Writing Day 23/06/14

It looks like I'll be writing a post to update on my 'writing day', once per week. So how does this work?

I've been a full-time teacher for nearly 6 years, and after a couple of jobs that weren't as good as they could have been (mainly management issues), I decided that enough was enough. I'm now a part-time supply teacher, four days a week by choice, and the other day is my 'writing day'. It's a day for me to get things in order, do as much writing/editing as I can, hopefully get some stuff sent off and, by the looks of things, update my blog.

Today's a good example. I've got a piece that I'm submitting to Mocha Memoir's 'Avast Ye Airships!' anthology (some adult content on that page. NSFW warning). I've tightened it up and I'm getting ready to submit it. I can't post it here, but I can tell you that it's about airships and dragons. Clockwork dragons.

I've been working on a short sci-fi story that I submitted last week to Daily Science Fiction. It's quite retro, lots of the influences from old Asimov tales in there, but it's set in the Psy-Clones universe. If it doesn't find publication there, I'm at least generally pleased with it. It's called 'Diplomatic Immunity'.

I'm thinking about sending two of my stories to the Stuff You Should Know podcast. For a start, they always like to receive stuff and give a shout-out. Second, both bits I'm thinking of sending, 'Diplomatic Immunity' and 'Eve and the 10,000 Year Clock', were inspired by podcasts of theirs. It might be nice to close the loop and send those in.

I had my first brush with a client properly this week. I applied to do some freelance work writing articles on MMOs, of which I am an avid player. Unfortunately he wanted me to buy ingame currency, something that is explicitly against the Terms of Service, and then write reviews of the experience. I declined. Square Enix work hard to keep my game free of Real Money Trade and I'm not about to make their job more difficult.

Lack of posting recently

I'm finding it a little hard to post some things on the blog since I'm now actively trying to get things published. I can't publish anything here that I want to see in print elsewhere, basically. So today is a good example; I've written a short sci-fi piece in the Psy-Clones world, but it's standalone and could totally see publication somewhere. So I can't put it here.

Instead, I'd like to talk briefly about what I'm reading at the moment. My wife and I are reading 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne as a kind of 'book at bedtime' thing. It's fairly long, so it's slow going, but enjoyable. There are some hilarious sections though; it's something I recognise about Verne's writing that he obviously had things he particularly enjoyed, or knew a lot about. The parts of the book where he can talk about those in great detail are terminology-heavy and slightly detract from what's actually going on. Three pages about the polyps in Captain Nemo's display case is plenty. Of course, nothing so far has beaten the description of weapons on board the ship, including a 'duck gun with exploding balls'. We're so mature.

After that, we really want to read Sabriel by Garth Nix (apparently soon to get a long-overdue Kindle edition). I read it a few years ago and really enjoyed it. I love the idea of old tech in the far future, or our tech viewed through post-apocalyptic eyes.

I've been reading a lot of Isaac Asimov's Robot short stories, mainly in Robot Visions and Robot Dreams. Some of the stories are simply brilliant, none of them entirely dated. Of course, some of the descriptive elements are dated, but the stories themselves are solid gold. This includes my all-time favourite Asimov short story, 'The Final Question' which is about entropy. I honestly can't say much because I'd ruin the ending, but I think that this, and stories like this, have a lot to do with my own writing.

Psy-Clones Timeline 3/3

Inspiration for this timeline came from a variety of sources. I've been reading a lot of Asimov and Arthur C Clarke recently; several nationalist parties enjoyed success in the recent European Parliament Elections; I read an essay on what the state of government might be in the near future; finally, I watched X-Men: Days of Future Past, which is awesome.

Mars Base 3, known as MB3 to all, became a hotbed of psychic training and research. Within ten years, the first psychs had developed into a society based around research. They developed cloning technology that worked, and used it to improve the calibre of their trainees. The facility was run by a dumb-AI that was incapable of attaining sentience. It was in charge of all mechanical aspects of MB3, the cloning, food production, weather control… everything. It was also live-storing everyone’s psyche in case of death, which was a realistic threat in psych training. It would then clone a new body for them and restore them, complete with memories up to the second of death. In reality, the computer was able to do all this by peer-to-peer sharing the information in the minds of every other psych, using their brains as parallel processors. Only the upper echelons of the teaching staff were aware of this, however.

Psy-Clones Timeline 2/3

Again it was to be a scientist that provided the next step in the chain. Frederic Rawlins, an American by birth, finally succeeded in 2078 in doing what humans had been dreaming about for decades, creating the Halflight Drive. Designed to travel at half the speed of light, it suddenly made space travel en masse a possibility again. Terraforming robots were created, algae was redesigned and ships were constructed in space. The newly-completely space elevator, linking the defunct International Space Station to a small island in the Atlantic meant that materials could be taken up with increasing regularity. Within a year, with public fervour behind it, the first major mission to Mars left. Half an hour later, it arrived and began the long process of terraforming. It would be a process that would take over two centuries to complete. The construction of three habitable cities on Mars, connected by long straight roads, was begun. Ships were sent on exploratory missions to all planets of the solar system, now completing journeys in days that should have taken years, and mankind’s understanding of the universe expanded.

Although the State had been born of totalitarian control, that control had been relinquished at the right time, and the people now had hope, the promise of a future. China’s regime crumbled from within as public pressure, and the vision of how much better things were in the old countries of the US and UK, finally enacted a toll. The leaders were assassinated and a temporary government was instated. They immediately reached out to the State for aid, and were accepted.

Russia, now in control of most of Europe, found that it was alone. Stubbornly, it held on to its independence, focusing on the technology that it had always had a penchant for: Robots.

Cutter, now calling himself the Emperor of Earth, focused the planet’s sights on space.

Psy-Clones Timeline 1/3

I've split the timeline into three parts because it became quite long and winding.

Starting from within the next ten years, this is a timeline for PsyClones (which is still a working title, but it's growing on me. It's a bit silly though.)

By 2045, most factories only had a small human contingent of engineers as robot workforces took over. Even the factories that made the robots had automated assembly lines. More than that, robots were used in mining operations, undersea oil drilling and farming. One of the major robot-creating countries was Russia, beginning by using cheap human workforces and then switching as soon as possible. Unemployment, steadily rising in all countries over the previous decades, hit an all-time high. With it came mass homelessness. The areas most strongly hit were the US, which suffered a massive population boom, and Europe. China became the most tightly-controlled country in the world, as they were already closely controlling population. By 2050, it was clear that humanity was close to consuming itself. While large portions of the world’s overpopulation had been moved to relatively barren areas such as Central Australia and parts of Africa, most of the democracies of the world had elected leaders who promised harsher controls and management. Police forces were given more power in most countries, becoming repressive.

045 - Illusion

Another Psy-Clones-setting 100 themes work. These are all short and deliberately display a photo, a moment in time. I should really concentrate on creating fully-encapsulated short stories, because it's something I find challenging.

045 - Illusion

Alex sat on the single hard chair, concentrating. In his mind, he could hear the lesson, his tutor’s voice quiet, hypnotic. 

“Picture a box.”

He furnished himself with a cardboard box. It wasn’t much. The bottom was sealed with brown packing tape.

“Into the box, place your thoughts about where you are.”

One by one, he tuned out his surroundings. Into the box went the hum of the terminal, the quiet hiss of the clone tube, the sound of music in another room, other people breathing.

“Place your thoughts and feelings from the day.”

This was harder. Visualising the events as solid objects helped, but even the small victory of still being alive this late in the day was something Alex desperately wanted to hold on to. It was some minutes before he felt composed enough for the next stage.

044 - Two Roads

Also, Psy-Clones! I've been playing around with the world a bit and I've created a timeline. Worldbuilding is so much fun. I should do some actual writing sometime!

This is #44 of the 100 Themes, which takes place in a lecture room on Mars Base 3.

“There are two roads on Mars,” Dr. Judd said, pointing at the projected map, “and it’s likely to stay that way until the terraforming is complete.” Alex watched as his tutor highlighted the two thin supply routes, making notes on his own pad.

“Now. They’re dead straight, see that? Anyone care to tell me why?”

“Robots,” Alex said, not even looking up from the pad.

“That’s right,” Judd said, wiping sweat from his bald pate. It was stifling in the classroom, thirty bodies packed into a space designed for half that. “In the early days of the Empire, before the Singularity, remote-operated robots were sent here. They had the capability to construct things like roads and the habitation domes that you live in today.” The display switched to stock video of old worker drones, crawling over Martian soil like giant beetles. In front, they consumed dirt, stone, dust. Behind them, like a snail trail, a road was slowly laid.

“Of course, once the Machine Threat awoke it snatched up the drones, leaving the habitations almost complete. Earth was able to send labourers to finish the job.” Dr. Judd paused and loosened his tie. The windows had been opaqued so that they could see the holo more easily, but already Alex could hear someone snoring at the back. The quiet squeaking sounds of gum being chewed rose over the hum of the projector.

“You haven’t answered my question, though,” Judd finally said. “Why are the roads dead straight?”