Thoughts about the writing again ... and phone issues !

Phone first ...

I like my latest phone but it has a massive problem. There's a bug somewhere in the software that means I randomly don't receive text messages. Or rather, the message will be received and a delivery receipt will go back but it gets lost somewhere between receipt and inbox. The thought was that the cache memory (where the message goes between receipt and inbox) is having trouble but the fix for that hasn't proved particularly constant.

So if you've sent me a message and I haven't replied, this is why ! I only know about this problem because my close friend has been upset at messages being lost.

I'll be fixing the problem by getting a second phone for texts and emergency calls only (it just so happens that Vodafone apparently do a pay-as-you-go with unlimited texts ... bargain !) (essential disclosure note - I have nothing to do with Vodafone and they ain't paying me ! But I do have a very good and close friend who's messages have been going astray who is on that network.) That'll be tomorrow evening's job after work and before replenishing some very slim munchie stocks here ...

Back to work tomorrow, which I'm not particularly looking forwards to. I really should have gone to the doctor this week. In hindsight of course. Healing has been steady .... but I'll be back to wearing protective bandages tomorrow because my legs are still bad. Very frustrating.

On that writing though .... I have clearer ideas.

And a potential front runner character for the story. That's always a good thing to have, especially if you can use that front runner character as a means of drawing the reader into the world that you're setting up.

I'm still looking at the new colony story thing. And a potential borrowing of the TV series Arrow's tendency to have parallel timelines going in its narrative. So one timeline would be increasing tension as the colony group departs the world, the other timeline would be the first steps on the new planet. Terra Nova did this very well too, although in that case the parallel timelines were literal. Part of the story was set in our future, part of it was set in our distant past .... with dinosaurs.

And this story would be all set up around the idea : This world is turning into a terrible place while we watch and no one is doing anything about it. How about we leave ?

That's fairly familiar sounding isn't it ?

I guess I'm getting somewhat cynical about our leaders and their increasingly destructive tendencies. I've always tried to live my life with as little interference as possible from the idiots in charge but you can't avoid all that they do. And this story would be about those who have the opportunity to quietly slip away from the increasing hell they are a part of.

Wouldn't that be great if we could do that ?

Well, apart from Elon Musk and his plans to go to Mars, there sadly aren't all that many opportunities to do that with the technology we have. Well, outside of finding some place to go off the grid but that isn't really getting away from the core problem, it's hiding from it. You can isolate but not really get away that far. But I still would like to retire to that boat and live on that away from the hustle and bustle of modern life. I would miss my uncapped internet data though.

This story ... who's the main character ?

Well, the people I want to appear being collected up by this rogue group are the unwanted. The people who want to leave. The disadvantaged. The ones subject to prejudice. I suspect you're seeing a theme there, I see the reports in media and social media about the persecuted groups and can't see a way to help them.

So my main character is likely to be a homeless person, picked up from the streets of the main city of the world this will initially be set on. And like probably all of the homeless here, he's not there of his own choosing. He's educated, smart and has been picked out for potential. This means he's especially useful to me as the one writing, as I can explain the concepts as if to an intelligent person and through that, treat the reader with the respect of thinking they're intelligent people too.

And I'll pick up on the concepts from today's scenarios of Twit/Book and Discord chat servers too. Except definitely better run because Twit/Book has major issues with the sites (especially Twitter) allowing toxic users to run rampant. Also streaming .... because people need their news and entertainment.

But you also need an adversary. And this one will have that as another echo to our present - terror groups getting increasingly bold with the reaction from uninformed leaders being ever more trigger happy, leading to a situation that our rogue group eventually have to react to before it's too late. I'm unsure about the adversary for where they're going though. I sense it might be a reaction to the first major crime, where an exile suddenly .... disappears. Mysteriously.

Or maybe not so mysteriously, just messily. Nothing messes with the mind more than the impression of being totally safe being turned into sudden mortal danger !

I need to get more thoughts in my head though. Perhaps something for NaNoWriMo which is just coming up ...

There are a number of inspirations for this though. From The Expanse, which I hugely enjoyed watching. To Elysium, a scifi movie vehicle for Matt Damon which was showing off all sorts of tech that was handy for its narrative. Over to the two Heorot books by Larry Niven, Steven Barnes and the dearly departed Jerry Pournelle. And all that inspiration from real life and what I come into contact with.

It should be fun to write, it'll definitely be an outlet for many ideas I've wanted to write about as well as being an outlet for what I think of what I see around me in this world !

Back to work tomorrow though, definitely not looking forward to the wrestling with the beard. It's got fuzzy and needs to be annihilated ...