Elvis Presley's directorial debut and other abandoned thoughts

&#x200B;<br><br>A dream, an idea, a fleeting thought to lodge in the brain of the reader and sit there for a little while. A dust-gathering ornament in the attic of the imagination. These are the worlds that are so often left to decay and wither away in the forgotten corners of my mind. I wanted to focus on five and get them out and written, even if all that results is some throwaway sentences. A small monument, a grave for the grieving to remember and pay their respects.<br><br>So, let’s talk them through in no particular order:<br><br>1. **All things must die, for all things must live**<br><br>This is a novel I’ve been mulling over for the last year, yet the core idea has been present in my head for two or three. It’s not the most complex story, yet it requires a lot of world-building and I want to explicitly bind it into a respectable and coherent mythos. The story centres around an immortal creature who possesses the ability to either heal any living thing or send them to the afterlife. They appear in different time periods and places in history, the story written in small vignettes and moments from throughout their life. They’re the catalyst for major events in history and in certain cases, even icons of a small town or community. I want to tell the story over around 300 years, with the creature appearing and disappearing through the pages to leave the reader wondering at the truth of the stories. They’ll make mistakes, they’ll have regrets and they’ll face challenges outside of their control and understanding. It’ll be a story of love, loss and what it means to live when you can’t die.<br><br>2. **The house at the end of the street**<br><br>Another story from the void, this one a fairly simple horror story about a young boy who discovers his new home used to be a place where children were kidnapped and abused. Or something. I don’t know, the idea came to me on a walk in the same way the above story did. I don’t think it’ll see the light of day, at least not for a while. Maybe I’ll put together a short story or a poem about it one day, but for now it sits as a tool to scare myself with when I’m alone with no noise.<br><br>3. **Walt Disney directorial debut**<br><br>Imagine Elvis in his pomp, the most successful and adored person in the world, being given the chance to direct his first film. Imagine Walt Disney, the man behind the dream, standing in front of a conference room full of suits and telling them he wants to make a film about nazis being beaten and brutally overthrown. Would the executives let him do that? What would the result be? Is it something we’d ever see? Elvis in a WWII epic written by and starring a man known for his children’s films and theme parks?<br><br>4. **The aftermath of a great battle**<br><br>I wrote a short piece of this one ages ago, yet never bothered to finish or expand on it. It’s about a great battle between good and evil, the armies of the gods and the armies of darkness, with one side coming out victorious and the other defeated and slaughtered. The main character is a lone soldier, wandering the battlefield and surveying the carnage. It’s about the desolation and sadness of war and the lasting impact it has on the survivors. It’s something I want to come back to and rewrite, maybe set it in the universe of my main fantasy novel and craft a narrative around one of the key events in that world’s history. Maybe in the future.<br><br>5. **Elvis Presley directorial debut**<br><br>So, the idea is the inverse of the previous, with Elvis in his later years and declining popularity coming up with an idea he wants to make and being given direction of a film. The idea is a Western, but one set in the ice age, with all the characters and animals replaced by their historical predecessors. A story of violence and savagery in a harsh, uncaring environment. A story of small tribes banding together to survive the coming winter and the monolithic beasts that stalk the tundra. It’s a daft idea and one I’ve already written a short piece of, but it’s something I’ve played with in certain scenes of other stories and it’s a concept I’m likely to come back to.