Epic Project of Awesometude!

So this year b/c the program I'm with we get to do this huge project. Basically it can be anything you want like if you like science build something or if you like singing put together a show,and for mine I'm choosing to write! =) Have any of you read The House on Mango Street? It's amazing if you haven't, but I'm basing the style off of that and a few other things I've found. It's more or less going to be an extended story, but I'm not trying to write a novel. I agree with Mamie and I don't feel like I'm ready yet. It's going to be more in sections, like smaller stories within a story. The main point of the story is about a schizophrenic guy. I was going to make each of the sections one of his hallucinations who also have some sort of disorder, but based on a book I've been reading that's not as common and is more a sign of some other ailment then schizophrenia. I'm thinking since a lot of them see everything as part of some huge plot (aka such as a cough could be a signal to them or the guy on the bus got off then to get away from the oncoming disaster) that my guy is going to be thinking that all the people around him are escapees from a mental hospital, hiding among the people in the city. Which gives me a chance to focus on his encounters with peopel and I can still incorporate a lot of my original idea. Basically I wanted to post this for feedback or to see if you guys have any ideas? I want this to be as good as I can get it and I already have a bunch of ideas forming for it, but I need to finish reading the book about schizophrenia because I'm realizing I thought I knew a lot about it, but in fact I know very little.

my advice is research, research, research! you can never know too much about a subject when you're going to write a story on it. and starting out with shorter stories or even sections of stories is a very good start. there's a new author named Karen Russel, and she wrote a book of amazing short stories which I read before governor's school, and at my interview, I told George and Scott it was my favourite book of the moment, and they seemed to approve =) but now that she's published (and obviously a very good writer!) she's going to expand one of her short stories into a full on novel

oh, by the way, the book's name was Saint Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

I deffinetely want to check her out, because it's seriously hard finding your own writing style and writing well when a lot of the stuff directed towards our age and that is being written these days is basically from people who know how to cater towards the teen girly love struck side of the audience who have no talent at all. Believe me I'm trying to research the book I have on schizophrenia is used to educate familes and people recently diagnosed or care givers, so I think it's deffinetely a place to start. I also got a book made to help students in psychiatry study that has different disorders how to look for them and what sort of questions to ask.