American Horror Story: Asylum and pre Nano ramblings

Tonight's the premier of the new season of American Horror Story.  I didn't realize how much I had missed this show until right now, pretty much.  I love the fact that this season is it's own complete story as well.  I remember watching last year, earlier this year?  Thinking?  How can they do a second season of this, they're moving characters off this show like it's been canceled. lol.  I also love that, right now, they seem to be moving through the ghost story tropes, season one took place in a haunted house and this season is in an insane asylum.  Next season might take place in a hotel or prison.

Which brings me to my pre-NaNoWriMo novel ideas.

1- A man who begins having vivid dreams of himself in a faraway fantasy land begins to think they might be real, when he wakes up with a wound suffered while in the dream.  A demon begins to chase him through his 'real' life and the clues to ridding himself of this figure lie in the fantasy land that might or might not be real. (Still a lot of work on the actual story has to be done on this on, it's still a rough thought from earlier today)

2- A young boy discovers the house in his neighborhood, that's always found itself vacant, is haunted by another young boy.  (vague, I know, but honestly it's more fleshed out in my mind than a lot of the other stories tumbling around and you can see the American Horror Story analogy here, yes?)

3- To be determined. :)

I'm also reworking a bit of my original horror novel, from seven years ago, yikes!, into a novela/short story.  That novel, always without a name, seemed to be a series of short stories that were linked together, anyway.  My goals is to have it somewhat finished in a couple weeks and then send it out to some people to read for feedback.  If you're up for this task, let me know.  :)

The Casual Rowling

I've just started with this book but already I'm loving it.

Yes, Rowling typed the words 'fuck' and 'shit' and mentions sex quite a bit, already.  Her new characters smoke and drink and they gossip and act like, well, adults.  Most of the reviews I've read seem to have a hard time getting over these facts.  Some of those reviews also have a hard time with the fact that this book is 'only' about a small town and it's reaction to a death.  As if fiction has to be as big and bold as a seven book series for it to be worthy of reading.

The strange thing to me is that "The Casual Vacancy" reminds me of another author.  An author that recently passed and that Rowling, herself, had mentioned once as a favorite.  Maeve Binchy.  The small town politics and interactions between small town characters is right out of a Binchy novel.  Don't get me wrong, if you're going to be compared to/with someone then Maeve is a gem of a comparison.

I'll reserve any more judgement until I'm finished but, at the very least, Rowling has set herself up quite well for whatever else she has coming down the pipe.  She's written what she wants to and now what we want her to, that's the best she could have done.  Honestly anything she would have written would have been heavily scrutinized so why not just put something out there that represents what it is you want to do?  Like most artists that strike it big with an idea, they fall when they try to top themselves, be bigger and better than the huge album or movie or song or book that made them a household name.  Rowling's gone the other direction and released something that stays clear of that.  She's put a book out there that, if it had been her first, would have garnered her good reviews and had many a critic marking her down as an author to keep an eye on.