A Work in Progress

Fair warning . . .

But writing is antisocial. It's as solitary as masturbation. Disturb a writer when he is in the throes of creation and he is likely to turn and bite right to the bone . . . and not even know that he's doing it. As writers' wives and husbands often learn to their horror.

. . . there is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured. In a household with more than one person, of which one is a writer, the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private, and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. Because, if you disturb the patient at such times, he may break into tears or become violent. Or he may not hear you at all . . . and, if you shake him at this stage, he bites.

Robert A. Heinlein
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

I was recently going over some background notes for a novelette I originally wrote many years ago. I found it shocking to see just how little has changed—or perhaps come full-circle—in the years since those notes were written. Those notes posited a time in the future where the socio-political landscape of that time had continued down a dystopian path that provided the backdrop for the story. That period in future history is targeted is now.

What is most disturbing, I find, is the strength in which some of our political leaders cling to the past. The “old white men” of today often refer to that period of the past of some kind of golden era. It was, I suppose, for the wealthy and powerful, supported by a Republican political power base—which is what they want to return to today.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or, as was repeated many times as scripture in Battlestar Galactica, “All this has happened before, and will happen again.” I hope, like they did, we realize the fallacy of this belief.

Part of what I also find interesting is that during that time period, technology has advanced in ways and uses that many science fiction authors had not foreseen. It is the human part of equation, unfortunately, that seems unchanged.

It’s actually unfair to brush all of humanity with such a broad stroke. Some progress has been made in several areas, but, as seen by the observations above, their hold is tenuous, bucked against by the wealthy and powerful—just, I suppose, as it has always been since the beginning of human culture.

I try to be optimistic for our future. I have to believe that, eventually, we will get our collective act together and, as Captain Picard told Lily Sloane in Star Trek: First Contact, “The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves, and the rest of humanity.”

The alternative is a future too bleak and oppressive to consider.

Yet, as I examine it, the difference between that future and a bright, optimistic one lies on a razor-thin boundary. Sufficient force—and I suspect not very much of it, driven by social forces rather than military and political ones—can send us in either direction.

Yesterday, NCSoft announced that they would be shutting down their City of Heroes MMO. The business reasons, as given, are vague, but whatever those reasons are, they have chosen to close down development and production.

Although I have not been an active player in some time, pretty much since Star Trek Online launched, I have returned to Paragon City from time to time, each time remembering why I had once spent so much time there. I feel a definite sense of loss at its imminent demise.

While I hope that someone, somehow manages to find a way to rescue and sustain it, I suspect that the odds are against such a resurrection. (There are several petitions in motion in an attempt to save the game. Please sign one if you can. You never know—it might make a difference. We’ll never know if we don’t try.)

Much of my creative output over the past six years were inspired by my participation in that game and its other players. The Emerald Flight stories, Heroic Measures (and its proposed sequels), and the planned Winter’s Fury tetralogy all have characters and situations inspired by characters I developed, or interacted with, in that fictional setting. So, in a sense, they will live on in the new venues in which I have placed them.

I met several fantastic people with whom I have become long-standing friends. There have been deep relationships, severe heartbreaks, and glorious triumphs. These will, I suspect, survive past the end of the game. For having the opportunity to meet those people alone, the experience has been worth it.

It is said that all good things must come to an end . . .

I’ve found that rarely makes it all that much easier when that end does come.

Final word count: 32,680

Yeah, no new progress since my last report. This cold knocked me down hard enough that I managed no word count for the past three days.

Still, it was a really good run and excellent motivation to try to exceed my usual daily average (by 3x!).

Now, to start planning for November. It’s not as far away as you think!