Random thought:

I'd like to write a postapocalyptic Western. I like writing about cowboys and gunslingers and shit like that, but I could never write a historically-accurate story dating back in the 1800s. I just can't resist making obscure musical references and using words like "cool", "square", and "sweet" in their modern slang ways.

Because I'm a nerd like that nyan.

I once scribbled down a couple pages of a Western and I really loved the characters who sprang up in it. Maybell Shepard was a gunslinger girl who wanted to go out west to see her brothers (who were trying to keep an eye on the newly-settled Oregon). But nobody wanted a gunslinger girl on their wagon, so she was stuck hanging out in a saloon with her dad's friend Sam. Finally, a guy named Inigo--a wagon driver--allowed her to come with him. That's about as far as it ever got.

I liked Maybell, though; she had attitude without being an unapproachable bitch, she was a fighter without being aggressive or mean, and she was pleasant without being annoying about it.

But I think I'd be better off trying to write about a not-all-THAT-distant future. Trying to guess what we might end up like in about 50 years. I get the feeling that it won't be all that pretty an outcome, the future... but it makes for great writing fodder, doesn't it?

It would be a challenge for me, too, because there wouldn't be magic in this world. Nothing supernatural. In every story I've ever written, there's some kind of magic or supernatural activity or psychic ability involved. I've never just written a story about normal people. Maybell was normal, though. She wasn't even a super-duper-awesome gunslinger. She was just as good as her brothers, but they weren't THE BEST GUNS IN THE WEST or anything.

I think I'll try to sketch out a general idea and character profiles tonight. I'm getting bored with sitting here on my arse anyway. *nods*