Oh, god, the sense of cheating! I know that. "If I was any good at this, I'd already know what I want to do here!"

I think every writer has that.

I was reading something earlier (somewhere on the internet) about how authors frequently do make it up as they go along. One cited a situation where, in a book that was nominated for at least one award, they flipped a coin to decide who would live at the end of a conflict.

So ... enjoy your creative process?

Anyone interested in trading betas? Because before I keep trying to pitch my novel, I think I need to know what readers think.

mmmmph I think i finished this book that has been trying to gut me from the inside. gah. (thx to Kat for some insights on things)

now i have to send it somewhere and I am filled with the do not wants.

ETA: sent it. Now dealing with other things. Pretending that it doesn't exist.

For one of my stories, I need a name for one of those rich-lady empowerment foundations, especially if you can think of one that could be an acronym.

Women's Organization for Real Life Dedication/Development, WORLD.

I was trying to think of something for BLOOM, but didn't think you wanted to be tied down to Boston or Boise or Brighton.

Those are both interesting, thanks.

I got yet another idea brewing, but I'm so backlogged already. I was thinking of a Sci-Fi first contact sort of story. I kind of favor hard sci-fi so no faster than light travel and minimal hand-wavy technology. So the alien race are virtual beings, they are, essentially, software. They travel between the stars by data transmission via quantum entanglement based communication. The trick is that communication hardware has to travel between the stars the hard way taking a couple thousand years per light year. Also communication is strictly one device to one device and both devices must be manufactured together. So a starship carries thousands of 'paired' devices.

Anyhow, such a starship arrived thousands of years ago and the aliens have been watching the Earth all that time, keeping silent and with minimal interaction. They are completely non-hostile. The Earth poses no threat and has no significant resources for a starfaring race except for biological life. Harvesting that resource is simply a matter of observation. The most important resource for this race is entertainment, and watching life develop without their interference is pure gold. Anything unpredictable is exceptionally valuable. Right now the Earth is a quasar of entertainment as they suck up every creative thing humans do.

However, there are concerns that humanity might be on a path toward destruction and factions have developed over what to do. Do they risk corrupting the quasar by interfering, or do they risk this well drying up? The story is about some initial probing, sending down an agent to quietly make contact with a select individual. The agent is a manufactured person containing a shard of one of the aliens hardwired into brain tissue. So the agent seems perfectly human both physically and in behavior (they've been watching us forever so they know how not to be awkward).

Conflict can be found among the factions, in the person being made contact with being convinced, and the agent trying to come to some conclusion about humanities chances.

Also, I'm working on the audiobook edition of Cog. By working, I mean having a narrator working on it which works well with the amount of time I have.

Proof of concept, first fifteen minutes. [link]

Interesting. Alien POV?