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Political Experience Prepared The Generation Ship

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Political reality in a space village.

A tube of air, dirt, and water, of flora, fauna, and people, Ship Of Destiny’s habitat would spew very organic paste if squeezed hard enough.

Jacksonville, representing a political village.Destiny’s Hand is a story based in a spaceship that will take fifty generations to arrive at its destination.

I’ve imagined that with a target population of only a thousand to maintain, life on the ship is something like life in a village or a very insular group within a city.

Varied experience with small political landscapes makes me comfortable writing fiction with related themes, especially passive aggressive power struggles.

“I have political experience” is like saying “I’m an American” abroad.

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Actually Daddy, I’m The Boss. Now Play With Me.

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Actually, you know, like, um; actually, you know, like. um….

Clipped all by himselfMy son, Yuri, is actually a good kid.  We survive his shenanigans with little harm to home or body. But with him turning five, there is worry about how fast he is growing, both physically and in expressing independence.

Our children are a product of ourselves interacting with their environment.  Whenever they say or do something bad, as a parents we should feel partially responsible.

Certainly my wife blames me for Yuri’s rude habits, as if I’m a big brother rather than a father.  Children are sponges.  Four days a week at a school/daycare, means he picks up actually quite a lot.

“Geeks smell bad and nerds wear plaid.”

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“Need to work on my dialogue tags,” I groaned.

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Bird Vacuum“Dialogue—Ouch, my OCD,” said editor

Some dialogue from my draft:

“The peace makers have successfully vacuumed up the hummingbird.” The pleasant female voice pauses then continues. “And are requesting that it be expunged into space.”

Adjusted to:

“The peace makers have successfully vacuumed up the hummingbird,” says a pleasant female voice, “and are requesting that it be expunged into space.”

Barely six pages into my Destiny Hand’s doc before a friendly editor student had an aneurysm.  Apparently I’ve developed, refined even, some bad grammar over the decades.

And she said,”Commas are your FRIENDS—“

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Wife food is good food-best sandwich bread in PDX

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“Wife food” is nourishment prepared by a significant other.

There comes a moment in a lucky man’s life when wife food surpasses mom meals.  This happened for me around the time my wife started making the best sandwich bread I’ve ever had.

Homemade bread and strawberry jam with peanut butter and cheese

There is a vast food gap in my life between when I left home the day after I turned eighteen and when I started regularly eating wife food, or wife to be food, at twenty six.

Eight years of bachelor kitchen.

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Realistic Space Combat-does it tell a good story?

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Excerpt from book concept beyond Destiny’s Hand‘s timeline.  It is intended to be entertaining before realistic.

Butterfly people, aren't peopleA man watches lines crisscross an angry dark like overlapping fireworks, while the hissing of escaping air is drowned out by nearby explosive decompression. A bright flash makes him push away with a pained gasp, and then the Rainbow Ships of the butterfly people suddenly swirl like a kaleidoscope viewed through the small porthole.

The following is from current Destiny’s Hand draft.

Before resting ten light seconds away, the Ship Of Destiny did a flyby just a few light seconds from Ortome. To launch their assault craft a couple days at craft speed from an asteroid around a quarter of Ortome’s mass. They approached from the far side, so the smaller potato would block line of sight, and blasted with dubam cannons when in range to create an actual cloud of debris. Just an innocent impact between two smaller neighboring potatoes.

I see value in both and do try to balance, but for Destiny’s Hand  I lean towards realistic before entertaining.  My hope is that this will ease consistency and ultimately be more immersive.

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Games for my child, arming his mind with a fourth

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Not video games; still nerd time, just not screen time. Baby weighs one turkey

Since I found out I would have a son (Yuri), I’ve been considering what games would best give him an edge. I picked three initially that I enjoy and wish I’d learned as a child. Parenting is, after all, a vicarious life style.

These games topped my list

I find it best to play with friends.  Defeating strangers isn’t as savory.

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Present Tense For A Parallel Mind

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Present tense: I'm learning to ride wild.I am most comfortable writing in third person, present tense.

I’ve done a little first person present, but almost never past tense, third or first.

Sixteen years ago I got stuck in the intense immediate.  I graduated college, and that summer to fill the mental void, I wrote Accursed Haven with a manic fervor I’ve never matched since.

My first novel ride.

It was wild.  It was poetic.  Here’s how it started:

A morbid man walks alone, looking for refuge in a city he has disowned. He sits down on a bench with a bottle in a brown bag.

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Artificial Intelligence in my fiction, insanicide

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I love the idea of anthropomorphizing machines. I love the idea of taking technology and giving it a personality.

-J. J. Abrams

Artificial intelligence (AI) has an allure, something like the desire for a loyal pet.

artificial intelligence toybox
As children maybe we wanted a toy to talk back.  A little human but not too much, they must always be available.

They can have a life of their own, so long as they’re back in their box before we notice.

From the beginning I wanted a main character of Destiny’s Hand to be an AI.

The book I’m currently writing, Destiny’s Hand, takes place within a rather large spacecraft called Ship Of Destiny.  As the journey is intended to last a fair number of human generations, I thought it made sense for there to be artificial intelligences available to assist and maintain continuity.
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Nearing Midsummer’s Eve, My Brother And The Sea

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My brother is much younger than me, still in his twenties and still in need of adventure.  Not horseradish and peanut butter, more Into the Wild, which is not for family men edging towards forty, i.e. me.

That’s nice brother, anyway I’m sailing to Ireland.

The last week of last month I was chatting with my brotherMy brother Matthew Matthew

online and I excitedly linked invirtu on urban dictionary, which means “within virtual reality”.  I had been trying to get words I made up for my book Destiny’s Hand into the dictionary, and this was my first success.

His response, “I am going to Boston in a week to meet Norwegians.  If all goes well I will crew with them as they cross to Ireland.” Continue reading Nearing Midsummer’s Eve, My Brother And The Sea →

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