Obviously, some ideas I'm hanging onto. The GameBlog, a hypertext story written for this blog with actual, useable links? I'm gonna do that, Countdown or not... heck, I would have started it already if not for the fact that I was chosen to do a talk for TEDxAlbury 2025.
[Author's Note: By the way, that happened yesterday. I'm writing this ahead of time, so I don't know if the recordings will be available at the time of this post's publication, but go check out my TEDx Talk!]Some of these, I can hang onto, but others... well, there are others I let go of a long time ago, long before this Countdown died. These are the lost ideas which you'll never see, for one reason or another.
"The Horsemen of the Zombie Apocalypse" (fiction)
When I was first starting out, I had all kinds of ideas for blogfiction I could write, and this was one that I really wanted to do for the Halloween Countdown. See, I got this idea back when zombies were a huge part of pop culture (to the point that some people were getting "zombie fatigue" from oversaturation). But I thought it was interesting that in a lot of these stories the outbreak was referred to as a "zombie apocalypse".
That inspired this idea where zombies attack and kill lots and lots of people, but effectively this causes a celestial, clerical error triggering the horsemen of the apocalypse to start appearing early. If you don't know, in Judeo-Christian literature the horsemen of the apocalypse are meant to herald the end of days, arriving in the order: Pestilence, War, Famine, Death, and then Judgement happens, End of Days, oh dear...
So, the idea I had was that the main character of the story would be Pestilence (or someone working with him), but since his whole thing is disease, he instantly recognizes what's going on. He will realize the mistake that because zombies represent pestilence (as zombie virus is a disease), war (as it leads to worldwide conflict), famine (as zombies are ravenously hungry), & death (as zombies are, well, dead), it has accidentally triggered the Last Judgement.
I was toying between the ideas of either having the villain be the Antichrist, some satanic human who worked to create and release this virus. Or... maybe having one of the horseman be responsible, as each is related to zombies in some way. But the end of the story would be Pestilence rallying his fellow Horsemen together to ride towards the Hellmouth to prevent the premature apocalypse.
I ultimately never ended up writing it because researching religion makes me want to set fire to a church and because as interesting as some of these concepts were, it felt like there wasn't any real heart to this story except for the wordplay in the title.
The "Ain't That Neat" List (lists)
Listicles, the list-based article, are a staple of online media. They're easier to write, since you can either break down one large idea into bite-sized chunks, or you can combine several half-baked ideas into a leftovers casserole. Of course, like any recipe, it's all about the flavour and spice. You need to make sure it is actually engaging, with something novel or interesting, entertaining or somehow unique. So, I would compile ideas for lists in a big collection of "ideas". But, after a while, I came across a common problem with most of these ideas, and I refer to them all collectively as the "ain't that neat" ideas.
Basically, these are lists where the entire concept boiled down to one single idea. To explain this, let me provide several examples:
Bookdogs/Memefrogs - these were both the same idea. I noticed that there were several instances of Dogs associated with Reading Books (Wishbone, Bookaboo, Selby), and I noticed several instances of Frogs associated with Memes (Pepe, Dat Boi, Crazy Frog). But there was nothing else except that there's a weird amount of these, huh, ain't that neat?
Greek Words for Love - There are five different words for love in greek ("philos", "agapeo", "xenia", etc...) , but the only reason I find that interesting is because xenia is really just hospitality, and one of those words is "mania", associated with insanity. Well, hey, ain't that neat?
My Misspellings - despite being a genuine word nerd, I realized that there are several words that I spell wrong. so I compiled a list: diahorrea (diarrhea); seccoteers (secateurs); scul (skol); fouffernousse (pfeffernüsse). I was hoping to show that even a word nerd makes mistakes, but when I looked at the list I realized, I spelled these wrong because I haven't ever seen written down. Well, dang, ain't that neat?
I have so many of these half-baked lists—wait, not even half-baked, this is just raw dough of an idea for a list. I compiled lists of writers who committed suicide, archaic words that aren't used anymore; fictional books that exist in different media.
These ideas are so thin that if I tried to write it into a list, rather than elevating the material, it would just be watering it down even further. In fact, it seems appropriate that the best mileage I can get out of these ideas is putting them on this list, and I think that's rather ironic... huh, ain't that neat?
Hunter's Guide to Monsters: Chapter Fairies (fiction)
The idea for this was simply. I was writing a story where I was trying to put as many fun monsters from mythology as I could into it, and I had tried to combine related monster mythologies together, so that there weren't 30 kinds of shapeshifter, and 12 different vampires. And so an easy idea for a Halloween Countdown post was to just... write a post about my "version" of these monsters, explaining how they worked.
Unfortunately, that story was one that I abandoned (#1 on that list, check it out). I still liked the idea of playing with monsters, but having the story behind my bestiary whipped out from under me left me a little less comfortable writing them.
But, the main issue I ran into was that the main conceit was a Hunter's Guide. I really liked the idea of talking about fairies and unicorns, but my first issue came when I realized that there's not actually a good reason to Hunt a unicorn. Only the "pure-hearted" are meant to be able to do it, but Hunters are meant to protect people, but there's nothing about a unicorn people need to be protected from. But then I realized that there was a similar, but opposing, issue with fairies.
See, I am really proud of some of the monster concepts I had. I think it's silly when vampires have superstrength, since they a singular, liquid diet. Also, I like the idea of changelings looking like aliens, and having bogeymen be scavenging shadow-creatures. I also really like the chupacabras concept, a cursed abomination explaining why werewolves and vampires don't mix.
But, I also had a concept for fairies. For the record, I tend to conflate fairies and pixies. I recognize that there's a whole Irish folklore of fae and the whole Seelie Court including everything from leprechauns to banshees. But, I was talking about the little people with wings, and I had a really fun idea for that.
Basically, the idea is that they are concentrated magic, magic that had spontaneously come to life (because... magic). So, they're playful, ridiculously powerful, and blissfully ignorant of their pluripotent nature. Now, as much as this could be potentially dangerous, I also realized that there's no way that you can actually Hunt down a creature that is pure magic.
Thankfully, I imagine that fairies were too busy chasing butterflies and playing tricks to ever hurt anyone, but if they accidentally caused some kind of mischief... well, the only thing you can do is distract them. But, you don't need a Hunter for that, and it would be a very short entry if I ever tried to write it.
I've been going back and forth over whether I would ever write another chapter in the Hunter's Guide to Monsters series at all. Because on the one hand it's using a bestiary that I'm less interested in and it takes a lot of effort, research and brainpower to do. But on the other hand, I never wrote the chapter for Dragons. To me, that seems like the ultimate chapter, right? How to Slay a Dragon.
I still haven't decided if I will ever write that... but one thing's for sure, I simply can't write one for fairies, or unicorns, or many of the other little critters that I liked.
I want to start this by saying that, originally, this was an idea for a Cracked.com article. Back before that website lost its sense of humour and caught fire, I liked the idea of writing for the website. I came up with a few ideas for it, and this one was based upon three principles. Firstly, there are a lot of men who are insecure about the size of their genitalia, but I found that concept rather silly, thought it merited discussion. Secondly, because this could be a touchy subject (ha!), the websites adoration of dick jokes made for a perfect platform. Thirdly, the point was to explicitly point out that size genuinely needn't matter, by listing each size in odd numbers of inches, going from micropenis to megaphallus, 1-inch, 3-inches, 5-inches, 7-inches, 9 inches and talking about how each has benefits and drawbacks.
If you're shorter, even though it is small it's not weak and can actually engage in more clitoral stimulation and experimental positions, whereas the larger sizes look impressive, but can have issues with discomfort and injury.
I decided not to write it for Cracked, but I still thought it was a good idea. And hey, some people find the idea of talking about sex and sexuality scary and confronting, so could that make for a good Halloween Countdown post?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: What the actual fuck, are you serious, Matt? Do you even know what you're talking about, you ignorant goose... people aren't scared to talk about sex, they're embarrassed about it, those are two very, very different things. Also, yes, sure, it's a great idea that people get educated about the social and cultural aspects of sex and sexuality, but guess what, there are other, better websites, that are more informative and educational that can and have talked about this kind of thing. Sure, education isn't universal, and it can't hurt to repeat a topic just to see if you can reiterate it so that those who missed it the first time get another chance to learn. But, I don't know if you noticed this, but those are all sexual health websites, or informative, scientific/educational websites. You write a personal, philosophical website about life and writing.
So, if it's such a bad idea, why is it even on this list? Well, because I half-wrote it.
Yeah, in doing research for this, I found a half-written, joke-speckled article that I wrote all about how dick size doesn't matter. But, I've deleted it. I don't think it's adding anything to the conversation besides a lot of bad dick jokes.
"Security Level: Magenta" (fiction)
I've written a few stories for this blog starring Brian Lockburn, a small-time employee at a government-funded facility that monitors and maintains secrecy for the cosmic horrors that plague our world. If you want to check them out, the first story was Operation: White Christmas, followed later by The Ambrosial Glass.
They're also both part of a larger network of stories (some published, some not) set in the world of my "Kitchen Mythos", but in any case I wanted to write a third story. Perhaps create a trilogy of sorts? And the idea I had was a cross country road trip.
Because of the events of the last story, Cabinet Archivist Lucas Trenton was upset at Brian for, basically, making him do his job. So, finding Brian's work ethic exhausting, he decided to reassign him by promoting him (from Junior Archivist to Assistant Archivist) for a position in another state.
And, just because it was logistically satisfying, his first assignment was going to be accompanying a convoy that was transporting a top-secret delivery (from the Oven [R&D department] to the Freezer [high security prison]) in a nondescript semi-trailer; but because it's a highly classified subject, all they are allowed to know about the contents of the truck is:
“█████████████████████ 172.2 kg █████████████████”
“███████████████████████████ the container must remain closed.”
“Exposure ██████████████████████████ is extremely hazardous.”
“█████████████████████████ cannot open, under any circumstances.”
“████████████████████████ within two days █████████████████”
Hence the title. Magenta was to be one of the highest levels of security, so none of the convoy knew what they were carrying. And here's the secret: They were transporting a live alien, from another dimension. This alien will appear in other stories so I won't reveal all of its secrets, but it had a subtle area of effect ability that begins affecting the entourage and the main action will be an escape attempt in the middle of a busy highway. I was also going to use this story as an opportunity to showcase a "Specialist", a Kitchen-trained magic-user (in this case, a psychic), and he discovers what they're carrying because he senses its alien mind.
I never wrote this because of the usual issue, lack of timing. But also, I never actually came up with an ending. Sure, they arrive at the facility, but that would require me deciding where it would be, and I just never got around to it. And because I didn't think this idea was compelling enough (it lacked a real hook, a purpose behind the events of the plot), I just never wrote it beyond the first few chapters, and I don't think I ever will.
I will write more Brian Lockburn. Heck, technically I already have. I had a story of mine published in an anthology because I was so inspired by the prompt. But, I wasn't actually paid for that (I didn't read the submission policy close enough), so I still have the copyright, I might as well publish it on this blog at some point. It's called Mandatory Exorcise, and follows Brian as his workplace undergoes a compulsory security sweep for demons. But, I decided I just won't write this one. I don't even know if I like the title that much...
The Criminal Recipe Book (list)
This one kind of hurts because, for the longest time, I adored this idea. See, in doing research for writing I looked up a lot of true crime. Because, I wanted to get into the mind of a "villain", and real life treats rapists, serial killers and child molesters like villains so I wanted to know how they think. Ultimately, this lead me to the realization that morality is a social construct, but my research still bore fruit when I noticed that a lot of criminals tended not to have a typical upbringing. Rapists tended to start off with some sexual deviancy in youth; serial killers often hurt animals; child molesters tended to fail at school. There were certain patterns that I was noticing... and this lead to an idea. If there are certain factors relating to all people who commit a certain crime... could you therefore make someone commit a specific crime, by engineering those patterns?
It's an incredible idea, and really creepy. So, why didn't I write it? Well, it failed because of a single criterion: it isn't true.
When I delved deeper into this idea to research it, the patterns started dissolving. See, I realized that some of those "coincidences" I saw in true crime did exist, but that's because true crime is telling a story. I talked all about this stuff in my post The Ethics of the Truth. See, once you go beyond the kinds of people featured on My Favourite Murder, you realize that the narrative breaks down. A child going down a dark path is a compelling story, but once you step away from true crime and just look at crime reports, you realize that some people commit similar crimes for very dissimilar reasons.
But okay, I couldn't have a specific recipe "kill their cat and punch them in the nose to make a burglar" or whatever was out, but I still saw some significant overlap for "violent crime" in general. So, I shelved the idea to research further later. But, during my post all about crime, I did further research... and I was wrong again.
Yes, it turns out, if your family is poor and you're not well educated, you likely will be a criminal. Which isn't really "scary", it's just sad. But more importantly, people have willpower. For every John Wayne Gacy or Ed Gein; some kid who had a troubled childhood and was poorly educated... there's also the neighbour down the street, the woman who works at your grocery store, the guy who delivers your mail. The economy affects everyone, childhood trauma is much more common than it ever should be, and if my theory about "these factors make you into a criminal" were actually correct, then there'd be a lot more criminals in this world then there actually are. The remnants of this idea exist in my post Bizarre Criminal Connections, but even that required a huge disclaimer.
I still think, maybe, I could write a story where a devious person gaslights a specific person into becoming a killer. But that's because after all this research, I've come to the conclusion that that is where this concept belongs... the fiction section.
Thirteen Chapter Countdown (fiction)
First and foremost, I am a writer. I started this blog to force myself to write, but, I am a fiction writer, so sometimes I would fantasize about turning the Halloween countdown into one big story. It never came together, but here are some of my attempts.
The Thirteen-Story House - In Australia, we call different levels "storeys", not "stories", but this Americanism alongside Americas 13 colonies inspired an idea where a character enters an accursed, 13-storey building, and each level houses a monster. Each monster was associated with one of those colonies in some way, There was the Jersey Devil, some lake monsters, and it all ended with the Devil (in Georgia, of course). But, there was a problem... why would you enter such a house?
Also, each chapter would be the same: "aagh, monster, run/kill it, go upstairs", rinse, lather, repeat... so, I shelved this one indefinitely.
The Harringer Experiment - Initially this was about putting 10 people in a very uninteresting facility to see what could turn someone into a serial killer [yes, it was inspired by the Criminal Recipe Book idea]. Sounds creepy, but in practice it's rather silly (boredom does not, a killer, make) so instead I decided that the test was putting 9 people in an uninteresting facility with a serial killer, to see if being a serial killer was a "social contagion". Would being in a facility with a serial killer, with all that death, paranoia and conspiracy, make you become one? a slightly more believable premise, so if that inspires you go ahead and write it because I won't. Why? I don't think it's bad, but this actually inspired an even better idea... but one that would require a lot more work to write, and so it would be worth it if I turned it into a show. So I'm keeping that one secret, you'll find out what it was if/when I create it.
The Thirteenth Zodiac - the last time I ever considered doing a thirteen chapter story, I started with the idea of each chapter being related to the signs of the zodiac, including the oft-ignored thirteenth sign, Ophiuchus (that way there'd be thirteen), and each was to represent a character somehow... I didn't do this one because that's as far as the idea got.
See, for all of these, I realized that they had the same problem: the effort tightrope. If I put too little effort into it, it was so loose and lazy that it wouldn't be worth reading. If I put too much effort into it, I would be wound so tight that it would be equivalent labour to writing a book. And at that point, why not publish it as a book?
Publishing some high-effort short stories? Sure, that's good return on investment. But writing a novella and publishing it for free isn't something I would enjoy doing. The only way I could write a 13-chapter story would be if it was something I didn't think could be published, perhaps something fanfictional, experimental, or so dumb that only I think it's a fun idea. I simply never found that for longer blogfiction.
I hope you'll see what became of the Harringer Experiment idea, but besides that, the rest of these ideas are dead and buried.
So, those are all the ideas that died young, way before the Halloween Countdown was 13 years old. I don't mourn every loss, but each one helped me learn more about myself, my writing style, this blog and what I wanted to achieve out of all of this.
I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and I hope you learned something from me digging up these old memories. But enough about the past. Because, I don't know if you know this (I certainly wasn't expecting it), but this is the 399th post on this blog. Do you know what that means? Yes, that's right, the next post will be another 100th milestone. And that being the case, I have something very special in mind. So, Until Next Time, feel free to share some of your own lost ideas in the comments, but in any case, I look forward to sharing something very fun with you all, tomorrow night.
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