I've written a number of things based on dreams I had, and it's a compelling source of inspiration for me, though maybe not for the usual reason. It's not so much that my dreams are beautiful or otherworldly or creative as much as they often proceed in story format, which so much of my writing doesn't. My dreams often have a beginning and a middle, even if I wake up before the end, and that's a lot more than my waking story ideas have.
So here's a piece based on one of the strange dreams I dreamed early this morning.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
The City of New Orleans
They were called "Essence polarizers" and when they came out, it turned the tourist industry on its head. Even when the patented process was only being performed by one lonely lab in West Virginia, in 2037 the glasses and camera filters had spread all over the country. Some owned their own; most folks looking for a cheap(er) thrill rented them when visiting Gettysburg, old Salem, the local inn. But the most impressive application I ever saw was when I visited old New Orleans in the fall of that year.
Every window on the train was made out of EP glass. I remembered wandering through with a friend, trying to choose a place to sit. There were EP picture windows and EP portholes; all the tables were decked with white cloth. I slipped into a chair on the edge of one of the big windows, wondering if they really meant to serve us dinner in front of this show. The inside of all the cars was papered burgundy, with polished wood trim. It was very fine; someone had spent a lot of money; but what I remember most was the white tablecloths.
My friend sat across the table from me as the train began to pull forward. It rode into old New Orleans, and we began to see the ruins of houses... the walls were half gone, and we could see the kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms, their lines, as if they were cross-sections of houses cut for viewing, which perhaps they were... and I could see the ghosts. They looked just like people. If I hadn't known they were ghosts, the show would have been boring. Perhaps once every ten houses, we would see one or two. An old man or grandmother, or a young couple. They were walking through the rooms of their homes; they were taking out the trash, mowing the lawn. Occasionally I would see a shifting or wavering as a spirit faded in and out within my view; sometimes one would disappear mid-chore, or another appear.
The effect was little more than mundane at first, but as the train rode on, I began to feel more and not less affected. It was in part the sheer numbers. The tour went on. This is real, I thought; all these people were real. I put my face closer to the window and peered as the twilight began to come on. The grimy and white gaping interiors of houses flashed by. We were surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.
Every window on the train was made out of EP glass. I remembered wandering through with a friend, trying to choose a place to sit. There were EP picture windows and EP portholes; all the tables were decked with white cloth. I slipped into a chair on the edge of one of the big windows, wondering if they really meant to serve us dinner in front of this show. The inside of all the cars was papered burgundy, with polished wood trim. It was very fine; someone had spent a lot of money; but what I remember most was the white tablecloths.
My friend sat across the table from me as the train began to pull forward. It rode into old New Orleans, and we began to see the ruins of houses... the walls were half gone, and we could see the kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms, their lines, as if they were cross-sections of houses cut for viewing, which perhaps they were... and I could see the ghosts. They looked just like people. If I hadn't known they were ghosts, the show would have been boring. Perhaps once every ten houses, we would see one or two. An old man or grandmother, or a young couple. They were walking through the rooms of their homes; they were taking out the trash, mowing the lawn. Occasionally I would see a shifting or wavering as a spirit faded in and out within my view; sometimes one would disappear mid-chore, or another appear.
The effect was little more than mundane at first, but as the train rode on, I began to feel more and not less affected. It was in part the sheer numbers. The tour went on. This is real, I thought; all these people were real. I put my face closer to the window and peered as the twilight began to come on. The grimy and white gaping interiors of houses flashed by. We were surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.
Saturday, July 8, 2006
By its grace
It was Catholicism's greatest battle of the 23rd century. Petula Peters seemed to stand alone against the Pope and all his adherents, but she did not. There were thousands of silent watchers who had a very strong interest in how she'd fare.
They were silent because it wasn't in their genes to want what she wanted, do what she did. Not yet. Petula was an anomaly. And though she'd been checked out by a dozen specialists already, mostly at the request of the press, no one quite knew why or how the android had found religion.
There were certainly theories. That she was a good early example of true sentience; that something had gone haywire in the code governing her desire to fit in; that Petula wasn't an android at all, just a robot programmed by mischievous creators to parrot the same religious platitudes the human masses had been parroting for years.
The "just a robot" hypothesis would be discarded by anyone who met her. The lithe, steely-jawed android was deft and nuanced in her interviews. "I don't think I could give you a better answer than any human could," she'd say. "I'm doing this because it just feels right."
"When you say 'feels,' what do you mean?" asked a reporter.
Her shoulders shrugged with a click. "It is beyond thought. I sense something in me that isn't thought, and I call it feeling."
As for why the Catholic Church in particular, Petula was more certain. "The tradition," she said without pause. "The rites. The Latin. The incense."
"Can you smell?" asked another reporter.
"Yes. I can smell incense."
Someone started to ask what incense smelled like to a robot, but was interrupted by a question more pressing: "What do you think of the Church's refusal to allow an android to join its ranks?"
Petula Peters took a long pause, her silvery eyelids sheathing down. "They think that to admit me would be to undermine Catholicism, to mock it, to profane its sacredness. It is hard for me to understand. Surely true sacredness cannot be brought low; but I might by its grace be lifted up."
They were silent because it wasn't in their genes to want what she wanted, do what she did. Not yet. Petula was an anomaly. And though she'd been checked out by a dozen specialists already, mostly at the request of the press, no one quite knew why or how the android had found religion.
There were certainly theories. That she was a good early example of true sentience; that something had gone haywire in the code governing her desire to fit in; that Petula wasn't an android at all, just a robot programmed by mischievous creators to parrot the same religious platitudes the human masses had been parroting for years.
The "just a robot" hypothesis would be discarded by anyone who met her. The lithe, steely-jawed android was deft and nuanced in her interviews. "I don't think I could give you a better answer than any human could," she'd say. "I'm doing this because it just feels right."
"When you say 'feels,' what do you mean?" asked a reporter.
Her shoulders shrugged with a click. "It is beyond thought. I sense something in me that isn't thought, and I call it feeling."
As for why the Catholic Church in particular, Petula was more certain. "The tradition," she said without pause. "The rites. The Latin. The incense."
"Can you smell?" asked another reporter.
"Yes. I can smell incense."
Someone started to ask what incense smelled like to a robot, but was interrupted by a question more pressing: "What do you think of the Church's refusal to allow an android to join its ranks?"
Petula Peters took a long pause, her silvery eyelids sheathing down. "They think that to admit me would be to undermine Catholicism, to mock it, to profane its sacredness. It is hard for me to understand. Surely true sacredness cannot be brought low; but I might by its grace be lifted up."
Monday, June 26, 2006
Save the sea turtles
Harriet wished she could do something about sea turtles. That was the kind of woman she was. The line at the grocery store didn't bother her, but the lack of sea turtles did. She was standing beside the latest copy of L.A. Expose thinking about whether they couldn't put embargos on countries who didn't protect sea turtle nesting grounds.
She heard there were only a hundred mating pairs of Kemp's Ridley sea turtles left in the world. She imagined them; slow, their shells worn and marred, hauling themselves onto a sandy Mexican beach in the middle of the night, a male and a female turtle. She imagined them going up together, as a pair. Old. Worn out in a way the rest of the world was just beginning to show.
The woman two in front of her was trying to pay by check. It was always a woman who tried to pay by check. Did men even use checks? Maybe men were more likely to pay with a wad of cash. She had known a man who got his rent money when he paid for groceries, asking for $600 cash back. He never went to the bank.
The woman directly in front of her looked back, and Harriet moved her eyes down the the racks of gum.
She felt like if people would just put a little bit of effort into caring more about the environment, her own life would be better. She felt like maybe the woman in front of her wouldn't wear so much make-up if she were more in touch with the Earth. That, Harriet thought, would improve her life in itself. There were children the next row over who were whining. It was horrible. They wanted candy. If they spent less time in front of the television, Harriet thought, they wouldn't be so tempted by candy. They'd have seen fewer commercials. Kids should spend as much time outdoors as possible.
It was chilly in the store. The air was cooled but unmoving somehow. She could smell the ground beef she picked up. Should she be able to smell that? Through the packaging? Should she take it back? She pulled her cart behind her as she came up to the belt, sliding the plastic divider behind the other woman's jumbo box of diapers.
There was a couple behind her. She kept catching them in her field of view as she loaded her bananas, yogurts, boxes of cereal and cans of soup onto the belt. They were impatient. Not with her; just impatient. The pimply young man kept starting new sentences that began with "Well I'm gonna go--" get the car started, exchange the bag of chips for a less smashed one, cash a check. The woman kept cutting him short. "Jesus," she said twice. "It's almost seven."
Harriet was deciding that the couple should use the opportunity of being in line at the grocery store to practice patience (which should surely improve their relationship too) when she noticed that her six-pack of cola was being bagged by a teenager who was lifting it up with her fingers between the cans, by the webbing of plastic that Harriet had somehow been oblivious to but now knew must be there.
"Wait!" she blurted, but no one noticed in the clinking and thumping evening bustle. She froze as she watched the colas go into the plastic bag. She felt, absurdly, like she was watching it in slow motion. The young bagger put her blue corn chips in on top. The cola was buried. Harriet felt a lump congeal in her abdomen. Those plastic things killed thousands of animals a year! Weren't they outlawed? She hadn't seen one in years. She had to do something.
"That's it?" the cashier was asking.
Harriet turned back to the cashier, open-mouthed. She was about to ask if it was possible to un-scan items when she saw the poster by the cashier's head; the little pull-off cards allowing shoppers to donate one, five or ten dollars to hunger relief. She ripped off the biggest one and handed it over.
The cashier smiled.
Harriet would cut up the plastic webbing when she got home.
She heard there were only a hundred mating pairs of Kemp's Ridley sea turtles left in the world. She imagined them; slow, their shells worn and marred, hauling themselves onto a sandy Mexican beach in the middle of the night, a male and a female turtle. She imagined them going up together, as a pair. Old. Worn out in a way the rest of the world was just beginning to show.
The woman two in front of her was trying to pay by check. It was always a woman who tried to pay by check. Did men even use checks? Maybe men were more likely to pay with a wad of cash. She had known a man who got his rent money when he paid for groceries, asking for $600 cash back. He never went to the bank.
The woman directly in front of her looked back, and Harriet moved her eyes down the the racks of gum.
She felt like if people would just put a little bit of effort into caring more about the environment, her own life would be better. She felt like maybe the woman in front of her wouldn't wear so much make-up if she were more in touch with the Earth. That, Harriet thought, would improve her life in itself. There were children the next row over who were whining. It was horrible. They wanted candy. If they spent less time in front of the television, Harriet thought, they wouldn't be so tempted by candy. They'd have seen fewer commercials. Kids should spend as much time outdoors as possible.
It was chilly in the store. The air was cooled but unmoving somehow. She could smell the ground beef she picked up. Should she be able to smell that? Through the packaging? Should she take it back? She pulled her cart behind her as she came up to the belt, sliding the plastic divider behind the other woman's jumbo box of diapers.
There was a couple behind her. She kept catching them in her field of view as she loaded her bananas, yogurts, boxes of cereal and cans of soup onto the belt. They were impatient. Not with her; just impatient. The pimply young man kept starting new sentences that began with "Well I'm gonna go--" get the car started, exchange the bag of chips for a less smashed one, cash a check. The woman kept cutting him short. "Jesus," she said twice. "It's almost seven."
Harriet was deciding that the couple should use the opportunity of being in line at the grocery store to practice patience (which should surely improve their relationship too) when she noticed that her six-pack of cola was being bagged by a teenager who was lifting it up with her fingers between the cans, by the webbing of plastic that Harriet had somehow been oblivious to but now knew must be there.
"Wait!" she blurted, but no one noticed in the clinking and thumping evening bustle. She froze as she watched the colas go into the plastic bag. She felt, absurdly, like she was watching it in slow motion. The young bagger put her blue corn chips in on top. The cola was buried. Harriet felt a lump congeal in her abdomen. Those plastic things killed thousands of animals a year! Weren't they outlawed? She hadn't seen one in years. She had to do something.
"That's it?" the cashier was asking.
Harriet turned back to the cashier, open-mouthed. She was about to ask if it was possible to un-scan items when she saw the poster by the cashier's head; the little pull-off cards allowing shoppers to donate one, five or ten dollars to hunger relief. She ripped off the biggest one and handed it over.
The cashier smiled.
Harriet would cut up the plastic webbing when she got home.
Friday, June 23, 2006
The day Mini-teki came to Fruholm
For the 50th annual Mini-teki tournament, they emptied the streets of Fruholm, Denmark. In fact, they emptied the buildings too. The entire town was made into a ghost town. They were calling it Major-teki, as if they were inventing a new game. But the game was the same.
A bit like life itself, the game had survived in popularity so long by creating the most complex situations from the simplest rules. With each piece captured by one player, the conditions changed for the others, always according to the rules. The game was no more random than chess. But the depth of its rules, or "genes," would have made the game hell to play with wooden pieces on a board, without a chip to do the calculations. But Mini-teki was perfect for Fruholm; or perhaps Fruholm was perfect for Mini-teki.
The town of Fruholm never had a traffic jam. Not one. The town was not the ant colony the century had made out of most urban concentrations; its tiny cars lacked the sensors that let cars in America or Britain or Japan confer with overhead cams to make decisions about which streets were to best take during rush hour. These cars made no decisions at all. They were every one a slave to Fruholm Traffic Control.
That was the finest but not the only centralization of Fruholm's business. Every pedestrian crossing on the blind, narrow European streets was handled by the Traffic Control as well. Fibers laid in the road changed color when it was safe for pedestrians to cross; red swaths turned to green ones whenever the cars were diverted around that stretch of street. To an aircar hovering above, the town on a busy day already appeared like nothing so much as a giant game board.
But there was one final cap to that delightful symmetry. The cars that peppered Fruholm's streets were not privately owned; they were held and maintained by the city, nearly every one a silver subcompact handy for running errands and visiting friends. Anyone could swipe his card by the door, disengage the car from the charging post and rent it for as long as it took to return to another charger. The cars were shiny and immaculate. (The citizens were, of course, Danes.) The cars were also identical; but in a fit of practical whimsy, the planners had installed a bright plastic LED box on the top of each one, rather like the signature of a taxi cab. What colors and patterns the box displayed could be chosen by the driver, allowing townsfolk with imperfect memories to find their car again in the cinema parking lot. They might program a car with their names, with patterns, with pictograms of turtles and cats.
The display could also be chosen by Traffic Control. This made a handy way to alert police in the rare instance a wanted notable used his card to rent a car; this day, however, as the cars were remotely disengaged from their posts, each wore on its roof a cap of solid red, blue, yellow or green. The streets were silent. The citizens of Fruholm were at the houses of friends or enjoying the free lunch at the soccer stadium two towns over. On the stadium's giant screen was the view from one of the aircars stationed above the town: the town's organically laid streets curved and looped about each other, the intersections blinking red and green as the crosswalks were tested, the colors reversed now to indicate whether or not game pieces, rather than people, could pass.
It was a perfect day; overcast, but not raining, allowing the LED boxes and the road strips to stand out through the gloom. It was almost noon. In a booth at the top of the stadium, the four contestants waited.
A bit like life itself, the game had survived in popularity so long by creating the most complex situations from the simplest rules. With each piece captured by one player, the conditions changed for the others, always according to the rules. The game was no more random than chess. But the depth of its rules, or "genes," would have made the game hell to play with wooden pieces on a board, without a chip to do the calculations. But Mini-teki was perfect for Fruholm; or perhaps Fruholm was perfect for Mini-teki.
The town of Fruholm never had a traffic jam. Not one. The town was not the ant colony the century had made out of most urban concentrations; its tiny cars lacked the sensors that let cars in America or Britain or Japan confer with overhead cams to make decisions about which streets were to best take during rush hour. These cars made no decisions at all. They were every one a slave to Fruholm Traffic Control.
That was the finest but not the only centralization of Fruholm's business. Every pedestrian crossing on the blind, narrow European streets was handled by the Traffic Control as well. Fibers laid in the road changed color when it was safe for pedestrians to cross; red swaths turned to green ones whenever the cars were diverted around that stretch of street. To an aircar hovering above, the town on a busy day already appeared like nothing so much as a giant game board.
But there was one final cap to that delightful symmetry. The cars that peppered Fruholm's streets were not privately owned; they were held and maintained by the city, nearly every one a silver subcompact handy for running errands and visiting friends. Anyone could swipe his card by the door, disengage the car from the charging post and rent it for as long as it took to return to another charger. The cars were shiny and immaculate. (The citizens were, of course, Danes.) The cars were also identical; but in a fit of practical whimsy, the planners had installed a bright plastic LED box on the top of each one, rather like the signature of a taxi cab. What colors and patterns the box displayed could be chosen by the driver, allowing townsfolk with imperfect memories to find their car again in the cinema parking lot. They might program a car with their names, with patterns, with pictograms of turtles and cats.
The display could also be chosen by Traffic Control. This made a handy way to alert police in the rare instance a wanted notable used his card to rent a car; this day, however, as the cars were remotely disengaged from their posts, each wore on its roof a cap of solid red, blue, yellow or green. The streets were silent. The citizens of Fruholm were at the houses of friends or enjoying the free lunch at the soccer stadium two towns over. On the stadium's giant screen was the view from one of the aircars stationed above the town: the town's organically laid streets curved and looped about each other, the intersections blinking red and green as the crosswalks were tested, the colors reversed now to indicate whether or not game pieces, rather than people, could pass.
It was a perfect day; overcast, but not raining, allowing the LED boxes and the road strips to stand out through the gloom. It was almost noon. In a booth at the top of the stadium, the four contestants waited.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
The marathon tourists
I was confused.
All I knew for right now was that I was riding in a rickshaw, a bicycle rickshaw, going up a very large hill, and it was about a hundred and fifteen degrees out. In the back of my mind I was making plans for what to do when the driver collapsed of a heart attack. I'd been up for three days now, and I didn't feel tired at all. I just felt incapable of remembering the smallest things.
"Are we going back to the hotel?" I asked Bart.
"Honey, we don't have a hotel, remember?" he said. I swear Bart was as bad off as me, but his inability to tolerate not being a know-it-all gave him the extra motivation necessary to get his lump of gray matter working. "We're going to the temple."
"Is the temple open right now?"
"He says it is." Bart nodded at the driver, whose hair was as wet as if he'd just stepped out of the ocean.
"Remind me what we did today."
Bart struggled for a moment, then pulled out his camera and flipped through the images. Us at a street market... I suppose I remembered that... us at the beach, us next to an unsmiling monk, me on a hill in front of the sunrise. I had no memory of that sunrise.
"It's almost eight o'clock," he said. "Let's take the pills." And I washed the tiny white thing down with his bottle of water because this was how we planned it. You had to jump through a lot of hoops to get these pills in the United States. But in Thailand? Heck, they wanted you to have them. Developed for the military fifteen years ago, they were now ready for the consumer: sleep in a bottle, or sort of. Not only would they keep you awake, they sidled around many of the inconvenient side effects of sleep deprivation: poor judgment, depression, hallucinations. Whatever the body did with itself while you were asleep, the pills allowed it to happen while you were awake. Except for one thing.
"Honey," I laughed, "I have no idea where the hell you took that picture."
I stared at my own image. It might as well have been someone else. My brain's ability to preserve new memories was operating at a severe handicap. Yet that was part of the plan too. It was all part of the plan. Skip the hotels, stay awake for a week, see everything we could and never go back to Thailand again. And the memories? What memories? Live for the moment, we said.
"Neither do I," he said, as the rickshaw began to coast down the other side of the hill. "Isn't it great?"
All I knew for right now was that I was riding in a rickshaw, a bicycle rickshaw, going up a very large hill, and it was about a hundred and fifteen degrees out. In the back of my mind I was making plans for what to do when the driver collapsed of a heart attack. I'd been up for three days now, and I didn't feel tired at all. I just felt incapable of remembering the smallest things.
"Are we going back to the hotel?" I asked Bart.
"Honey, we don't have a hotel, remember?" he said. I swear Bart was as bad off as me, but his inability to tolerate not being a know-it-all gave him the extra motivation necessary to get his lump of gray matter working. "We're going to the temple."
"Is the temple open right now?"
"He says it is." Bart nodded at the driver, whose hair was as wet as if he'd just stepped out of the ocean.
"Remind me what we did today."
Bart struggled for a moment, then pulled out his camera and flipped through the images. Us at a street market... I suppose I remembered that... us at the beach, us next to an unsmiling monk, me on a hill in front of the sunrise. I had no memory of that sunrise.
"It's almost eight o'clock," he said. "Let's take the pills." And I washed the tiny white thing down with his bottle of water because this was how we planned it. You had to jump through a lot of hoops to get these pills in the United States. But in Thailand? Heck, they wanted you to have them. Developed for the military fifteen years ago, they were now ready for the consumer: sleep in a bottle, or sort of. Not only would they keep you awake, they sidled around many of the inconvenient side effects of sleep deprivation: poor judgment, depression, hallucinations. Whatever the body did with itself while you were asleep, the pills allowed it to happen while you were awake. Except for one thing.
"Honey," I laughed, "I have no idea where the hell you took that picture."
I stared at my own image. It might as well have been someone else. My brain's ability to preserve new memories was operating at a severe handicap. Yet that was part of the plan too. It was all part of the plan. Skip the hotels, stay awake for a week, see everything we could and never go back to Thailand again. And the memories? What memories? Live for the moment, we said.
"Neither do I," he said, as the rickshaw began to coast down the other side of the hill. "Isn't it great?"
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Whoops
So I tried to make the latter part of the story jive with what had gone before, even after I'd decided earlier bits of it didn't make much sense. I thought it'd be a good exercise to practice internal consistency. But some of it's still incongruous. Note the amazing vanishing $2 million.
I put that in there to show that Anita had given up "everything" in her quest for Keith; not just her time and all her emotional energy, but also the funds she might have used to start her own business someday. And then I had to stick a section in later to justify why someone'd have to give up their life savings to participate in a government project. I also wondered a bit whether $2 million would seem a bit paltry to be a psychiatrist's life savings 150 years from now. Anyway, as I approached the end of the story, I just couldn't find a graceful way to bring the money back up, so I let it be. Now I'm thinking that I might want to bring it back in in rewrites, but less as a lump sum than as a continuous investiture in getting close to Keith. Kind of like the woman who invests in a gym membership in order to meet men.
The story also took a final turn I didn't expect. I'd always had it in my head that she was going to the moon out of a desire to be close to him, even while I'd always also known he wouldn't be there, that he'd never be selected. When I actually got to writing the part where he reveals he's not going, I realized it just didn't make sense for her to stay on the list out of some kind of loyalty to his unrealized dreams, or even out of a sense of feeling trapped in some way by her commitment. Suddenly the moon presented a convenient escape from her failure, a nicely despairing self-banishment, and also partly her first act of taking a step in the right direction, even if she's doing it for the wrong reasons. I think in the next version I'll write in a scene in which she thinks it over and decides to stay in the running.
I'm not sure what's next up for me... I had been wanting to write a story about a hotel developer about 30 years in the future, though that one might be for the "wrong" reasons too... that is, it's the only idea with anything like a plot that I've thought up in a long time. There's a somewhat faulty reasoning there. Something like "He's the only man who's called me in the past year, so why don't I just marry him." But I think help is in sight.
The book I'd been reading (until I had to return it to the library, anyway) was very heavy on the inseparability of plot and character. Plot, it averred, is what characters do next -- asserting that plot problems can be solved by changing the nature of your character. Now I see that. Stories get a lot easier to write when you have a character who really wants something. And would do just about anything to get it. Woe is the writer who writes what she knows when she knows more about suppressing desires than living them out.
On the library bulletin board is a sheet advertising the Random House 20by20 essay contest. That is, they're selecting 20 essays by 20-somethings for some collection or other. Essays meant to give some kind of interesting insights into what it's like to be a 20-something these days. I recognize that in one sense I ought to submit something, because of my ability to put a sentence together, and my ability to appreciate money. But I'm not sure I have the kind of subject matter they're looking for. I recognize the basic passivity of most of my life. It's more amusing to me now than depressing, but it's not particularly good fodder for stories.
Anyway... this story idea came to me when I was reading an essay about SF writing that said "Imagine a future invention, then imagine who would be hurt by it." And the news provides plenty of ideas about future inventions. I read a story about developments by the military in the field of keeping people awake for longer, without significant side effects. And it seemed to me that we were not so very far from being able to negate the need for sleep for a week at a time. Now supposing people could just pop a pill and stay up all night, no problems. Who'd be hurt? Which industries depend on our need to sleep? (Besides the pharmaceutical industry itself, that is.)
I put that in there to show that Anita had given up "everything" in her quest for Keith; not just her time and all her emotional energy, but also the funds she might have used to start her own business someday. And then I had to stick a section in later to justify why someone'd have to give up their life savings to participate in a government project. I also wondered a bit whether $2 million would seem a bit paltry to be a psychiatrist's life savings 150 years from now. Anyway, as I approached the end of the story, I just couldn't find a graceful way to bring the money back up, so I let it be. Now I'm thinking that I might want to bring it back in in rewrites, but less as a lump sum than as a continuous investiture in getting close to Keith. Kind of like the woman who invests in a gym membership in order to meet men.
The story also took a final turn I didn't expect. I'd always had it in my head that she was going to the moon out of a desire to be close to him, even while I'd always also known he wouldn't be there, that he'd never be selected. When I actually got to writing the part where he reveals he's not going, I realized it just didn't make sense for her to stay on the list out of some kind of loyalty to his unrealized dreams, or even out of a sense of feeling trapped in some way by her commitment. Suddenly the moon presented a convenient escape from her failure, a nicely despairing self-banishment, and also partly her first act of taking a step in the right direction, even if she's doing it for the wrong reasons. I think in the next version I'll write in a scene in which she thinks it over and decides to stay in the running.
I'm not sure what's next up for me... I had been wanting to write a story about a hotel developer about 30 years in the future, though that one might be for the "wrong" reasons too... that is, it's the only idea with anything like a plot that I've thought up in a long time. There's a somewhat faulty reasoning there. Something like "He's the only man who's called me in the past year, so why don't I just marry him." But I think help is in sight.
The book I'd been reading (until I had to return it to the library, anyway) was very heavy on the inseparability of plot and character. Plot, it averred, is what characters do next -- asserting that plot problems can be solved by changing the nature of your character. Now I see that. Stories get a lot easier to write when you have a character who really wants something. And would do just about anything to get it. Woe is the writer who writes what she knows when she knows more about suppressing desires than living them out.
On the library bulletin board is a sheet advertising the Random House 20by20 essay contest. That is, they're selecting 20 essays by 20-somethings for some collection or other. Essays meant to give some kind of interesting insights into what it's like to be a 20-something these days. I recognize that in one sense I ought to submit something, because of my ability to put a sentence together, and my ability to appreciate money. But I'm not sure I have the kind of subject matter they're looking for. I recognize the basic passivity of most of my life. It's more amusing to me now than depressing, but it's not particularly good fodder for stories.
Anyway... this story idea came to me when I was reading an essay about SF writing that said "Imagine a future invention, then imagine who would be hurt by it." And the news provides plenty of ideas about future inventions. I read a story about developments by the military in the field of keeping people awake for longer, without significant side effects. And it seemed to me that we were not so very far from being able to negate the need for sleep for a week at a time. Now supposing people could just pop a pill and stay up all night, no problems. Who'd be hurt? Which industries depend on our need to sleep? (Besides the pharmaceutical industry itself, that is.)
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