You read that correctly. I'm going to write a novel. My oldest friend Josh and I (along with Josh's sister, Erin) have all decided to participate in this years NANOWRIMO (NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth). I first heard about this last year while reading the journal of my old college acquaintance, Tim, who happens to actually be a novelist. I wasn't really sure what he was talking about, with him posting daily word counts and all that, but now I understand. Nanowrimo is a  project open to anyone who wants to participate that requires you to write a 50,000 word novel (about 175 pages) in 30 days. That 30 days being the month of November. Tim applied the 50k words to the novel he was already writing, rather than cramming an entire novel into the month, which isn't what you're supposed to do. But, he was getting paid to actually write a novel, and that's what he does, so we'll cut him some slack. The idea is not to write something fantastic that's going to be published and make you rich and famous. No. The idea is for anyone who ever considered writing a novel to stop thinking about doing it, and wondering how to do it, and just do it. Without worrying about whether or not it is actually any good. Click on the link above for more info.

I'm not here today to educate you on the ways of the NaNoWriMo. I'm here to appeal to your opinions. You may be surprised that I have 9 ideas that I think could be made into a novel. Others may be surprised that I was able to narrow it down to 9. Either way, I'm looking for feedback. So, below, I will briefly synopsize my 9 ideas, so that you can pick your favorite in the poll at the top of the post. I enthusiastically encourage comments, feedback, and suggestions and advice. And encouragement. And patience. But not ideas, I gots plenty of them. Also, I'm thinking about using this very blog as my word processor, since I can access it from anywhere and thus throw down a few paragraphs on breaks at work. Whether or not I actually post it as I go, I haven't decided, but I think it might be a cool thing to do, although potentially creatively embarrassing. OK enough dilly-dally, here's the goods.

1) My most recent idea. This would be sort of Indiana Jones meets the DaVinci Code. Action/adventure taking place in South America. Anthropologist (or something) begins to research ancient south American knowledge and believes he's stumbled onto the path of some great secret. Uses the Mayan calendar (most accurate ever created) and their belief that the current epoch will end 12/24/2012. Hero comes to believe that the secret he's on the trail of will prevent/cause epoch end. Lots of adventure, jungles, ruins, chases, politics and philosophy thrown in. Allows me to utilize Anthropology degree!

2) Sci-Fi adventure/comedy involving a pair of bumbling recruits in the galactic army, assigned to patrol an arctic world, who stumble upon a magical book that tells of all the magical “Swords of Power” that exist in the galaxy. The book is magical because it updates itself with the swords present owners and the planet they are located on. Our slacker/heroes decide they aren't cut out to be snow troopers, desert, and begin to seek out the swords listed in the book. As they begin to find the swords, and collect them, they begin to gain a lot of attention, much of it unwanted. As they avoid galactic army officers instructed to shoot them on site for desertion, and increasingly powerful foes who want the swords, and the book, for themselves, they are forced to declare themselves a guild, and recruit others to their cause.

3)Fantasy/Comedy about a quixotic elf Paladin. (For those of you not familiar with the work quixotic, it refers to Don Quixote, who believed he was a knight). “Sir” Grady Flysbane believes he is a Paladin. His grip on reality is in serious doubt, but his delusions are strong enough to give him the courage to attempt to follow the path of the Paladin. He also seems to be incredibly lucky, managing not to die at every turn, and sometimes even managing to succeed somehow. The story would be told from the delusional point of view of Sir Grady, and from the more stoic, impatient point of view of a scheming royal vassal, who plans to manipulate the clearly clueless “hero” to his own ends. Grady has little memory of his life before “being called upon by Mighty Millennium, the Dragon God of Warriors”. Armed with “The Mighty Fist of God”, his holy sword (which is a rusty longsword someone had discarded) and with his faithful mount, “Iron Mane” (A large, reluctant dog), Sir Grady seeks to conquer evil and win the hand of the King's fair (butt ugly) daughter.

4) Sci-fi/comedy. The planet Gustav is overpopulated. Its unfortunately fertile people grew so desperate for space, they eventually resorted to invading and conquering nearby planets just to get some leg room. But their fertility cannot be contained, leading their culture into an endless cycle of conquering planets, filling them up, and finding the next to attack. People are such a renewable resource that pilots are simply hurled at planets in hastily constructed, crude fighter ships nicknamed “Gustos”. High command isn't worried about how many casualties they have, they hope for them, in fact. Less mouths to feed. Fighter pilots have to be drugged and brainwashed in order to agree to fly into certain death with no possible hope of survival, simply because no one cares if they live or not. One day, one pilot forgets to take his meds. Realization slowly starts to dawn on him during his morning meal with the other pilots, just before they are to be deployed on the one mission they will ever fly. Can he alert his peers to what is going on? Is there any way out of this mess?

5) Fantasy: This one is based on an epic dream I once had about an orphan that showed up on the castle doorstep of a famous knight, with a mysterious ornate sword. The knight, at the insistence of his wife, since they had not been able to bear a son, reluctantly adopts the child and raises him as his squire. A forbidden romance develops between the squire and the knight's daughter. The squire begins to show uncanny skill in battle, while tension builds between him and the knight over the knights daughter. It is written out extensively here.

6) SciFi: They were deemed expendable. That's why the galactic army (Same one mentioned in #2) sent them on a sure suicide mission. One thing the army didn't anticipate was that they would not only survive, but succeed. Now, the army wants to distance themselves from them, because their story is a PR embarrassment. The “Ghost Platoon”, as they became known, were cut off, and left to die on the barren planet their mission had been on. These 13 survivors formed a close bond, and discovered they had a knack for teamwork, and overcoming impossible odds. They decide to form a guild, and no longer fearing death, declare themselves the galaxies top guild, which makes them targets for every other guild in the galaxy. They plan to incite a guild war, and maneuver the top guilds into eliminating themselves, so they can gain more power and eventually stand against the very army that left them to die.

7) Comedy: Monster N is alive. He is six inches tall, and made of plastic, but he has become sentient. All his life, he has served as a movie monster miniature in stop-action b grade horror movies. Monster N wants more. Monster N wants to be a real monster. Monster N also has infinite nuclear power…in a six inch radius. He can start fires and hurt you real bad if you happen to be holding him, but that's about it. But to him, that's more than enough to take over the world, one rural town at a time. He sets out to hire one of the special effects companies he's worked with in the movies to make the world believe that he's a real monster. Meanwhile, A group of six genius slackers has convinced the federal government that there is a dire and immediate need for a special arm of the military called the “Science Patrol”. Their purpose would, solely, be to deal with the imminent threats posed to the worlds by animals and people who have suffered genetic mutations that allow them to cause mass destruction. Their purpose, simply, is to fight monsters. The truth is, they wanted to collect federal funding for doing, essentially, nothing. So they invented the “Science Patrol” as a way to get paid to work on their own bizarre research. This is the story that leads to the inevitable show-down of a plastic dinosaur model convincing the world that he's a real monster, and this team of geniuses that convinced the world there needed to be someone to fight monsters, even though they didn't actually believe it would ever happen.

8)Horror/Comedy: PIGS! Aliens have come to earth. They are not especially bright. They wish to conquer earth. So, they ask the first person they encounter what the best way to conquer the earth would be. Unfortunately for them, the first person they encounter is a hick, who informs them that the best way to conquer the world would be to form a band. Band's get all the chicks, he reasoned, and if you have all the chicks, the rest is easy. These aliens also happen to somewhat resemble pigs. So, they name the band “PIGS!” and set out to conquer the earth.

9) SciFi: Lathil is a xeno-archaeologist. He is called on to investigate a strange ruin that has been discovered on a sparsely inhabited planet near the edge of the galaxy. The inhabitants of the planet are an angry race of exiles, split off from their home-world by differing political beliefs. They don't want outsiders on their world. With the help of a small group of sympathetic local scientists, who are themselves baffled by the discovery, Lathil's team is able to access the site. He had many adventures avoiding and evading extremist locals while investigating the site, and discovers that the ruins bear a strange resemblance to other unexplained, and distantly ancient, ruins discovered on several other worlds, including a recently discovered fringe planet called Earth, with whom little contact had been made. Lathil begins to uncover an ancient secret that can save the galaxy, or destroy it.

Ok, that's all of them. Please vote, comment, suggest, encourage, mock, give money, or whatever you'd like to do to help me out. This is a daunting task ahead of me, and whelming. Although probably not overwhelming, just yet.