My only success, Intergalactic Pizza Whores in the 3rd Dimension, has been sitting in my writing directory gathering digital dust. My first attempt, 1NF3RN0, is doing the same. The other three failed projects, I'm just not sure if I'll ever go back to them. All have been my sorry attempts at writing Bizarro novels, and I have to admit to myself: I'm no Carlton Mellick III.
So this year I'm going to take a stab at something more traditional, but with my own twist.
A few months ago I put out a call for submissions for a Bizarro Fairy Tale anthology, and that project is coming along swimmingly. Not a lot of response from the many publishers I've inquired with, but there's definitely a lot of support from the authors who have graciously joined in my venture. I mention this because I think I'm going to go with the idea that spawned the antho to begin with: I'm going to fix a fairy tale.
I know this has been done before, possibly by far more talented writers than I could ever hope to be, but as a publisher friend once told me: take the story and make it your own.
I won't go into specifics about what I have planned (as far as the particular tale), but I will describe how I intend to "fix" it.
I am a D&D junkie. I love rule books. I am the quintessential rules lawyer: if it isn't listed or done the way the book says, then it is wrong. This is what aggravates me about fairy tales in general, or at least the modern depictions (e.g. Disney). So I intend to marry the modern concepts of fantasy with the fairy tale, as well as present more realistic conflict. There will still be a happily ever after, but the characters are going to work for it dammit, and there will be farther-reaching consequences and reasonable explanations for everything.
Am I taking the "magic" out of it? Maybe. But as Chris Knight said "it's a moral imperative."
Yes, I went there.