A new project

I have noticed a very interesting phenomenon.I believe it's quite common, though I have the example of only 2 people (myself and another) to cite till now.Whenever I'm studying in earnest for an exam, I usually start getting ideas; about new story plots. Of course, majority of them never get written, and some of them I leave in between. Honest confession : I've finished writing only 1 short story so far, and I was never fully satisfied with it; although the people who read it said they liked it, but I know it wasn't nearly good enough.

Anyway, it's been more than a year since I last attempted to write fiction. My 2nd minor exams for the semester are going on now, and I've had yet another idea. Only, unlike the last few ideas, I'm so much enamoured by this one that I've decided to make it a formal project for myself to finish this thing off.

Well, let me first talk about where the idea originated from.In the past few years, I've read a number of books that explore the ecclesiastical concepts of God, heaven, hell, pain, redemption and such, from a non-propaganda(as in church propaganda) point of view. Notable among them are books from Anne Rice, where she talks about sensuality and the supposedly-damned seeking redemption. The old vampire novels, like Dracula, simply wrote off vampires as essentially evil beings, with evil being their sole driving force. Anne Rice told her stories from the point of view of a vampire.And to do that essentially gives some human quality to the character of a vampire.If your narrator is a human being, then he can tell vampires to be evil quite easily, because he doesn't know anything about what makes a vampire tick; what goes on in its head.But if the narrator is a vampire, then the creature has to tell a tale in terms of motives, feelings, and his own thoughts about his situation, about God, about his place in the scheme of things(if he believes any scheme exists at all). So what she's done is to fit a former old world monster in a human mold. She goes further than that, and in her book 'Memnoch the devil', brings forward satan himself to tell his tale. The same idea has been used by a number of other writers, for instance the confession of satan in Hellblazer comic books; and if we're talking about comic books, I can't resist to mention the 'Lucifer' series which is all about the devil himself. And you have to admit, the temptation to listen to the story of the devil from his own mouth is quite irresistible. And why? Because he was the first rebel ever. And rebels make great heros, no matter what their ultimate fate.That's why Romeo was a hero, though he died; that's why Oedipus was a hero, because he still wouldn't accept divine providence as a fact of life, even after it had totally screwed up his life.They dared. And the first one to dare was the devil. Moreover, being defined as the great tempter, it's logical that he would have a charismatic personality (to help with the PR), and a persistent and ruthless streak. Classic protagonist/antagonist material.

And then I got to thinking, what about God? Well, the devil can never tell his story without talking about God and what actually brewed between the two at the dawn of creation.But then, it's the devil's version of the story; as all the scripture is the human being's version of the story. And since none of them actually knew what God was thinking when He did the things He did, God keeps moving in mysterious ways : and we can never identify with Him as a person; while we can identify with the devil when he's telling his tale.

As I said, I've never read any book in which God comes forward to tell his story in full detail. I have read some books when God gives a guest appearence and explains a few things, but still remains utterly cloaked in mystery for all that.
And I can see the reason why. Firstly, that's what God is supposed to be : mysterious. Secondly, as I pointed out before, people love rebels. Rebels excite people, while judgemental father-figures are anything but exciting/interesting.To wit, God doesn't make a very good fictional hero material. How can He be? Heros are supposed to have flaws, He has none. And despite His well-established PR departments all over the world, the boss rarely makes an appearance Himself. So people don't have a way of identifying with Him.Hopeless case, you see. And so, as anybody can guess by now,I've decided to take up the challenge of bringing life to the dreary old stereotyped character.I am going to tell the story of God the way he would like to tell it.

The story of God : it's virtually infinite.Moreover, I want things to be a bit secular; that is, I want to include material from different civilizations. As anyone can see, it has the potential to be a total mess. So, what I've decided is, I'll start from the Old testament version of events, and tell the story of Moses and God, for starters. I've already got some idea of what form I want the story to take,but I would need to do a lot of research if I want to make it into something worthwhile : something good. I'm going to read the Christian and Hebrew versions of the tale of Moses for starters, and then find some other sources.Moreover, I figure I'm going to start writing along with doing the research, to keep the idea alive in my mind.

There's only 1 thing I'm afraid of. Earlier, whenever I had a good idea,some vivid imagery in my mind, and decided to postpone writing it until I was free from my exams; the imagery,the life and the richness usually disappeared by the time I felt I was free enough to start writing the story.That's when I lost interest in the whole thing and gave it up. I don't want it to happen this time.So, I've made up my mind that no matter how I feel after the exams,I'm going to go ahead with this and write something.I figure once I start the ball rolling, eventually it'll become better.I mean, like everything else, imagination gets better with practice.

So that's all I had to say about it. If anyone has any suggestions to give,I'll be very much interested.