Authors, what didn't you write?

Have you ever intended to write something and then ended up writing something completely different?

Or thought that you ought to write about x and ended up writing about y?

I don't usually have strong intentions other than to write this story or that story -- I'm willing to let the story be whatever it wants to be, but I do get derailed every so often and end up writing some completely different story instead.

I can't remember for sure what story I was supposed to be writing when I started working on Across a Jade Sea, maybe Lioness -- which is finished now, but I remember I had to start it over several times before it took off.

Anyway I was supposed to be writing something else, but I had this dream, and some worldbuilding and character aspects of the dream intrigued me, and I kept thinking about that, and my current story wasn't going well, and I ended up just scribbling down stuff for the story that came from that dream, and roughly 75 thousand words later I concluded, whatever story I might be "supposed" to write, this was the story I was actually writing.

To date it is the longest story I've written out longhand. I usually type.

I can honestly say that no story that I started writing ended up the way it was supposed to be. Characters do things, stories turn and have a life of their own.
Probably not what you meant, but it's the best example I have.
Good reference point: I made a love interest for my MC in one book. The MC's brother (by design) was the first to find her, and immediately their chemistry worked. Damn it! That guy wasn't supposed to even be involved in a love-plot. Oh well. Ended up working out well, and I liked how it wound up. :)

Usually I'm pretty good at predicting my character's romances in advance, so the one "hey, those two weren't supposed to be a couple!" that I remember happening to me, was really truly the sort of romance that most people wouldn't do on purpose. I had a romantic triangle in the one story (a rarity for me, because I don't tend to like them), and the heroine chose the younger of the two men, leaving the older of the two unattached and grumpy about it... and I liked him, and felt sorry for him, and wanted to find him some other girl. But nobody wandered on set that seemed suitable, so I shrugged, and decided to concentrate on the children of my initial couple. But, like with your couple, their eldest girl met her mother's rejected suitor, and... chemistry! And I said "Oh, my! I did NOT mean to do that. I maybe really shouldn't do that..."

I had a fellow writer inform me once that all december-may romances are wish fulfillment fantasies written by middle-aged men. At the time, I wasn't even middle-aged yet, and I have never been a man.

I haven't finished that story, but it's not because I know a lot of people will go "Ewww!" over the age difference. It's because it wants to be a graphic novel. I've got too many stories in my head and not enough time to write them all down, let alone do artwork for them.

>2 jeffschanz: I like to check author's sites and see you live in Round Rock. My husband and I lived on Sam Bass Road from 1985-1995. We moved back to Minnesota in 1995. I have been back there several times and what a change since we were there.
Leona

Cool, Leona! I know where you're talking about. I'm around town center. It's cool here, but I'm having a hard time finding work for what I do (animation). Spending my savings, but getting a lot of writing done. ;)