The Book I'm Not Writing

I had this brilliant plan to periodically blog about ideas for great books that I've decided not to write. The title of the post is a nod to Patty Larkin's song "The Book I'm Not Reading." The only problem is that as soon as I started thinking about good book ideas that I'd decided not to write about, I realized that they're actually not such bad ideas after all. For example, the NPR story I heard that was so tragic I had to turn the radio off midway through? I'd concluded that there was no way I could dwell in the awfulness of those characters' stories long enough to write a novel about them--but then when I was about to blog about them, I realized that the story would make GREAT tragic backstory for a romance hero.I also have a story that's off-limits to me as fictional material because it's the true tale of how my sister met her husband (too icky to write that close to home). But as I was thinking about how to blog that story, I realized that I could use the amazing setting and circumstances of their first date in an unrelated novel. And then I started to think about how if my sister and her husband were the hero and heroine of a romance novel, they'd have to be a heck of a lot more extreme in their internal conflicts than they are in real life. And immediately terrible internal conflicts for the fictional two of them came to mind--perfect for a novel. So, oops! Can't blog that one either.Still, there's gotta be some material out there that's just not suitable in any way, shape, or form for repurposing into a romance novel, and as soon as I find it, it'll find its way into The Book I'm Not Writing.