"The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars."
-- Carl Sagan

( Eileen Avery lay back in the padded chair. )

NaNo is almost upon us again, and my friend ange_noir0 noted he was going to do it and asked for help deciding between three ideas in his head.

I'm going to do the same, but with only two ideas:

1) A fantasy story, set in the Mystic Frontiers, focusing on three characters: A half-giant named Hammer, wielding a great maul, a young orphan girl named Xea, and a wanderer named Wayfarer. Other notable characters include the bard/witch that ties the three together and probably a mad king or other monarch.

B) A sci-fi story probably set throughout the history of Alternia Ex Machina, about a family and their generations long quest of interplanetary travel, called "The Sky Calls To Us." Inspired by hours of listening to Carl Sagan - A Glorious Dawn feat. Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed) [youtube], clips and quotes from Sagan and Hawking auto-tuned to music.

Option 1 has the strong temptation to brake one of the "rules" of NaNoWriMo, since I've already written some about Hammer, Xea and Wayfarer. The only work I've done for Option B so far is some quick character sketches. I meant to write it as a short story for alterniacomics.com a couple weeks ago, but didn't get around to it.

Either way, I plan to serialize whatever I write here, because that's just how I do things. Also, I crave feedback. ;) And, especially if I won't be able to get to a diner (my favored writing space) daily, I'll need the extra draw of writing for an audience to keep me motivated.

If you'd like to track my progress on NaNoWriMo.org, or if you want to be my writing buddy, this is my profile.

An update/rewrite of and older story of mine: Stoner Soup.

( Stoned Soup )

   7 April 2031
   Colony Beta, Nevada, USA

   Ten years.
   It's been ten years since the great doors sealed, locking us in this great metal sphere buried under the Nevada desert. The CGC doesn't want me around, but I've managed to stay hidden. So far. This journal is my first act of defiance in seven years, and serves as the first step on my final path, but I must write it.. I must take the step. The children are being taught the CGC's revisionist history, designed to keep the population ignorant and docile. I cannot allow it to continue.
   Presumably I am dead or worse by the time you find this book. I only ask that you not let me have died in vain.
( Exposition-heavy prologue )

remix79's suggestion of ( Coma. Seizure. Death. )

While I was out driving today I had a thought.

Sometimes I want to have a moment in my writing where I want to have several images flash through a character's mind quickly, but to have much of an impact aside from speed, these images would have to be explained. In traditional writing, I'd take a sentence or two for each image, maybe as little as a phrase, but this detracts from the greater idea of the speed with which these images are flashing through the character's mind.

With Hyperfiction, the images (rather the bits of text describing the images) could link to another page with longer explanations. It would then fall to the reader to read the descriptions before, after or during their reading of the images flashing through the character's mind.