So this Summer, my friends and I are renting a house in a town in Cape Cod for about 6 Weeks and 5 days. We are going to get jobs up there and everything to help pay the rent and alcohol costs. There's going to be 6 or 7 of us (all guys) and we're all best friends since we were about 10 years old and now we're all your average college kid. There's going to be lots of parties and typical college kids in the summer fun. So these past months, before we even had this idea for our summer, I've been thinking a lot about the future and growing up. Now even though I'm your average college kid, I'm the straight edge kid of the group. I don't drink alcohol and I don't smoke weed. My friends do, I don't. I feel like this angle could be interesting as it separates me from everyone else who'd be going.I also would be going into my junior year of school, while they would all be going into their sophomore year. Now we all feel like this if set to be an awesome summer trip and time of our lives. So I've been thinking with this idea: writing a semi autobiographical, possibly coming of age, novel of this trip. All of us have different personalities and experiences to offer and I feel like there is definitely going to be some good stories and bonding experiences to come from this trip that would be good to write about. Maybe I'll make some up too and make it only semi autobiographical. But what do you guys think about this idea? I mean I'm not saying I'll get it published, but just as like a side project. What do you think? All feedback Appreciated.
I think it's pretty sweet what you guys are doing, and it'd be a cool project to work on. I don't see the harm in writing it and just seeing where it goes.
can't hurt to give it a go... but i'll be interested in hearing back from you at the end of the summer on how much actual writing you get done... and how well you stuck to [or didn't] your no-booze/drugs policy... i hope you do get a publishable novel [and even better, a blockbuster of a summer hit movie] out of it... love and hugs, maia
Not to be harsh, but as I've told a hundred or more people who ask me "Is this idea any good?", ideas are a dime a dozen and are neither good nor bad. Whether the story is any good depends on how you write it.
If you are moved to write it, write and make sure it's the very best you can write. Even if you don't end up with a publishable work, you may very well have something that you can use as a jumping off point to a later project. For example: "As I glanced down at poor Larry's lifeless body, I was jolted by the memory of that summer in Cape Cod. From the time we set up in that little house overlooking the bay until the day I left to go back to New York, they had nagged me incessantly, trying to get me to join in with their booze and drugs. Only Larry had known I would never give in; only he had known that nothing, not even sweet Wendy, could divert me from the novel I was determined to write."
I think this is a good idea, because the first real novel-sized story I wrote was based on personal experience, too. I won't publish it -- it's too personal and not quite up to my standards -- but it was great practice and I'm glad I did it because it made me a way better writer.
