Well, I go back to work today, but at least I just have two days and then I have my weekend… and they’re slow days (typically). I didn’t finish the novel, but I did make a sizeable dent in it (about 8,000 words) and I am down to the crucial scenes – it’s going to be Saturday or bust. Don’t worry – I am gravely disappointed in what I did, but beating myself up isn’t my job (it’s someone else’s – accepting volunteers). This is going to be finished, it’s going to take a while longer than what I had expected. This is part of the job that I should anticipate. Of course, I did that all-nighter and I started to break down at around seven p.m. and finally went to bed at nine p.m., woke up briefly at midnight and slept soundly until eight a.m. – yeah, I was out. Really out.

OK – I am not going to talk about the current project, we know what’s going on with that. Right now, I am going to talk up the next project: I/O Error – my first foray in science-fiction and horror. The basic plot can be summed up as Data wakes up aboard the Flying Dutchman and channels Haley Joel Osment. Sounds spooky? Weird? WTF? Hopefully, I’ve gotten two out of three. Let me explain: we all know that sometimes cameras pick up the images of ghosts while people don’t see them. How about a robot? If we go along with the idea that a camera picks up ghosts because it’s not a living thing with built-in filters to perception, then a robot – the marriage of filter free observation and the human ability to react – would be the perfect thing for a story. Now aboard the Shepherd, which is a transport vessel to a colony far outside the solar system, there are travelers who are put to suspended animation/sleep once they pass Jupiter and the crew who are put to sleep once they pass Sedna. Six androids and a main operating system called MILO (Multi-system Internal Logical Opsys) run the ship until they arrive at the colony. One of them starts seeing apparitions of crewmen and a pair of black-eyed children when there should be no one awake and giving commands. Anyone familiar with the Laws of Robotics can extrapolate where the wackiness ensues. I got the idea from watching an episode of Ghost Adventures in which a picture is taken and while the other people claim there is no one else in the room, there is clearly a form that could be considered human and is not a shadow (note: I said claim – I am not above considering that these shows might have some… help). There are other things that go on in the novel, but I don’t want to reveal too much right now. I can’t wait to get started with this one, but I told myself I wouldn’t start with anything new until I finished the current project.

Well – speaking of projects, I should get back to the current one and make some more progress in it.

Have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy