In the Meantime...

It's a brand new week! For those of you in the northeast dealing with snow, please know that Austin's high tomorrow is 77. I win. :)

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As of this moment I'm still searching for longterm employment in a field I can be proud of. I've got several interesting leads, and dozens of applications floating out in the employment aether, but nothing concrete yet.

But that's not what I want to write about today. Today I want to write about... writing...

You see, there're only so many hours in a row I can fill out applications before I get a little stir crazy. When that level of boredom begins to rear its head, I know it's time for me to take a detour and focus on my writing.

Now, depending on who you are, you probably haven't ready anything I've written, aside from this blog or a random status update.

It's not like you've ever had a chance to, not unless you happened to be in an English or Writing class with me at some point in the past, or if you'd seen me perform in a Mock Trial competition over a decade ago.

Other than those outlets though, most of my writing has remained private over the years; certainly anything that could be considered "creative writing".

So, what exactly is it that I write about? What is it that drives me as a writer?

Well as a reader/viewer/listener/player, I know exactly what that is. I loves stories about stories. I love stories about other topics as well, but in my upper echelon of favorites I can almost always trace them back to that central theme.

"The Unwritten" is about how fiction has changed the course of real world events throughout history.
"Watchmen" is about a lie meant to save the world.
"Big Fish" is about the way we communicate our own stories to each other.
"Bioshock Infinite" is about the stories/lies we'll tell ourselves to move past our internal problems.

Stories about stories; about the power they can have over the human psyche; have always interested me.

But is that what I want to write?

I've been working on a number of stories(a book, a film script, a comicbook, and a film short, among a few other smaller ideas), and I've started to notice a central theme about them. Something that, perhaps unsurprisingly, relates to my own story for the last few months.

Breaking points.

Everything I'm currently writing examines the point in a human's life where they simply can't take it anymore and make a drastic change.

Now, you may be thinking: "of course you're writing about breaking points/drastic changes: you just went through that yourself!", and you're not wrong.

However, I've been working on some of these stories for years, so if anything they may have been ways for me to work through my issues before I was even able to confront them head on.

Let's take a look at one of the main projects I've been working on: the book.

Warning! Things are about to get nerdy! Please keep your pocket protectors and slide-rulers inside the compartment at all times!

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We all have things in our past that we're not proud of. Things we'd like to change. Some of them are little and some are monumental. Some are our own faults and others we had no way of preventing.

We have those things as individuals, and we have those things as a species.

But what if we could go back and change them?

"You mean a time-travel story?
Well... kind of...

"You realize that time-travel has been done to death, right?"
Not this story; I'm pretty sure that this story has never been done before.

"You realize you're a huge nerd, right?"
Yes, but that's not the point; can I get back to my blog!?

"Fine, sure, whatever... nerd."
<_<

Anyway...

So what would be different about this particular story?

Okay, so, even if you're not as big of a nerd as I am, you're probably at least somewhat familiar with the concept of a "paradox". Time-travel is full of them: things that, logically, shouldn't be able to work.

1. Bad thing "A" happens.
2. You spend 10 years developing time-travel to go back and stop "A".
3. You go back in time.
4. You stop "A"
5. "A" doesn't happen.
5. So you never develop time-travel.
6. So you never go back in time.
7. So you never stop "A".
8. Return to "1"; repeat forever.

Under that model of time-travel, you're stuck in a loop forever. You can never leave. You can never change the past.

And I've seen/read/experienced a ton of time-travel stories that handwave that point, or just ignore it, or, in a few cases, find creative solutions to get around it and/or use the science to their advantage.

I want to be part of the later category.

So let's put paradox to the side for a moment and talk some string theory!(I warned you about this getting nerdy, you really have no excuse). Specifically parallel universes.

On our Earth, you had cereal for breakfast. On Earth B, you had waffles. On Earth C you're a fish and ate some algae. String theory is weird.

So, long story long, my book is focusing on fusing the two ideas to allow for time-travel, but also following the rules of paradox to focus on the ramifications it would have on the protagonist.

So what's the story?

Okay, so think about those things you'd like to change in the past. Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Trump(hi readers from the future!), etc.

What if you could change the past, just not your own? What if you could prevent the Holocaust, but only on Earth B?

You wouldn't be able to live on that world. You wouldn't be able to reap the benefits. The only thing you could do was rest assured that you were helping create a better future for an alternate version of yourself... a version you could never meet.

That's the story I want to tell. The story of a person who changes the past, but has to live in their own unchanged and broken present. A person who can prevent genocide, but also has to live with it.

What is that person's breaking point? At what point does it stop being "worth it" for them? What kind of tragedy can that person live with in their own lives, knowing that on the other side of an interdimensional barrier is another version of them who will never have to experience that loss; that pain? And once they reach that breaking point: what do they do next?

Does this seem like something that would interest you as a reader?

I haven't decided yet, but as I move farther along in the writing process, I may begin to post chapters, either here or on another blog created specifically for that purpose. Input would be welcome.

So yeah, that's what I've been working on when not applying for jobs, and if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to it...

(No, I didn't write this to the Doctor Who soundtrack; it was the Airwolf theme actually).