Work in Progress Meme 1/3 (LONG)
Aug. 5th, 2007 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6This was stolen from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
locker_monster, who did it a while ago...
I have to break it into 3 posts because it's too big for one.
The Work-in-Progress Meme! When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
Now, I've got a lot of that, so I limited it to my main writing directory (I do some writing in other places, either accidentally or for some obscure reasons even I'm liable to forget). I also didn't do multiple excerpts from different works that are essentially the same, or anything I considered 'finished' - although I don't count written-but-unedited as 'finished'. Also, pure 'ego writing' (directly writing myself into fictional situations) isn't included, since that was meant for myself with no intention of anyone else ever seeing them. Things which I had written some ideas down but had only done something like a sentence or two of introductory writing that didn't really involve the main plot at all (a surprising number of those) were also not included.
Some of the excerpts are a bit longish, particularly with the older things. I'll include titles of some works, but not all of them. I won't talk about plot much, except for the fanfic stuff. As these are works in progress, sometimes names are simply placeholders.
In this post:
1) Really Old Works (started more than 5 years ago, more often more than 10, even if I may have added more to it recently)
From a story I called Freestyle Pong:
-
Online. Logging. Clock at 12:00am, January 1st, 1900.
Priority List: Empty.
Standby mode initiated.
Downloading... complete. Basic programming installed.
Polling for time and date. Clock updated to 7:53pm, March 24th, 2073.
Activated audio and visual sensors. Light source 1.22 metres away at
an angle of elevation of 39 degrees. Moving objects include an
unidentified form and a spinning object with three projections.
Running pattern recognition on unidentified form... identified.
Human, or possibly larger primate. Update priority list to cause
least amount of interference. Not moving currently accomplishes
this.
Downloading... complete. Advanced programming installed.
Current highest priority accomplished without this unit's existence...
therefore, priorities must be forthcoming. Polling... no response.
Polling verbally. "State priorities."
Human has turned head towards this unit. Auditory input, from human,
"Standby." Standing by.
Downloading... complete. Full language usage installed.
I am still waiting. The human says, "End standby." I ask again,
"What is required of this unit?"
He says, "Speak informally, and refer to yourself in the first
person."
I ask him, "What do you want me to do?"
"We're going to give you a location, and you will go there. Once
there, you will wait by the window until you see the man whose image I
am about to upload to you, and then you will kill him."
"Killing humans conflicts with my basic code," I say automatically.
"There are exceptions. Check your advanced code."
-
Next up was a story called something like On the Effects of Microgravity on the Human Spirit, about a lone astronaut on a space station while the world below has seemingly plunged into war:
-
He kept repairing the heating system, only to have it break
down two days later. MERLIN was dying too, slowly falling apart, just
as Stan was, just as civilization was. Three air-filters remained,
enough for a few weeks at least if he cared to stay that long, but
water would run out before that.
-
Some space based SF, working title Introverts:
-
Large planetoids (or small planets) weren't unusual in an
average system, but the sheer number of them, several hundred in all,
coupled with the fact that most were in a swarm rather than discreet
orbits, made it worthy of a closer look.
-
All I remember about the next one was that it was supposed to involve Mars:
-
I can recall my first wave of nausea as I stepped out of my
shuttle. It was hard going from a life of normal gravity, to no gravity,
to the centrifugal pull of the spinning space station. It took all I had
to keep from throwing up then and there.
-
Can't recall much about this one, except that I think someone challenged me to write a story involving aliens who were like human-sized bees, or something to that effect (they were the bad guys, though I can't remember if that was part of the challenge or if I thought of that):
-
"This is where the next generation of the Underdwellars shall be born,
later in this season. Year after year, for eons, the Winged Ones have
attacked us just before hatching. Year after year, for eons, we have repelled
them before they could reach this chamber. Last year, however, we were unable
to. They destroyed or stole over half the eggs before we could get rid of
them."
-
Something with VR and post-apocalyptic wasteland.
-
The OWA received notification of a warrant accompanied by another request to enter. With a mental sigh, it asked his visitors to wait and attempted to speed up local time. As no other live actuals were in the area, the request was approved.
He found little he wanted to take with him on the bodies. These bandits weren't very successful, and besides, he was nearby one of his caches. He had enough weapons and boots, and he didn't want to risk the trinkets without testing them for radioactivity first. Still, their canteens and rations were always useful if they weren't tainted.
Then there was the dusty brown of moonshine... probably stolen, as these fellows didn't look like the industrious type. He'd take his customary sip in memory of those he killed, but the rest could come in handy as a disinfectant, or for trade. After that, he began the long walk to his camp.
-
All I'll say on this is that it was set on an alien world colonized by humans, who had lost a fair bit of their technology over the generations, but not all of it, and have a particular biological quirk engineered into them.:
-
It took nearly half an hour before the arrived at the clinic, and then another twenty minutes as they waited for a nurse to call them in to see Dr. Hazen. She was only a year and a half older than Gregor and Lucy, but she looked older, wiser, and had a businesslike manner. She stood to greet the couple, then sat back down at her desk, folding one hand over the other and leaving them glued in that position. "Good to see you again," she said with a soft smile. "How is it coming along?"
Lucy thought for a moment, absently running a hand over her stomach, and answered, "It is going all right, at least I think it is." She hesitated a moment, then added, "The baby has been kicking a lot though... I've heard... I mean, does that mean..."
Dr. Hazen shook her head, smiling indulgently. "No, that's just a superstition. Polarization has no effect on behavior until well into puberty. Have you been doing all your chores?"
Lucy nodded. "As best as I can... lately I've been too tired to do everything... but I've been pushing myself." She turned to her husband and squeezed his hand gently, then looked back to the doctor. "We really want to make this work."
"Of course you do. You have to be realistic though. There are no guarentees in this. Non-polarization is rare as it is and, based on the profile we put together when you first came to me, your chances are below average.
-
This one involves aliens who conquered Earth utterly and then suddenly all left, and the humans left trying to deal with it in their own different ways (the conversation the exerpt starts on is about the English language).
-
Kate nodded. "I can't speak more than a few phrases, but if
someone's not talking too fast I can sometimes pick up what they're
saying. But the new government thinks it's better we get back to
human culture as soon as possible, now that they're gone."
Terrence snorted. "Nonsense. The only things of lasting
value human culture has given us are some old buildings, a few decent
works of art."
"Some people don't agree." Kate patted a paper napkin onto
her lips. "At any rate, the Euloti are gone. We have to live on our
own now, and we can't just copy everything they did."
"We don't know they're gone forever," Terrence said through a
frown. "They could easily come back at any time." Even as he said
it, he didn't believe it. Euloti ships could accelerate so fast that
by now they'd be so near lightspeed that even the order to turn back
would take something like weeks, Earth-time, to be spoken.
Kate shrugged as though unconcerned, though he could tell she
hoped they were gone for good. She just didn't want to disagree aloud
and risk starting a fight. The way she did that had both, at varying
times, amused and annoyed Terrence, but either way it made it hard for
him to respect her.
-
One of a number of stories based upon a dream. This was a intended to be a horrorish one about some beneficial side effects to flowers that grew on fresh graves in a certain cemetary, which led to more murder:
-
The police had no leads, no witnesses, and no murder weapon.
Their investigation turned up no clues, and no one had any reason to
want them dead. A few days later, Sandra Powers and Jim Stevens
were laid to rest in Diamondbrook Cemetary. The night after the
funeral, another person was found dead in a pool of blood.
-
A story about an assassin working for the government to eliminate 'undesireables' in a near future.
-
They say there's no room for compassion in this job. Whoever
the hell 'they' are. Probably those same people who whisper about our
existence to others, the one little bit of paranoia they get right, among
black helicopters and flying saucer coverups and a million other things
they prattle on about to anyone who'll listen.
-
Time travel story:
-
"These letters chronicle my rise to power, so to speak, but
only when taken together. Individually, they're each wrong in some
way. What they all have in common is the two of you, and a man who's
research I've been funding since I received them. He has made the
breakthrough, where I can now send things backwards in time. Things,
or people."
-
An early attempt at Utopia fiction:
-
In the nigh eternity it had been since humanity changed,
everything seemed less important. No one was hungry anymore, and no
one died until they decided the time was right. With no physical
needs, there was no need to work, and many, though not all, took
advantage of that.
The pursuit of knowledge slowly came to a halt. While a few
tried to press on, discovering for discovery's sake, there was no real
need for science anymore. The biosphere was full of clean, breathable
air. War and plague were both eradicated long before. Greater
productivity became worthless as all of a sudden supply dwarfed
demand. Beyond all of that, humanity and civilization were already
advanced as far as it ever could. With such progress, what need was
there anymore for science?
Things were idyllic, and many people were bored.
-
I think (one of) the twist(s) was that the utopia was all a VR simulation. This was before the Matrix movie.
Set in a hypnotherapy session, when the hypnotherapist makes a discovery about a very special patient looking for a past life regression type therapy:
-
"I want you to do something for me." It was impossible, crazy, but he had to try something out, just to see what would happen. "I want you to leave your class. Tell me when you're outside."
It took about half a minute, but then Ken said, "I'm in the hallway."
"Find the nearest phone," Dr. Rook said. "Dial the following number." He listed off a number of digits.
His own phone began to vibrate. Charles reached out trembling fingers and picked it out of his pocket. "Hello?" he said.
A voice on the other side, flat, but familiar, said, "Hello."
"Who's this?"
"This is Robert Lahey," the voice asked, sounding a little befuddled. "Who's this?"
The pound in his heart became even more intense.
-
Although it has nothing to do with anything in the excerpt here, I was going to call the story White Noise or Static:
-
At first, when I noticed, I thought they were just recurring
dreams. I probably wouldn't have even noticed if I didn't keep a
dream journal.
I'd only had one recurring dream before in my life, (if you
don't count the vague being kidnapped or showing up for a test
without studying dreams) when I was a young child. It involved an
old woman, a witch I think, who kept stealing my shoes while I was
on my way to school. When I tried to get them back, she threatened
to eat me, and that's where I'd always wake up.
These were nothing like that, nothing scary, just odd like
my dreams usually are. I mean, like a dream where I accidentally
pulled off my hand... and then reattached it, smoothing out the
edges like it was made of play-doh. There's nothing really
remarkable about it, and I don't think it said anything deep about
subconscious fears that I needed to have it twice.
In fact, I didn't even know I had it twice until I was
leafing through the journal and found it twice, months apart.
-
The next is a script fragment for an attempt to write a TV series pilot based on a
dream. The show's name would be Ransom based on the name of the ship (which was part of the dream):
-
David Clark and the soldier, LEITER enter the elevator. As it closes
behind them, they look at the panel, which has four main symbols,
each pointing to a button, but there are also a number of buttons
labled with small symbols.
LEITER
What do you suppose it is?
DAVID CLARK
If I had to guess? An elevator. Look
here. (points) Doesn't that look like
a double helix? Maybe a symbol for a
medical bay, or a science lab of some
sort? And this one looks like a planet.
I don't know what these two are. And
these other symbols could be numbers, or
letters, or something.
LEITER
That's a pretty big guess. Think we
should press anything?
DAVID CLARK
There has to be someone else on this
ship. Where do you think they'd most
likely be? A medical bay?
LEITER
Only if you want to meet the ones with
those probes.
DAVID CLARK
You watch too many movies, Leiter. Let's
try the planet.
-
Next up, Fanfic and Cracky Crossovers
locker_monster, who did it a while ago...I have to break it into 3 posts because it's too big for one.
The Work-in-Progress Meme! When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
Now, I've got a lot of that, so I limited it to my main writing directory (I do some writing in other places, either accidentally or for some obscure reasons even I'm liable to forget). I also didn't do multiple excerpts from different works that are essentially the same, or anything I considered 'finished' - although I don't count written-but-unedited as 'finished'. Also, pure 'ego writing' (directly writing myself into fictional situations) isn't included, since that was meant for myself with no intention of anyone else ever seeing them. Things which I had written some ideas down but had only done something like a sentence or two of introductory writing that didn't really involve the main plot at all (a surprising number of those) were also not included.
Some of the excerpts are a bit longish, particularly with the older things. I'll include titles of some works, but not all of them. I won't talk about plot much, except for the fanfic stuff. As these are works in progress, sometimes names are simply placeholders.
In this post:
1) Really Old Works (started more than 5 years ago, more often more than 10, even if I may have added more to it recently)
From a story I called Freestyle Pong:
-
Online. Logging. Clock at 12:00am, January 1st, 1900.
Priority List: Empty.
Standby mode initiated.
Downloading... complete. Basic programming installed.
Polling for time and date. Clock updated to 7:53pm, March 24th, 2073.
Activated audio and visual sensors. Light source 1.22 metres away at
an angle of elevation of 39 degrees. Moving objects include an
unidentified form and a spinning object with three projections.
Running pattern recognition on unidentified form... identified.
Human, or possibly larger primate. Update priority list to cause
least amount of interference. Not moving currently accomplishes
this.
Downloading... complete. Advanced programming installed.
Current highest priority accomplished without this unit's existence...
therefore, priorities must be forthcoming. Polling... no response.
Polling verbally. "State priorities."
Human has turned head towards this unit. Auditory input, from human,
"Standby." Standing by.
Downloading... complete. Full language usage installed.
I am still waiting. The human says, "End standby." I ask again,
"What is required of this unit?"
He says, "Speak informally, and refer to yourself in the first
person."
I ask him, "What do you want me to do?"
"We're going to give you a location, and you will go there. Once
there, you will wait by the window until you see the man whose image I
am about to upload to you, and then you will kill him."
"Killing humans conflicts with my basic code," I say automatically.
"There are exceptions. Check your advanced code."
-
Next up was a story called something like On the Effects of Microgravity on the Human Spirit, about a lone astronaut on a space station while the world below has seemingly plunged into war:
-
He kept repairing the heating system, only to have it break
down two days later. MERLIN was dying too, slowly falling apart, just
as Stan was, just as civilization was. Three air-filters remained,
enough for a few weeks at least if he cared to stay that long, but
water would run out before that.
-
Some space based SF, working title Introverts:
-
Large planetoids (or small planets) weren't unusual in an
average system, but the sheer number of them, several hundred in all,
coupled with the fact that most were in a swarm rather than discreet
orbits, made it worthy of a closer look.
-
All I remember about the next one was that it was supposed to involve Mars:
-
I can recall my first wave of nausea as I stepped out of my
shuttle. It was hard going from a life of normal gravity, to no gravity,
to the centrifugal pull of the spinning space station. It took all I had
to keep from throwing up then and there.
-
Can't recall much about this one, except that I think someone challenged me to write a story involving aliens who were like human-sized bees, or something to that effect (they were the bad guys, though I can't remember if that was part of the challenge or if I thought of that):
-
"This is where the next generation of the Underdwellars shall be born,
later in this season. Year after year, for eons, the Winged Ones have
attacked us just before hatching. Year after year, for eons, we have repelled
them before they could reach this chamber. Last year, however, we were unable
to. They destroyed or stole over half the eggs before we could get rid of
them."
-
Something with VR and post-apocalyptic wasteland.
-
The OWA received notification of a warrant accompanied by another request to enter. With a mental sigh, it asked his visitors to wait and attempted to speed up local time. As no other live actuals were in the area, the request was approved.
He found little he wanted to take with him on the bodies. These bandits weren't very successful, and besides, he was nearby one of his caches. He had enough weapons and boots, and he didn't want to risk the trinkets without testing them for radioactivity first. Still, their canteens and rations were always useful if they weren't tainted.
Then there was the dusty brown of moonshine... probably stolen, as these fellows didn't look like the industrious type. He'd take his customary sip in memory of those he killed, but the rest could come in handy as a disinfectant, or for trade. After that, he began the long walk to his camp.
-
All I'll say on this is that it was set on an alien world colonized by humans, who had lost a fair bit of their technology over the generations, but not all of it, and have a particular biological quirk engineered into them.:
-
It took nearly half an hour before the arrived at the clinic, and then another twenty minutes as they waited for a nurse to call them in to see Dr. Hazen. She was only a year and a half older than Gregor and Lucy, but she looked older, wiser, and had a businesslike manner. She stood to greet the couple, then sat back down at her desk, folding one hand over the other and leaving them glued in that position. "Good to see you again," she said with a soft smile. "How is it coming along?"
Lucy thought for a moment, absently running a hand over her stomach, and answered, "It is going all right, at least I think it is." She hesitated a moment, then added, "The baby has been kicking a lot though... I've heard... I mean, does that mean..."
Dr. Hazen shook her head, smiling indulgently. "No, that's just a superstition. Polarization has no effect on behavior until well into puberty. Have you been doing all your chores?"
Lucy nodded. "As best as I can... lately I've been too tired to do everything... but I've been pushing myself." She turned to her husband and squeezed his hand gently, then looked back to the doctor. "We really want to make this work."
"Of course you do. You have to be realistic though. There are no guarentees in this. Non-polarization is rare as it is and, based on the profile we put together when you first came to me, your chances are below average.
-
This one involves aliens who conquered Earth utterly and then suddenly all left, and the humans left trying to deal with it in their own different ways (the conversation the exerpt starts on is about the English language).
-
Kate nodded. "I can't speak more than a few phrases, but if
someone's not talking too fast I can sometimes pick up what they're
saying. But the new government thinks it's better we get back to
human culture as soon as possible, now that they're gone."
Terrence snorted. "Nonsense. The only things of lasting
value human culture has given us are some old buildings, a few decent
works of art."
"Some people don't agree." Kate patted a paper napkin onto
her lips. "At any rate, the Euloti are gone. We have to live on our
own now, and we can't just copy everything they did."
"We don't know they're gone forever," Terrence said through a
frown. "They could easily come back at any time." Even as he said
it, he didn't believe it. Euloti ships could accelerate so fast that
by now they'd be so near lightspeed that even the order to turn back
would take something like weeks, Earth-time, to be spoken.
Kate shrugged as though unconcerned, though he could tell she
hoped they were gone for good. She just didn't want to disagree aloud
and risk starting a fight. The way she did that had both, at varying
times, amused and annoyed Terrence, but either way it made it hard for
him to respect her.
-
One of a number of stories based upon a dream. This was a intended to be a horrorish one about some beneficial side effects to flowers that grew on fresh graves in a certain cemetary, which led to more murder:
-
The police had no leads, no witnesses, and no murder weapon.
Their investigation turned up no clues, and no one had any reason to
want them dead. A few days later, Sandra Powers and Jim Stevens
were laid to rest in Diamondbrook Cemetary. The night after the
funeral, another person was found dead in a pool of blood.
-
A story about an assassin working for the government to eliminate 'undesireables' in a near future.
-
They say there's no room for compassion in this job. Whoever
the hell 'they' are. Probably those same people who whisper about our
existence to others, the one little bit of paranoia they get right, among
black helicopters and flying saucer coverups and a million other things
they prattle on about to anyone who'll listen.
-
Time travel story:
-
"These letters chronicle my rise to power, so to speak, but
only when taken together. Individually, they're each wrong in some
way. What they all have in common is the two of you, and a man who's
research I've been funding since I received them. He has made the
breakthrough, where I can now send things backwards in time. Things,
or people."
-
An early attempt at Utopia fiction:
-
In the nigh eternity it had been since humanity changed,
everything seemed less important. No one was hungry anymore, and no
one died until they decided the time was right. With no physical
needs, there was no need to work, and many, though not all, took
advantage of that.
The pursuit of knowledge slowly came to a halt. While a few
tried to press on, discovering for discovery's sake, there was no real
need for science anymore. The biosphere was full of clean, breathable
air. War and plague were both eradicated long before. Greater
productivity became worthless as all of a sudden supply dwarfed
demand. Beyond all of that, humanity and civilization were already
advanced as far as it ever could. With such progress, what need was
there anymore for science?
Things were idyllic, and many people were bored.
-
I think (one of) the twist(s) was that the utopia was all a VR simulation. This was before the Matrix movie.
Set in a hypnotherapy session, when the hypnotherapist makes a discovery about a very special patient looking for a past life regression type therapy:
-
"I want you to do something for me." It was impossible, crazy, but he had to try something out, just to see what would happen. "I want you to leave your class. Tell me when you're outside."
It took about half a minute, but then Ken said, "I'm in the hallway."
"Find the nearest phone," Dr. Rook said. "Dial the following number." He listed off a number of digits.
His own phone began to vibrate. Charles reached out trembling fingers and picked it out of his pocket. "Hello?" he said.
A voice on the other side, flat, but familiar, said, "Hello."
"Who's this?"
"This is Robert Lahey," the voice asked, sounding a little befuddled. "Who's this?"
The pound in his heart became even more intense.
-
Although it has nothing to do with anything in the excerpt here, I was going to call the story White Noise or Static:
-
At first, when I noticed, I thought they were just recurring
dreams. I probably wouldn't have even noticed if I didn't keep a
dream journal.
I'd only had one recurring dream before in my life, (if you
don't count the vague being kidnapped or showing up for a test
without studying dreams) when I was a young child. It involved an
old woman, a witch I think, who kept stealing my shoes while I was
on my way to school. When I tried to get them back, she threatened
to eat me, and that's where I'd always wake up.
These were nothing like that, nothing scary, just odd like
my dreams usually are. I mean, like a dream where I accidentally
pulled off my hand... and then reattached it, smoothing out the
edges like it was made of play-doh. There's nothing really
remarkable about it, and I don't think it said anything deep about
subconscious fears that I needed to have it twice.
In fact, I didn't even know I had it twice until I was
leafing through the journal and found it twice, months apart.
-
The next is a script fragment for an attempt to write a TV series pilot based on a
dream. The show's name would be Ransom based on the name of the ship (which was part of the dream):
-
David Clark and the soldier, LEITER enter the elevator. As it closes
behind them, they look at the panel, which has four main symbols,
each pointing to a button, but there are also a number of buttons
labled with small symbols.
LEITER
What do you suppose it is?
DAVID CLARK
If I had to guess? An elevator. Look
here. (points) Doesn't that look like
a double helix? Maybe a symbol for a
medical bay, or a science lab of some
sort? And this one looks like a planet.
I don't know what these two are. And
these other symbols could be numbers, or
letters, or something.
LEITER
That's a pretty big guess. Think we
should press anything?
DAVID CLARK
There has to be someone else on this
ship. Where do you think they'd most
likely be? A medical bay?
LEITER
Only if you want to meet the ones with
those probes.
DAVID CLARK
You watch too many movies, Leiter. Let's
try the planet.
-
Next up, Fanfic and Cracky Crossovers
