There's a writing contest and they're asking a short story using the theme "private paradise." I am trying to fgure out what that means and what I can write about. One idea I had was to research a rebel movement in the Phillippines or Uganda, or wherever, and analyze the notion of "paradise" from the perspective of people who crawl in shit every day to eke out a life. For the "private" part I would probably focus on a single person, likely a reluctant figurehead for a small anti-establishment militia (or junta, or whatever) who feels some kind of alienation from his or her followers. I want the catharsis to exemplify human isolation as a release, which is not exactly original but right now I'm just working on my storytelling technique and not so much on concocting mind-blowing plots.

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