In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!
ANALOG Tag Line (Which they don’t do anymore!):
What if someone who’d tried to kill you multiple times then wanted to be your friend?
Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)
The girl is unique in that she’s three seven years younger than she really is after “skipping rope” with a cosmic string; and the alien robot what caused the skip now wants to be her friend.
Opening Line:
After thirteen years in space, Emerald Marcillon was still thirteen years old.
Onward:
She held her breath and wished it would change.
“What you need to do,” said Zechariah Clarence Brewpub, “is to try and look at it from an adult perspective.”
She glared up at him, then looked through the armored glass and force screen at the
knife-footed LEMUR IIa robot in the shuttle bay of the SOLAR EXPLORER. Finally, she said, “You don’t have to go in there. I do.”
Zech nodded. “We have it almost as bad.”
“What?”
“We have to watch you risk your life to save all of Humanity.” He patted her shoulder.
They’d been the same age once. Even though he was twenty, two meters tall, and a Jump star now, he was kinder than anyone she knew.
“Sorry,” she said, then leaned on him for a second.
He knelt, hugged her, then headed for the airlock. The door closed and sealed with a thud and hiss. Emerald glanced at the vid pickup, acknowledging eight thousand pairs of eyes watching her and Inamma then went through the airlock leading into the shuttle bay.
The robot had taken a Human name even though it was an alien intelligence chip, and probably the sole survivor of an invasion of the Solar system sixty-five million years ago.
Emerald sighed. What was her thirteen years compared to that?
“Your coming here is the most foolish thing you have ever done, Human,” it said.
“Hello to you too, monkey breath. Is that compared to trying to hide from you on an open beach in the Yucatan?”
It paused before saying, “No. That was the most foolish thing you have ever done.”
“What do you want, Inamma? You called me here.”
“Two things.”
Emerald scowled. The crew of SOLAREX had thrown countless resources into communicating with Inamma. It seemed to finally understand that Humans were not the People – saurian aliens evolved on Venus who spread like an ancient plague of locusts. She said, “The artifacts.”
“Of course.”
“No,” she said bluntly.
“Also, ‘of course’,” said Inamma. “The second thing is that I want for us to be friends.”
Emerald stared at the six-legged robot who had taken a hundred Human lives and had tried countless times to take all of them. “You must be kidding.”
“I have no sense of humor. All Humans know this.” Emerald abruptly felt the weight of the crew behind her and the mass of Humans expanding into the Solar system. In a small voice, Inamma said, “You will effectively live forever, Emerald of Earth.” She stared in horror. “When we crossed the threshold of the cosmic string, and you became eleven again, you were changed as much as I. You are now effectively immortal.”
For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Time seemed to stop again. The cosmos held its breath.
What Was I Trying To Say?
Something about how despite our differences, in the end we may discover we’re more alike than different? I’m actually not even sure. This one vanished into my files – notice that after entering it into a contest, I never sent it anywhere else.
The Rest of the Story:
Part of the reason for THAT is that it’s the climax of a seven book series that started with Emerald’s parents being murdered by this alien amalgam of tech from far beyond Earth and a robot used by NASA to effect repairs on space hardware: “Evolving from Lemur I, Lemur IIa is an extremely capable system that both explores mechanical-design elements and provides an infrastructure for the development of algorithms (such as force control for mobility and manipulation, and adaptive visual feedback).”
I wrote this before the 2020 protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd sixteen miles south of where I live and eight blocks north of Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Book Store and Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Book Store. While I suffered not at all primarily due to my white privilege; the book store was burned to paper ash (they have started a Go Fund Me Page if you are interested: https://www.gofundme.com/f/let-us-help-save-uncle-hugo039s)
What I was trying to say then suddenly achieved new relevancy to my life today. In this fictional world I created, I have a Human teenager and an effectively ageless alien artificial intelligence chip that has taken over a Lemur IIa and has been slaughtering everyone who came into contact with Emerald – because she knows the location of crates of artifacts that the alien believes would allow it to reconstruct itself. It would do that in order to complete its mission – the annihilation of the entire Human population. It wishes to do this because it’s under the mistaken belief that Humans are the descendants of The People who swept out of our Solar system 65,000,000 years ago to invade and conquer the rest of the universe.
Now that AI realizes that Humans are the end result of the destruction of the People by the invasion fleet – and not who IT came to annihilate. We are, after a fashion, “innocent”. Emerald is its connection to Humanity, and now it realizes that, after dragging her over a cosmic string and “de-aging” her, it has also caused the alteration of her DNA to a point that she is not only younger, but doomed to be…(ta da!) “Forever Thirteen”!
With the new understanding, it wants her help to find the artifacts…to…what?
No idea yet, but that’s where I was going with this piece of flash.
End Analysis:
As a synopsis of the series, it’s fine. But as a story in and of itself? Bleh!
Can This Story Be Saved?
The way it is? Nope. It’s not even really a story, though it attempts to be one with a teensy bit of character interaction and a gram or two of conflict. But what do you expect from a piece of flash!?
HOWEVER, there might be something I can do with this…I dunno. But I want to try. I’ll keep you posted!
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