Two Novels and a Short Story

So I'm working on two novels and a short story. By "working on", I don't necessarily mean writing. I mean planning, dreaming, sketching, and that sort of thing.

The first novel is SF/Adventure. The idea for it came to me about five years ago, but it was just a kernel then, what I call a situation. Maybe there was a bit of the character, too, in that hazy dream of an idea, but not much of one.

I'm still not sure if this story is ever going to find its way from seed to tree. The body of it is there, but its limbs and several vital organs seem to be missing. I'll just have to let it lie in state for a while longer until something new and compelling comes to light. This is exactly the situation that got me started on my quest to understand how page-turners work. It's supposed to be my job to know how to take an idea like this one and turn it into the real deal. Well, I'm working on it.

The other idea for a novel came to me just the other day. This one's pretty much pure fantasy. Not surprisingly, it's been done before — a thousand times, in fact — but I don't care.

People fall in love; we write about it. People die for a just cause in war while others die tragically for causes they don't believe in; either way, we write about it. Corrupt people use power to manipulate others; we write about it. A heroic man guards his honor because it's the only way to get his true love; we write about it. I could go on for pages.

In fact, I believe I'll do just that...