An Owomoyela

On Friday I'm shipping out for Wiscon!

If you want to identify me, I look like this:



I'm generally amenable to meeting new people, though I may stare at you for a while and attempt to place where I know you from, even if I don't. There's also a pretty good chance I'll foist a MOO Minicard on you, if you're out collecting minicards from everyone who's ever appeared in Fantasy Magazine or everyone whose name starts with a vowel and is not a palindrome, or something.

I grimaced at the sight of her hands – the grotesque twist of each finger against itself, the distended skin where tendons had knotted up, the scars which comprised more flesh than original skin must have. I composed myself, but she'd seen the reaction, and smiled.

For the second week of Write-a-Thon, I hammered out about 5,800 words of soft fantasy. This one concerned storytelling, misconceptions and prejudices about disability, crime and punishment, and how we interpret human dignity.

It also insisted in taking place in an alt-historical Mediterranean, which, combined with the disability angle, is what's going to give me the most grief in revision. Oh, the research I'm going to do.

( As always, behind the cut lies more. )

The line which encapsulated the story seed didn't actually make it into the finished first draft. That line was what was going to be the opening: "Gods an government agencies; the only things I fear nowadays." Oddly, the fear bled itself out of the narrator and became part of the main character's story; the Church itself remained a part of the narrative, but aside from erasing people's memories, it was a thoroughly benevolent force. It fed and sheltered the homeless, provided caretakers for widowers' sons, declared amnesty and clemency left and right, and was just generally made up of good samaritans. If only they could work on that inflicted amnesia thing.

This week, I'm going to attack a short story called Frozen Voice – I finished the first draft some time ago, and it's time to hit it hard in revision. Tune back in about a week for a discussion of how that went, and as always, a hearty THANK YOU to my sponsors, and an expression of hope that a few of you may sponsor me by donating to Clarion West! Remember, donations are tax-deductible in the US.

We would not harvest your forms. But you would keep your colony to the lands prescribed for you, and you would make your own shells against our atmosphere, and you would accept our law should you venture out.

That which touches the air belongs to us.

When I was sixteen I was studying hydroponics and genetic selection. In the heat of the greenhouse it wasn’t exactly subtle that I preferred long clothing, high collars, and gloves.

That which touches the air belongs to us.

This first week of the Write-a-Thon had me completeing - at 7400 words - the first draft of That Which Touches The Air, a somewhat claustrophobic space opera about a boy and his phobia of parasitic colonization. Surprisingly, it's not actually a metaphor for colonization.

Well. Not a conscious one, anyway.

( A bit of discussion, some further excerpts, and a nod or two lie within the cut. )

I'm powering on into my next work of fiction; today, at least, it looks like it'll be a short story called Redacted. We'll see by this time next week what I actually end up finishing!

I've garnered a few sponsorships in my name already, and I extend a hearty THANK YOU! to people who have sponsored me. I'd love it if people would keep donating – find my author page, and throw some money to a worthy cause! Also, it's tax-deductable, so that's awesome too. I'm matching the first $100 to be sponsored in my name.

I've just put the last words down on the first rough draft of That Which Touches the Air, my Week 1 story for the Clarion West 2010 Write-A-Thon. It's weighing in at the eminently unpublishable 7400 words, which will hopefully be taken care of in a few passes of revision.

As promised, a short discussion and excerpt of the work will be appearing on this journal soon!

From reading up on The Great Filter...

1) What if we mastered slower-than-light colonization (via processes like generational ships) but didn't have the advanced technology needed to maintain communications to those colonies? How would that effect colonies essentially cast out from Earth into the void to fend for themselves and develop in isolation?

1a) What happens to those generational ships once they reach their destination? What of people who don't want to settle down planetside?

1aa) Or what if they decide to drop off a core of planetside colonists and head somewhere else? What if they head for another planet slated for colonization and their descendents arrive in orbit of that colony? What if they arrive in orbit of that colony to find that something horrible has happened?

1aaa) Like the Wraith. ...or, really, any alien species invested in keeping the universe at a low stage of development.

2) Riffing on the God in the Sky idea, what about an Earth where we began to see evidence of things like solar harvesting or Dyson Swarm construction around distant stars, with full knowledge that such evidence, visually observed, would represent events from hundreds of years ago? "Yeah, whoever's out there... well, they were disassembling solar systems back when we were inventing the trireme. GOD KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING NOW."

This is the professional/writing journal of An Owomoyela, speculative fiction author and web developer. My personal journal can be found at magistrate.

Public posts in this journal will generally focus on issues specific to the writing/development process or industry. Protected posts may include excerpts from works in progress, various ideas in various stages of development, and work to revised.

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