Sometimes I Worry About Myself

The following is a very accurate transcript of my thoughts as I was writing a proposal for my new English writing project:

"I definitely want to do another short story... lets see... and I want to use Great Gatsby as my book, so it should take place around that era.  I'll use dialect as one of my goals for improvement.  Now what to write about... hmm... I want to make a scathing commentary on early 1900s society.  Clearly this is going to have to be historical fiction.  Oh perfect, she said to work outside your comfort zone. This is going well! I am so cool! Chip... (eats chip) now where was I? Ahh yes. 1900s scathing societal commentary.  Wait for it... wait for it... wait fo- OOOH! The titanic! I can use the levels of the ship as a symbol (improvement goal number 2) for social hierarchy! So its going to be a story taking place on the Titanic, and I can have 2 people from upper and lower class meet each other! Wow! What a great idea! Oh crap, she told our class it can't involve death this quarter... I wonder why? Can't have been my fault. (see 2 posts ago.)  Oh well.  Moving on, I guess I'll just have to have one survive.  Maybe the other can die if I make them enough of a secondary character.  Cool, I'll write this down on the proposal now.  What a great, original, idea this is!"

(8 seconds and 2 sentences later)

"Wait a second...."

Even though my "original" plot idea sounds a lot like the movie Titanic, it will be different!  For one thing, this story will be about 5 pages.  Not 5 hours.  Also, it will not be featuring the talents of Leonardo DiCaprio, much to my resentment.  

In all seriousness though, I'm going to make it very different.  It's going to be entirely about society, not romance. And my characters are going to be very different people than Jack and Rose; far less stereotypical.  But most importantly, it's not going to be a love story, because me writing a love story would be the literary equivalent of George Orwell writing an educational picture book for babies to chew on.  It simply won't work.