Here are a few ideas I have had over the years for writing a book, none of which I have done. I want to give them away and see if anyone else has use for them and make something out of them. If you get rich with these, GREAT, and if you want to give something back — donate to a cause you believe in.
Book Ideas:
Idea #1:
I am always reading about how we have to “cull” wildlife that has become a nuisance to human populations. I was thinking that a good book to write would be one where you would feature a community that has a problem with an animal population, out of control, how they are wreaking havoc with food, homes, encounters, etc. The community would decide how to “cull” through various methods – controlled hunt, sterilization, etc. You could have the “animal rights activists” come out against these cruel methods, the “environmentalists” come out saying that the community is the problem because they are the ones encroaching by taking over more of the animal's territories for their expansion, and so on — you get the idea. The twist would be at the end, when you find out that the whole time you have been reading this you thought it was a human community, but in fact it is a community of wolves (or other animal grouping) and they are “culling” humans. I think that this is a message we need to get, that the animal population wouldn't need culling if we weren't the ones encroaching, polluting, destroying and over-consuming the earth's resources. We need to get the message that it is US, the human population, that is the biggest peril to the rest of creation on earth. Earth will exist without us and will go on, most of the creatures/vegetation on the earth will go with us, though, because of our greedy actions. Okay, you don't have to have the “preachy” message, you make it what you want, just an idea….
Idea #2:
A new twist on Alzheimer's/dementia — forget “The Notebook” and how the man continues to tell the story of the lovers to get his wife to recognize him again. Let's look at it from another perspective. Maybe we are the ones who are losing ourselves, and not our loved one with the memory loss. We end up defining someone by who they were, the sum of our memories of them and forget that they are a being that is constantly changing from moment to moment and not any given moment can define them. Living with my mother taught me that this past year. So here is what I was thinking. You start with a person, let's say Anne, who has a parent, let's say a mother, with dementia. Anne goes to see her mother one day and Anne's mother forgets who Anne's husband is – Anne's mother has no recollection of the husband. When Anne goes home, any trace of her husband is gone and her husband never shows up. Anne becomes frantic and calls all his friends, colleagues, etc., only to get the response that they don't know her husband, she never had a husband and they are concerned about her sanity. Anne's best friend would come over to console her and Anne is trying to convince her that she has a husband and the best friend is very worried….
The next day Anne goes to see her mother and she asks her mom if she remembers her husband (let's call him Dan). This time her mother does remember him and when Anne gets home, everything is back to normal, Dan is there. Thus Anne enters an alternate reality where every time she visits/talks to her mom and her mother “forgets” someone in Anne's life, they disappear until her mother “remembers” them. Anne is the only one that knows the before and after. Anne is stuck in this “reality” of her mother's and becomes more and more afraid that soon her mother will forget who Anne is and Anne will disappear. Anne is afraid that situation will be her death, she will cease to exist and no one will remember her – she will have never existed.
So how to end this — my thoughts are that Anne needs to discover that it is her memory of her mom that holds the key to the mystery – that she has to let go of who her mother was, to finding out who her mother is and discovering that the mother's memory isn't important. Anne needs to embrace the mystery of her mother and discover how to connect in the moment and let the past go, to let the grief go and to celebrate the now of her mother.
Hope someone (who writes really well), takes these ideas and makes them their own and writes a great story. Let me know if you do – I would love to read the book.