Planet Be

I'm celebrating a change in operations, from “idea capture” to creative freedom. My prior SOP (standard operating procedure) was to frantically transcribe ideas into verbal form for fear of losing them. I felt kinship with Coleridge, as explained in his preface to Kubla Khan: A Vision in a Dream, a Fragment. [1] I now believe that view of creativity reflects a bizarrely miscalibrated ego, self important yet self limiting. I prefer my current outlook of creative confidence. My ideas come from myself — with many inspirations of course — and I may develop them as I wish when I choose. Memory recall is a function in my own brain — where else? — that is an act of choosing thoughts. Not all memories are attended to immediately; neither must all new thoughts be transcribed. I enjoy allowing ideas to come and go. I do not currently fear that my ideas are not my own. I do not worry that good ideas will be inaccessible to me in future. This confidence is empowering. And most importantly peaceful.

R-)

[1] The importance of this poem in my life consisted of the author's explanatory note that he had dreamed up a magnificent creation that he attempted to describe upon waking, only to be interrupted by a visitor. I found romance in this view of creativity as something grand that I may only hope to capture. I aspired to be an artist in this way. I believed in geniuses as a mysterious and elevated human cohort that I dreamed of joining. Nowadays I see genius as a useless, othering concept.

It's been so long since I've written here that I worry if anyone is checking this blog for progress they'd think I've not made any. In fact I have been happy with many decisions I'm making about this story. I'm not so happy with formatting & organization decisions—like, I think I had intended this blog to “be the book,” in which case this note does not fit. This whole post does not fit that format, because this post is about progress on the writing of my (I hope, someday) story.

Planet Be the title is meant to evoke phrases like, “there is no 'Plan B' for saving our planet.” I spell it “Be” because the main setting of my story will be on a planet that has got its act together (Planet B).

Planet A Chronologically the story begins on Planet A. The main characters on Planet A are 2 who do not yet know each other but have a lot in common. They are idealistic in that they believe strongly in equality and cooperation as the path to peaceful coexistence. They are also realistic/pessimistic in facing the fact that their planet's future is bleak. They live in a wealthy, populous nation that is most responsible for the ecological disaster the planet faces; and the dominant group of citizens within that nation refuse to take responsibility or accept scientific truth. In fact the dominant group within the dominant nation on Planet A just elected a demagogue who deliberately intends to accelerate worsening conditions for the planet's most vulnerable while stockpiling resources for the already wealthy. I have yet to decide whether the action on Planet A begins during the election or during the relatively long transition period between the election and when the demagogue takes office. The philosophy driving this nation's government is about to go from neoliberal to fascist, roughly speaking.

The 2 characters on Planet A are Scientist & Artist. I realize that I'm conceiving an odd book. I do not want to describe my characters physically. I do not want to limit them with names (yet). I am thinking these things through. Scientist works at the government space agency, whose controversial Legacy Project has been debated during the campaign. The Legacy Project is an idea to transport archives of the civilizations on this planet via long range rockets in every direction into space. Obviously they can't go in all directions but they're manufacturing a large number of rockets for this purpose.

The project is criticized from the right and left. The demagogue has little interest in science but wants to transition the capabilities of the space agency to war. He makes it known that he plans to change all exploratory rockets designed for space into missiles that can attack nations on the opposite side of the planet. Our Scientist character and others within his agency are disturbed about handing their agency over to a war monger. They develop a plan to accelerate the project should the demagogue win.

From the left the Legacy Project is criticized as “Plan B”—like, Plan A would be saving the planet we're on and the best the center-left government can do is a Plan B.

The Artist character is among those critical of Plan B.

During the campaign it is leaked that the rockets are not only designed to transport documentation of the planet's civilizations but that each rocket has the capacity to carry a being in stasis. This news causes a lot of mockery {it won't work; the government is giving up on the entire planet & planning escape; etc.} by the demagogue even though some in his circle begin to secretly vie for space on the rockets. In true neoliberal fashion those being considered as representatives of the planet are “esteemed personages of the status quo,” as the Artist points out, “the exact people who ruined life on earth for all of us! Are we hoping to kill other planets too?!”

speaking of Earth, in my universe the intelligent beings on every inhabited planet call their planets earth! That comes up later

During a repetitive task at work Scientist finds the Artist's video channel & gradually becomes a fan of the Artist's thinking. Scientist begins to raise the same objections he gets from the Artist to his superiors. For example some of the people being considered for the stasis program are elderly. Scientist thinks the selection process is being corrupted by cronyism. Later when some old rich person who is selected for an escape tube dies, Scientist is able to substitute Artist in their place. It's a whole discussion, because Artist doesn't like this program at all. Insert good scene of dialogue here ;)

so that's the outline for how a main character who is countercultural ends up being shot into space as a representative of their planet.

I have some ideas for how it gets to the Planet B. One difficulty is deciding how Artist is woken. I really want to write multiple alternatives. I'm figuring out if I can do rehearsals or simulations or something. I want the main character of Planet B to be someone who takes a personal interest in ensuring Artist has the best awakening experience possible, rather than taking place in a sterile lab in isolation.

There's so much more to write!

writing exercise: How far can I get plotting out my story if I write it as a fairy tale? Doing so will repeat details already included in this blog.

Once upon a time Thrice upon 3 times Once upon 3 times there were 3 planets, Planets A, B, and C. The person writing this story & those of you I'm telling it to are on C. Our planet is C because it comes third chronologically. The story is once upon 3 times.

Once upon a time a long time ago Planet A was in trouble. The intelligent beings on A were not unified. Their history was full of exploitation, conquering, genocides, suffering, and diseases. Most people on A felt that they were good, and those they loved were good, but that there were many others who could not be trusted. Feelings of distrust prevented the cooperation that would be necessary for the planet to survive. This dilemma is well known yet remains unfulfilled for decades, and then more than a century.

To reach an audience on my own Planet C, I must make decisions to make the text accessible. I am using a language that makes sense to us, choosing terms of measurement widely understood by us. When necessary I will use our metric system. When I reference time I will speak of seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years and decades and centuries. There is no way for me to know for certain the exact equivalents for any of these on Planet A. I just know that, like us, they measured time and they measured distance and height and temperature and all the things that we also measure. If I told you they purchased their nutritious liquids in vlork-sized containers, do you need to know how many milliliters that is? I think it's simpler to translate vlork as liter. That's not the word anyway. Their language is not expressible in a human alphabet.

On Planet A there are billions of intelligent beings, all of one species. There are many other species of varying intelligence levels but only one that developed complex languages that facilitate civilizations. The ancient history of A is not fully understood. The oldest surviving records are believed by most scholars to be mythological, although a great many of the intelligent beings follow ancient texts as moral instructions from immortal deities.

END FOR TODAY. I HOPE TO CONTINUE ON IN THIS SIMPLISTIC FORMAT FOR PLOTTING PURPOSES. THAT IS, IF I DECIDE, UPON REFLECTION, THAT THIS FEELS WORTHWHILE.