I'm still working on several things.
I'm not done editing my first play (the scary tragedy).
I'm still writing my second play (a kind of literary testament where I get to tell my truth about my life and how I relate to the world).
I have a Sci-Fi war-related story in my folders, and that one is linked to a fairy tale/pseudo legend I want to write and it's also linked to the Sci-Fi PI short stories on which I'm working.
I've got ideas for couple-related short stories that can join the ones I've already written on the topic.
I still have to finish the novel that takes place in Japan that I started months ago...
Basically, and in spite of the recent testament posts, I hope I won't kick the bucket soon, otherwise I'd be disappointed to leave all these plot bunnies in their closed and unfinished folders!
I'm writing a lot, and I'm reading a lot, too.
Last week, I started reading Stephen E. Whitfield's The Making of Star Trek. No pun intended, but it's absolutely fascinating.
That made me watch again the second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before. Now... I'm a Star Trek fan, so I'll never be objective, but I encourage you to do what I did and watch it (again?). It's incredibly modern and daring (not as daring as the first pilot that had a lady for second-in-command, but one couldn't ask producers in the mid-'60s to be that bold).
Funnily enough, as I grew up watching Star Trek, I found a quiz last week that said I'm close to Uhura (that seriously made my day). I think that Uhura's role, and the way she was written in the novels (she ends up working for Intelligence, which was something I loved: Uhura. Nyota Uhura, the discreet spy from Starfleet), was somewhere in my head.
The role of women in the series wasn't as important as Mr Roddenberry wanted it to be, but he did his best, and *points at the producers again* the Power That Be probably thought that the show would start a civil war if it hinted at full male/female equality - and yet, this is where we must go if we mean to survive as a species.
Sometimes, I dream that Mr Roddenberry had been given full, free reign over his stories. How things would be today for all these little Trekkers who grew up to wish the Federation will exist one day? Would people from minorities be even stronger? Would gals be bolder?
I know I am bolder thanks to Star Trek. I was a rather (read quite) shy girl, and when there was something I had to do, I thought about my TV heroes and went, 'Okay, if Starfleet were real, you'd never get in by being such a wimp! Go and do what needs to be done!'. I know it sounds as if I'm ready for Bedlam, but it was just a way to push myself - and it worked: today, I dare to travel to the other side of the globe all alone - and I'm not even scared a bit, so, thank you, Mr Roddenberry for that, as well.
Mr Roddenberry created many things, but he was slowed down by idiots who didn't see the potential of the jewel he was producing (the same idiots eventually killed the series - incidentally, I'm convinced that if the Internet had existed back then, the audacious fans who momentarily saved the series would have managed to save it for at least two Enterprise five-year missions).
Mind you, most channels thought, and still think, in fact, that viewers are stupid (just look at the sordid number of Reality TV shows! If that's not taking the audience for a bunch of brainless monkeys, I don't know what is - and the other appeal to producers is that it's cheap to make). Mr Roddenberry wanted to believe that most of the audience members were people with brains and the manual that goes with it; in most cases, he was completely right.
If you give people something a notch above their usual dose of brain stimulation, some will recoil and whimper (I've got blood relatives in that category... or read the one-star reviews for JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, that's scary stuff: 'Oh, brain hurts! That's not Potter-verse. Bad book! Too dark!!!'), but others will be curious, open up and learn new things, and when something another notch higher comes their way, they'll be ready to learn and improve.
Incidentally, when I think of the way Star Trek was killed in the late '60s, I often also think of the way Alien Nation was killed in 1990; here's another series that was ahead of its time - so much that it wasn't renewed.
People working on TV series must really have a hard time when they come up with great ideas that are stopped and killed by a limiting budget.
I've always had a wild imagination (no kidding, as far as I can remember, I've always been imagining stories), but discovering Star Trek opened up my world and made my plot bunnies go at Warp 9.9.
I am still working on my Sci-Fi PI stories (as I've said, I'm really happy with the central plot). There's one character that I'm still wrestling with as she refuses to tell me everything about her, but that has to be because I'm missing a clue about her, who she really is, and what the heck she's doing in my plot - oh, and since it's Sci-Fi, I need to know what she is, too. If you spot her, kick her my way, please... ;)
While I'm constructing the universe for the characters in these stories, I've realized that I want to use it to describe the kind of world I wish for our future here.
Above my desk, I've got a signed photo of Mr Roddenberry smiling at me. He'll keep inspiring me, and I'll do my best to write a good world.
*off to tackle plot bunnies and build planets*
PS: My life as a Trekker/Trekkie started thanks to Mr Nimoy, but that'll be the topic of another entry - or maybe not.
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