The other night, I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, and since that was failing stupendously I started thinking about my NaNo story. I decided I might as well make good use of my insomnia. So I started thinking about Caleb and Jaime and what to do with them. And I came up with... bupkis. They refused to talk to me. I have very little in the way of character development for them beyond a general impression of what kind of people they are, and vague ideas of what they might actually do for the duration of 50,000 words. Needless to say, I started to feel some doubt that I can actually pull this off.
Then I was suddenly T-boned by another idea. A character I created years ago and have never really forgotten jumped in my head, and he brought his entire world with him. I started grudgingly thinking about him and his world, leaving Jaime and Caleb to frolic in their ambivalence. This new (old) character's name is Jerome Roland Broussard. He goes by Romy. He lives in 1929 New Orleans. The mood of the story is mysterious and mystical. Romy is half Cajun, half yankee, and was orphaned at a young age. He was raised by his grandparents in New Orleans, and his upbringing was steeped in voodoo and folk magic and lore. All of that seems far away to him now that he's grown, however.
Romy is a private investigator. He used to be a cop, but he was also involved with the mob. He and Sylvestro Carolla, aka Silver Dollar Sam, who is the head of the New Orleans mob, were friends as young men or teenagers, and this friendship carried on into adulthood, where it developed into a partnership between the police force and the mob until something significant happened (not sure what) to make Romy quit the force, question his life, and try to leave his friendship with Carolla behind. Of course Carolla isn't happy with this. He has tried, numerous times, to talk some sense into Romy, only to fail at bringing him back on board. You can imagine how much he hates to fail.
All that is back story. The story will actually start after Romy has been a private investigator for a while. He's divorced, does not get to see his little girl, and he's quite miserable. He hasn't been working much, and he owes money he can't repay. It doesn't seem like he has much to live for. He comes home one evening with his suicide all planned out. However, everything is thrown off track when he discovers a woman waiting for him in his home. She wants to hire him to find out someone's real identity--her own. She has no idea who she is, and has no memories of her past beyond a couple years ago.
After some deliberation, Romy agrees to put off his own demise to help her out. He can always kill himself tomorrow.
I realize this is going in a completely different direction than my original idea, but... I've always wanted to write an urban fantasy, and I am absolutely enchanted with this idea. I have more characters for it, and I have the basis for a plot, even if I don't have the plot points worked out yet. So... yeah. <_< At least I figured it out now.
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