Writing, and Terra Nova.
Oct. 11th, 2011 12:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vixenmageHabit to get into: gonna spend ten minutes a night on Write Or Die, before I go to bed. Five hundred word goal, for now. And then I'm gonna start a blog thing to put everything. No matter what I've written that day, no matter how late it is, every night, ten minutes.
One of these days, I'll learn to stop making decisions like this on the up side of the cycle. I'm not manic, so that's good. But this is one of those "Yeah! I can totally do this!" things that I just know is going to hurt like hell when it inevitably fails, and I'll start going crazy depressed into the "I couldn't even do this one thing, I am worthless," but for now, I am going to try it anyway.
My plan is that if I wind up with occasional continuity, to tag everything for canons and such. Anyway.
Here's what I wrote last night:
He watched the sun go down for the last time, like a ball of flaming rock, he thought, though rocks shouldn't catch fire and they wouldn't be quite so round, really. And then he turned, and got into his car, and drove off, leaving the surface at just enough speed to get out of the gravity. It had been a good run, he thought. It had lived up to quite a few of his expectations, though not, he would admit, all.
"What about the moon, though?"
She shrugged. "Well, that's one of the tricky bits. It'll get caught up in the explosion, of course, but we want to make sure it doesn't go prematurely, or something."
The younger girl rubbed her chin. "Huh. D'you know what model they used to pull it in, like that?"
"Nah, that wasn't a trick - it's been getting close for a long time. That was part of the decision, really. Even if the time had been right, we couldn't have done this even a few centuries ago, the moon would have been untouched. I think we'll be alright for this one, though. Head back into the blueprint? We're going to need a lot of going over, here."
The transformation was seamless; the AI manifestation gave a cheery wave, and went from the normal human projection, complete to all external human senses, to bolt of lightning-- then vanished. The extrapolations had already been gone over by several human engineers, one of whom had gone so far as to draw up a whole new model, just in case. But in the end, this part came down to her.
The ship's captain glanced over at the control screen, panning over the triggers and catalysts, set up in just the right patterns, and nodded in approval.
"What was this one called, anyway? I remember something about it being historically significant, but you know the weapons crew is always going on about some historically significant detail or other."
She nodded, and tapped the bracelet that showed, briefly, beneath her own uniform. "This one was Earth. The first planet to host the human race, though it's been hypothesized that the whole thing was set up as an experiment, near the end of the last great imperial civilization. Probably bunk, you know the imperialists have that whole ego thing down pat. Anyway, they wanted it out of the way before the sun went - it's one of the few nearly symmetrical dwarf phases in a while, and it won't do to observe it with gaps like this coming and going. The others have mostly been taken out, by now. Charges ready?"
"Charges ready."
And the last son of a long-dead empire leaned back against the window in his car-turned-ship, and watched his first work die.
---
DML mentioned that I should clarify subjects. The conversation between the captain, the engineer, and the AI gets sort of muddled. I remember being careful when writing that not to be too specific, because I was in an abstract state of mind-- but it does need fixing.
(Oh, also? I've become addicted to Terra Nova. Holy shit that show is awesome. And Taylor, ye gods Taylor is win, and just, yay. And the cast is diverse, which is awesome, and features women in kick-ass roles, not just supporting, and it is just all kinds of win. They really hit their stride this episode. The potential was there, the pilot and last week, but this one blew me away, straight up. Damn near cried a bit. And yes, totally fangirling Taylor, (in a nonsexual way). It's... complicated. And led to a personal epiphany which is way too raw for a post like this. But. That show. Yeeeeeey.)
One of these days, I'll learn to stop making decisions like this on the up side of the cycle. I'm not manic, so that's good. But this is one of those "Yeah! I can totally do this!" things that I just know is going to hurt like hell when it inevitably fails, and I'll start going crazy depressed into the "I couldn't even do this one thing, I am worthless," but for now, I am going to try it anyway.
My plan is that if I wind up with occasional continuity, to tag everything for canons and such. Anyway.
Here's what I wrote last night:
He watched the sun go down for the last time, like a ball of flaming rock, he thought, though rocks shouldn't catch fire and they wouldn't be quite so round, really. And then he turned, and got into his car, and drove off, leaving the surface at just enough speed to get out of the gravity. It had been a good run, he thought. It had lived up to quite a few of his expectations, though not, he would admit, all.
"What about the moon, though?"
She shrugged. "Well, that's one of the tricky bits. It'll get caught up in the explosion, of course, but we want to make sure it doesn't go prematurely, or something."
The younger girl rubbed her chin. "Huh. D'you know what model they used to pull it in, like that?"
"Nah, that wasn't a trick - it's been getting close for a long time. That was part of the decision, really. Even if the time had been right, we couldn't have done this even a few centuries ago, the moon would have been untouched. I think we'll be alright for this one, though. Head back into the blueprint? We're going to need a lot of going over, here."
The transformation was seamless; the AI manifestation gave a cheery wave, and went from the normal human projection, complete to all external human senses, to bolt of lightning-- then vanished. The extrapolations had already been gone over by several human engineers, one of whom had gone so far as to draw up a whole new model, just in case. But in the end, this part came down to her.
The ship's captain glanced over at the control screen, panning over the triggers and catalysts, set up in just the right patterns, and nodded in approval.
"What was this one called, anyway? I remember something about it being historically significant, but you know the weapons crew is always going on about some historically significant detail or other."
She nodded, and tapped the bracelet that showed, briefly, beneath her own uniform. "This one was Earth. The first planet to host the human race, though it's been hypothesized that the whole thing was set up as an experiment, near the end of the last great imperial civilization. Probably bunk, you know the imperialists have that whole ego thing down pat. Anyway, they wanted it out of the way before the sun went - it's one of the few nearly symmetrical dwarf phases in a while, and it won't do to observe it with gaps like this coming and going. The others have mostly been taken out, by now. Charges ready?"
"Charges ready."
And the last son of a long-dead empire leaned back against the window in his car-turned-ship, and watched his first work die.
---
DML mentioned that I should clarify subjects. The conversation between the captain, the engineer, and the AI gets sort of muddled. I remember being careful when writing that not to be too specific, because I was in an abstract state of mind-- but it does need fixing.
(Oh, also? I've become addicted to Terra Nova. Holy shit that show is awesome. And Taylor, ye gods Taylor is win, and just, yay. And the cast is diverse, which is awesome, and features women in kick-ass roles, not just supporting, and it is just all kinds of win. They really hit their stride this episode. The potential was there, the pilot and last week, but this one blew me away, straight up. Damn near cried a bit. And yes, totally fangirling Taylor, (in a nonsexual way). It's... complicated. And led to a personal epiphany which is way too raw for a post like this. But. That show. Yeeeeeey.)
