BAD NEWS: Story idea I'd been planning for ages? The amalgamation of two separate stories I'd been wanting to write, one for a year, one for two? ... Not happening. So not happening. My plot bunnies had gotten bored waiting and, when finally handed free time and a complete story, were just like "Eh. You already know the end now. What's the point?" In my traditional analogy of writing a story and starting a relationship - we left it too long, it's in the Friend Zone. We could get together now, but it'd be a bit awkward and forced and ruin what we already had. Lesson learned: don't put off writing stories till you have free time. MAKE time. LISTEN TO THE BUNNIES.

GOOD NEWS: I was round at Beccy's, feeling a bit crap from this development. Summer is my traditional time of writing abandon, and last year I got 50,000 words of (for my standards) a pretty good story in 30 days. Sure, the other 5,000 and, oh yes, the ENDING, didn't come till September, but still. Having admitted to myself that the above story just wasn't going to work, I was feeling kinda glum that I might enter July - my absolute latest starting date - with nothing to write. Sad day. So I was casting around in my head looking for a new idea, or a way to adapt the old idea and make it hot again. I thought about what I'd liked, and what had felt pointless and difficult, and just considered the basic question - what did I WANT to write about?

Quite simple - spies. Intrigue. Social politic-ing. The Library of Alexandria. Ancient Rome. Vampires, if at all possible. Conspiracies. Awesome groups of people pulling off awesome stunts against all odds.

I finally got it. In the story I'd planned, I came up with an aunt for one of the main characters who immediately struck me as AWESOME. Despite the many plot reshuffles that took place, I made sure she never got lost. It finally hit me. Why the hell wasn't I writing a story about HER instead?

By now, the others had noticed I was staring into space intently and asked me if I was OK. I managed to say, "Inspiration. Idea." They questioned me no further and just handed me a pen and some paper, and I started scribbling. It was a new, fun idea, and best of all, I could reincorporate various of my favourite elements from the previous story, with none of the things I hadn't liked. It was like the story stuck in the Friend Zone had just introduced me to its hotter older brother.

My main decision right now is whether I'm going to make it an alt-universe fantasy setting with several strange similarities to the ancient world, or throw my hands in the air and screw with history like I just don't care. The latter is more and more tempting, though it would mean several of my Classicist friends could never ever read it.

Whatever. I'M EXCITED ABOUT WRITING THIS. EEEEEEEEEEEE.