Another issue is that writing comedy is hard. I think I'm a pretty funny guy (feel free to disagree with me) but keeping that up through a whole novel is really hard. I have read very few books that were truly funny, James Herriot comes to mind as does this gem by Christopher David Petersen called What The Hell's Up With Heaven?
It was so taxing writing this and I was so disappointed with the end result that I took a break from writing for a month (which turned into a whole year). During this time I lost most of my writing in an unfortunate series of events including a crashed laptop which I used to back everything up (this was ironic as I don't store anything on my writing laptop because I'm always afraid it is going to implode and never does) as well as a flash drive that decided it was going to take all my files and translate them into gibberish. I wasn't to sad about losing my NaNo story. Now I am. Maybe it's that absence makes the heart grow fonder (or is it absinthe makes the smart go wronger anyway…).
What I really should be doing now if focusing on my current WIP and just letting this one ferment but I can't help it so I am going to take a moment here to introduce you to that SciFi story I was working on and maybe later I will come back here and look at this and it will kick-start a new story.
James Styne Goes To Space (working title)
Synopsis:
James Styne is a career soldier in the Earth Navy Mars division and in his vary last year of being eligible to be the commander of his own ship. His career had been halted by an unfortunate incident with a Generals daughter during his training and has plagued him ever since. Running out of excuses his superiors finally assign him a ship and crew but do so with the full intention of failing. The ship is a relic from the Americas and his crew are a bunch of misfits that the Navy has been hiding because they don't know what else to do with them.
The Good Guys
Characters:
Name: James Styne
Rank: Captain - Probationairy
Race: Human
Home Planet: Earth
A womanizing smart ass who questions authority. He is the greatⁿ grandson of Allan Bartholomew Ian Styne, the greatest mind in history and the man that actually uncovered the truth of the universe. He wrote The Complete Idiots Guide To The Universe (And Beyond).
Name: Reggie Cross
Rank: 1st Mate
Race: Human
Home Planet: Mars
Best friend of James since military school who rose through the ranks and joined the training program. He joins James' crew to save James from himself taking a rank reduction in the process.
Name: Crissy Blane
Rank: Civilian - Empath
Race: Unknown Humanoid
Home Planet: Unknown Found on Mars
Crissy Blane is an empath but with severe limitations. She can read minds but only if she is connected to the person sexually and them to her. She can see the future however when she has a vision she goes into a convulsive orgasm and is unable to communicate until after the event has happened.
Name: Howard LaMonde
Rank: Private - Mechanic
Race: Formerly Human
Home Planet: Earth
Jake Howard is a ghost that has been attached to the ship, ENM Washington D.C. since he died in an unfortunate accident over a hundred years before. No one including him knows why he didn't cross over to the beyond. The army had no protocols for what to do with a trapped spirit and were unable to release him from service involuntarily so they were forced to keep him. He is more useful than you would think as he can travel throughout circuitry. He is able to use and move objects even though he is completely transparent.
Name: Gork
Rank: Private - Gunner
Race: Gork
Home Planet: Unknown
Gork is a seven foot tall three hundred and fifty pound hairy beast with short horns and an extremely limited vocabulary (I had actually created a gork/english dictionairy). No one is quite sure where he came from or even how he ended up in the Navy. His job as a gunner is to man the turret guns which are housed in a pod designed for a small human but for some reason Gork loves it in there even though he can barely move. He even sleeps in his turret.
Name: Brian
Rank: 1st Officer - Helmsman
Race: Zygod
Home Planet: Unpronounceable (The actual official name the Milky Way Alliance gives it, only Zygods are able to say the actual name)
The Zygod's planet is just on the outside of the territory of the Milky Way Alliance (MWA) and are enemys. Brian's father was a prisoner but what they didn't know was that, A) Male Zygods carry the children and B)Brian's father was pregnant. He is very humanized with an affinity for 20th century Earth culture including 1970s rock and roll and pot.
Name: Sippertawn "Zippy" Ironthorpe
Rank: 1st Officer - Navigator
Race: Ironeze
Home Planet: Carbondale
Zippy's planet was destroyed by an asteroid but some of it's inhabitants were saved by the MWA. At first the carbon-based refugees, Carbonics were believed to be the true inhabitants and the Ironeze thought to be robots as they were metal and filled with wires and ran on electricity. The Carbonics were actually built by the Ironeze with artificial intelligence who had seen a chance at their survival by easily convincing their rescuers that they were in fact the true natives of the planet. Many Ironeze were either not rescued or destroyed before the ruse was uncovered. Zippy is one of only fifty Ironeze that exist. His home planet had electricity in the air like Earth has air and must recharge himself regularly to survive.
Name: Theresa Godall
Rank: Private - Communications Officer
Race: Human
Home Planet: Mars
Former lover and current caretaker of Crissy Blane. She is the only one who can detect with even mild certainty what Crissy's prognostications mean. She is also a former one-night stand of Reggie's.
The Bad Guys
Name: General Maxwell Gregg
Rank: General, three stars
Race: Human
Home Planet: Earth
James had had a sexual encounter with his daughter resulting in a pregnancy which James never knew about. General Gregg has done everything in his power to try to court marshall or dishonorbly discharge James including plans which had resulted in his own inability to obtain his fourth star and be able to relocate back to his beloved Earth.
Name: Super-General Octavid
Rank: Super-General (Octopus Revolutionairy Army)
Race: Octopus
Home Planet: Earth
Within fifty years of social experiments on the highly intelligent octopuses they have formed a society which unbeknown to humans is attempting to take over the world. Super-General Octavid is the leader of this movement. His ability to not give in to his sexual compulsions has granted him a very long life (male octopuses die after ejaculation). He has been pretending to be an ally to the MWA but only so that he can place spies throughout the organization. He has had little success until he befriends General Gregg and convinces him to allow an ambassador to join the crew of the Washington D.C. Octopuses can communicate with each other over infinite distances using telepathy.
The Ship
The ENM Washington D.C. was formerly the USS Washington. It was in service before the Earth became one central government. It is outfitted with similarly speced propulsion systems of modern ships however no one with the exception of Howard LaMonde knows how to repair them and as it was made in a secret factory on Mars which was destroyed during the American uprising no parts are available. All of the systems are in an antiquated measuring system called the US customary units which cause great confusion.
Writing all of this has got me thinking again, dammit! "FOCUS ON YOUR CURRENT WIP"
Anyway…
I'm sure we all have lost projects that keep popping into our heads, what is yours?
Thanks for Reading
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