-fi, so I could just make the poison up. I also decided that it would be a Sherlock Holmes-meets-Star Wars type of thing.

That was all I decided, and I never wrote a single word of the story.

Anyway, literally just two days ago, I decided to return to it. I added a twist on the mash-up of genres. Now, if I can manage to integrate them without making a proper fool of myself, the genres will include steampunk, space opera, mystery, and a dash of fantasy.

It took me a while to come up with a title I actually liked. I came up with several, and then asked others for their opinions. My good friend Lizzy was the one who helped me make my final decision. Her vote was for Tomorrow's Bones, because 'it has good essence and is attention-grabbing'. And so my sci-fi novel that still had no plot now had a title.

I have the two main characters planned out, except for one minor detail - one of them only has a last name, and the other only has a first name. So I'm trying to smooth those problems out as soon as possible so I can start writing.

I do have a vague synopsis though. It is by no means complete, or very good, and who knows whether the plot will change later on. But for now, here you go:

A motley group of men and women embark on a journey to find answers to their questions. Who killed the pilot of the starship, "Rush's Fate"? More importantly, why did they kill him? 

In order to discover this, this group of brave souls have to break into a high-security museum in order to commandeer the time machine that once belonged to the Fuhrer, hundreds upon hundreds of years ago on a distant planet called Earth.

Will they find the answers to the questions they seek? Will they survive the past, in order to discover the secrets surrounding tomorrow's bones?

So there you have it. I will hopefully keep plugging away at this for the next few months (since I have a feeling I'll never finish a novel in one month ever again, at least until I get out of college), and have it finished by the end of the year.