Thursday, October 20, 2011

Going to WFC and writing a new story

I finished and submitted the last short story I mentioned here. (Horror, mysterious creatures, 1853). Now I'm working on a science-fiction story (soft SF). I thought it might be flash fiction length, but I'm already at 1000 words and it's still going strong.

Technically I haven't written sci-fi since I was a kid.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

The story was this: My characters were on a spaceship, approaching a planet. They were talking about their societal problems -- like not having enough cheese or whatever -- things were going wrong, anarchy and stuff OMG! And then... the planet comes into focus and it's blue and white with large tracts of land, so perfect.... except for all the humans living there...

Yep. The old aliens approaching Earth trope. But hey, I was probably 10 years old and I never tried to publish it. I may have drawn some illustrations for it though.

Different, simpler times -- those heady times when the ellipsis was king and I hadn't yet discovered Asimov or Bradbury or Clarke.

The best news I have to share is that I'll be in San Diego next week for the World Fantasy Convention. I'm looking forward to meeting new people and learning some things. It'll be my first WFC so if you have any tips, I'm all ears.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're 'all ears'!

Does this mean you're a Vulcan, Folly? In which case that story you wrote as a kid was autobiographical!

Have fun at the convention, and, er, live long and prosper.

Folly Blaine said...

I went as Spock for Halloween last year, so it's not as crazy as you might think -- especially with these crazy Greek eyebrows of mine.

Live long and right back at ya. :)

E.M. Jeanmougin said...

oOo A convention. That sounds lots of fun.

I would like to write Sci-Fi, but I don't know if I'm good enough at pulling technical jargon out of nowhere. You would think that all those years of Doctor Who would have panned out by now, but alas.

Folly Blaine said...

E.M.: I'm easing my way into sci-fi with a focus on characters and not as much nitty gritty techspeak. We'll see how successful I am, but I've been reading Asimov's Science Fiction magazine (http://www.asimovs.com/info/guidelines.shtml) and I think it will work. If it doesn't I never have to show anybody. :)