Life's Funny That Way

National Science Fiction Day

"We're living in the future. Ask me how I know. I read it in the paper, 25 years ago." - John Prine (Living in the Future)

There is something about science fiction. That "what if" of something futuristic. Growing up with Dr. Spock and Captain Kirk (and yes, I know how corny they seem now - but they were super cool back then) allowed my imagination to run wild, wondering when we would have flying cars or transporter beams.
Darth Vader, Hans Solo, even Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor - they all had grand adventures. While I love Sci-Fi, both on the screen and in writing, it is one that I have only dabbled in a bit here and there. Creating and entire world seems daunting for some reason. I sometimes feel as though I am not creative enough to build a whole world. I am sure there are others out there that feel the same way.
But maybe we are looking at it from a "big picture" perspective when we would be better off to take it piece by piece. Writing a present day story or even the first draft of a present day novel does not seem like that daunting of a task. But building a whole new world and putting people into it - or worse yet, species other than homo sapiens, well heck That is just crazy.
What about this - what if we just take one small thing and change it. Change just the atmosphere of the planet, for instance. It is no longer oxygen-based, so what does that mean to the species that live there? If humans live there, what do they use for a breathing apparatus. Okay, now that we have that set, we can take characters from one of our old stories based in the "here and now," and set them in that environment, with just the one different thing. Then another story could come along where maybe there is another species who comes to the former "here and now" with the different atmosphere we created. The antagonist still thinks and feels like the species of the protagonist, but is different somehow. Of course, they are the bad guy, but they are still motivated by the same things - money, love, greed, power, etc.
This being January, and today being not only National Science Fiction Day, but also my birthday, I feel extra motivated today. I have 11 months to make small changes in stories so that I can put together a science fiction novel for National Novel Writing Month this year! It scares me, but I suppose if you keep doing the same things and never get outside of your comfort zone, you will never grow, right?

"We're all driving rocket ships and talking with our minds - wearing turquoise jewelry and standing in soup lines. We're standing in soup lines." - John Prine (Living in the Future)