Hellz yes.

You know what?  Even if it's *not* crap, finishing is one of the hardest things in the world to do. 

Steven Brust, rule #9:  Remember that getting to the end of your first novel is the most difficult thing you will ever do as a writer, whether it publishes or not. Once you’ve done that once, you can do it again. Get cocky about it.


So true.

Yup, true story. 

Sometimes I'm just picturing the characters, how they're talking and whatnot... but I find that before I write a single thing, I gotta draw them.  Or at least find their mug shot...

If a character doesn't at least look *like* someone in your head, how do you expect other people will imagine them? 

- The Devil turns out to be a compassionate and sensitive being who, in a fit of pique, goes on strike because he can't stand the fact that all of humanity hates him.
- A tiny group of bedraggled aliens land on earth, against all intergalactic orders, to let humans know that hundreds of other races out there have known about us all along... it's just that they've developed immortality via a method that we can't use (being mostly water and all) and they thought this knowledge would be too cruel for us to bear.
- A small government funded group of scientists, who have made unthinkable advances when it comes to cloning and time travel, have been secretly yanking some of the greatest minds in history out of their native timeline and into the present, replacing them with exact copies right at the moment of their historical death.  Things go extremely poorly when they accidentally grab Lincoln's wife that fateful night at the theatre instead of Abe himself, and the mere appearance of a second Abe Lincoln is enough to thwart the assassination attempt.
- A group of frustrated fiction writers (heh) tired of constantly being rejected by publishers create their own publishing house as a bit of a gag.  They're surprised to receive an unsolicited manuscript one day, and reject it with strongly worded vehemence reminiscent of a certain American Idol judge, and have some fun being the rejectors instead of the rejectees.  However, their strongly worded replies garner them a certain reputation, and suddenly they find that not only is more material coming in, but some of the writer's names are beginning to look familiar.  ("Zomg!  This one's from Stephen King!  He's writing a sequel to 'IT'!"  "Holy crap!  What's it called?"  "He's calling it 'That'...")

...it's a start, neh?   

Aaron

Actually, the month or so before Nano starts the forums are usually abuzz with posts soliciting novel ideas 'n other stuff like that.  Come to think of it, those forums may still be open... I heard something about how they were going to keep the site up all year long from now on, so there may be some there already.

If you're just looking for a few 'What if' suggestions, I could throw down one or two if you wanted...