Writing?
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I’ve written as a hobby for a number of years. I started with fan fiction set in the Warhammer 40K universe, then moved on to Star Wars, Star Trek and Aliens before deciding that I was going to update the old TV show Space: 1999, calling my version Space: 2299. I’ve also written some totally original fiction, one story set during World War 2 involving a force from the RAF Regiment that has been ordered to secure an airfield in the occupied Netherlands only to find that it wasn’t being used for what the Allies thought it was and also a series of stories set in a science fiction universe of my own creation.
Lengthwise most of the Star Wars stories are around 12,000 words long and there are some 40K ones a bit shorter than that. Other than that there are a number of roughly 30,000 word long stories for Star Trek, 40K and Space:2299 while the longer stories for various themes are in the 60,000-120,000 word range.
There are more than 200 of them on my website now.
Oh and I also do covers and some basic art to go with them.
When I lost interest in anything new, I started to write my own series. I started discussing it with my fiance, who, like me is a huge nerd, and was discussing how it was cool how comic book series like with Marvel, and Star Trek Series’ all coexist in this shared universe, and I thought it would be cool to create a set of series that coexist in a shared universe, and find a way to bind them together in various series’.
When I was younger I wrote this story about a genetically enhanced femme fatale, another story about a tangible virtual reality, a story about robots who lived on their own planet, and had short circuited to forget their origins, and thus didn’t believe that humans created them, and started this concept about an alien who saves earth when they fall in love with earth culture and convince their superiors to convert earth into an interstellar tourist attraction, which, ends up with it’s own mess of problems later on. The biggest challenge in weaving these stories together is setting a time frame for each story or story series.
The project I’m working on right now, is a series based on the origins of the tangible virtual reality, also known as the ‘dream field’ and its inventor. If you’re familiar with Professor Geek, he did an awesome video, once, on the Trinity archetype, which inspired me to go ahead and make the primary focus remain on three characters, with the main protagonist being the “son” or incarnate, his mentor being the “father” and a female character being the “spirit”. It’s a series with an extra wide scope, and is far more ambitious than anything I’ve ever attempted at writing, because the task isn’t just writing a set of novels, but setting up a whole world, that reminds the reader that it’s foreign and alien, while being relatable to humans. The way I do this is by building various cultures with music, art, religions, and other ideologies in ways that are similar to human ideologies, but only develop in different ways. It’s written in episodic format, which has also been a huge challenge, because of that balance of writing a complete story in each chapter, but for the next chapter to progress the plot ahead a bit more than the previous chapter.
My main protagonist in this story is the embodiment of the Jungian idea of the Magician. His major flaw that he struggles with is an ever growing god complex, because of the inventive abilities he possesses, having very few realities that he can make possible. This gives him a sort of “the universe is my playground” kind of feel, and has that tendency of wanting to amass or protect the level of power that he possesses so that he can mess with people however he pleases. The mentor character is man who is ancient, and is obsessed with restoring his homeland to its pre revolution status, where he was a very influential leader. The female character is an abdicated princess, who is the daughter of a hyper dimensional being from a nonlinear time frame (an idea inspired by DS9) and thus can remember the future, as well as possesses Mantis like telepathic abilities. In this galaxy there are many hybrid hyper dimensionals including the main villain, who can also manipulate time and space at low levels, although it makes him tired much faster. I really wanted to push how trippy I could make these stories, and when I revise, I’ll probably try to push it further. I really want to give readers the experience of exploring a vast new world where anything seems to be possible and the line between imagination and reality becomes nonexistent, and yet is still not some utopia wherein everyone gets what they want and only generates new struggles for people to deal with. I intend to create just enough confusing to intrigue, but not enough to alienate.
The plot, the characters, the worlds, etc. in this series is, by far, the most difficult thing I ever wrote, and I always liked writing.
I’m also writing the robot story, and I’m finding I recycle characters a lot, only make them slightly different to adapt to different circumstances. I keep writing the hyper-confident and creative primary male character, the more rigid and highly methodical mentor character and the very attractive and moral center female character. It might be aspects of my own psyche, and maybe the primary male characters are aspects of my animus projections. Who knows?
And, yes, I do love archetypes and to research archetypical storytelling as much as I can. I think it’s a tragedy how a lot of post modern works throw archetypical storytelling by the wayside, and how new films and stories treat gender is atrocious. Ironically, I think feminists devalue women, by turning them into something interchangeable with men.
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