I've got another novel kicking around in my head that I've barely written anything on, save for a few awful pages I scribbled in Lake Charles, Louisiana back in the late 1990s and some notes I typed up neatly in 2014. But everywhere I've lived since Louisiana I've added a few ideas to this novel, so it might be a keeper. Then again it might be one of those projects I feel compelled to take notes on, but never really write. 

I've always called this one Shelter in Place. It's about a father who has two sons, one a tough guy like himself and the other a more sensitive artsy type like me. For reasons that have varied immensely from one conception of the novel to another, the dad has rescued his children from a mother who isn't taking care of them. (Her own reasons for that neglect have varied as well.) 

The novel always seems to start in New Jersey––Paterson or some not-entirely-savory equivalent––and move to some less urban locale, such as Lake Charles or (in my most recent conception) Hot Springs, South Dakota. There's always some crime in the past that the father is trying to run away from, but it catches up with him. The older brother always falls into crime, just like his father. The father and the younger son share a bond over art or music or some such non-macho thing, and the young kid survives his childhood with a vision of life beyond what his socio-economic circumstances would typically dictate.

One of the reasons I don't think I'll ever really write this novel unless somebody offers me a lot of money is that merely writing a brief synopsis is nearly sufficient for me. I don't feel the intense desire to explore the world of the story because I'm not sure I'll discover anything new in it. I am the young kid, and the young kid is me. The father is my father. What's to discover? 

In the context of daddylabyrinth, the fact that I feel no real compulsion to write this novel tells me that perhaps I've exhausted the soil on the territory of fathers and sons. I feel like I've covered this material, and I don't want to be the kind of writer who repeats himself. (Unless it's for effect, of course, or to merely confuse dear readers like you.) 

If I take notes on it but never write it, I'll live. If I end up writing it, that probably means I'm doing it for money––in which case I will rehash all the father/son debates and wrestling matches that have defined my attempts at the novel thus far, trying to make them as accessible as possible so that others can see them clearly.

Which, come to think of it, might not be such a bad idea. Maybe I'll get some clarity out of it, too. At least more than the novels I actually wrote have ever given me....