So, I am starting to research the sci-fi story and very pleasant it is too. I was thinking about locations for the various parts of the story and remembered those ‘big wheels’ from the 60s and 70s – those things that float in space and look really good from the inside. I found out that the most popular one is called the ‘Stanford Torus‘.
You get views like this. It all looks quite utopian but of course it wouldn’t be.
Anyway I then found that in actual fact, whereas I thought these were simply figments of sci-fi writers’ minds in those days, NASA did do quite a detailed study about their viability (NASA content no longer available).

It makes interesting reading. For one thing, the cost would be astronomical – 50Bn in those days. I am not sure what that is now but I would guess at least 4 times that – so 200Bn. At first I thought – well who would fund this and why was NASA even thinking seriously about it? Perhaps, since the Cold War was still on, they were thinking about evacuating people. But actually it’s not that much. I found out yesterday that a certain City’s banks are preparing to pay out 50Bn in bonuses this year.

Now I need to start thinking about what life would be like on one of these colonies and what sort of political environment would it be. It will be interesting to think it through.

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What a relief. I managed to do a lot of editing yesterday (Sunday) and I am feeling that relief one gets when moving out from the focus on a piece of creative writing.
Actually I chopped almost 10,000 words out of the story – fairly harsh editing, but not as harsh as I would have liked. It’s just so hard to find any one part that you can completely delete. Anyway I am just working on finishing touches now – some secret codes that go on Chapter Titles and a few names left to do.

It’s strange how a name can cause you so much difficulty – the name of a detective or the name of a hero. I am still struggling over the latter although he is not the main character in the book.

This may be a short post as I can’t really say too much more without revealing too much of the plot. Anyway I am hoping to get it to a small, select group of readers this week so I can get some feedback, which will almost certainly involve some more editing.

The sci-fi story idea is going around and around in my head – quite delightfully actually. There are so many ways of telling the story – just a matter of finding the right one.

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I found myself on the day before New Year’s Eve (New Year’s Eve eve) watching TV and to my amazement saw two of my all time top 3 films showing back to back on ITV2 (could be been ITV3 or 4). Well. I settled down to watch ‘633 Squadron’ and ‘The Wicker Man’ (original version with Christopher Lee, Edward Woodwood and Britt Eckland) with glee. Wrapped up warm on my bed, I could just drift back to my childhood.

But about half way through the first film, I began to wonder why they had both turned up together. Surely too much for coincidence? It must be, I thought, because I conform to a certain demographic. Are there really any other men (or women) out there who really like these two films (my third fave is Gladiator but surely there isn’t anybody else out there who would choose all 3 as his or her top films?)? And if such a demographic exists how come I have never in my life met any of these people?

Also a mystery is why they would choose my demographic on the day before New Year’s day. Since I guess most of us would be baby-boomers, it seems surprising that some scheduler has figured out that most of us will be out on New Year’s day and thus better show us our films the day before. Or perhaps I am just overestimating our importance here. Whereas The Wicker Man used to be shown about 3am on New Year’s day, perhaps now that demographic is ranked lower in importance. Still, its nice to be important enough to be catered for on the day before. A second-ranker is not too bad. Has any body else noticed themselves in such a TV demographic and did it surprise you?

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