I’m doing something crazy for the Snarky readers today. I’m going to share the beginning brainstorm session for Valen Greer. This is a strange process I do for short stories and books. And usually, the writing is up and down and across and in corners. The only change I’ll make is to line it up neatly. But. It is in order. I even included my weird little personal notes.
Yeah, I am a freak and proud of it.
The finished roughdraft I shared on Blogger is on one of the pages above. If you never read it, you might find it interesting to see how this writer’s mind works and what came of the crazy notes. And Valen Greer later morphed twice. It will morph again, because it still doesn’t feel just right. However, the story you read on that page barely resembes the current draft.
Okay. Where was I when I wrote this?
In a freezing, huge room at a writer’s conference and I’d deliberately stayed because it was question and answer and well, I usually already know that stuff. Cold or not, a germ of an idea had sprouted in the last workshop, so I stayed and just wrote. Shaking, obviously not listening– it was a bit miserable, but the brain was on fire and that can warm in a way.
I knew I had to answer Rachel’s topic challenge—that it had already been a week and I still hadn’t come up with how. The challenge?
“Write about a way to track down serial porn spammers and exact revenge.”
I still chuckle over that one.
Here, are the first round of notes: Don’t you just love glimpses into how other writer’s minds work???
———————
How track?
What revenge?
Lux—Code. Porn spammers. New mafia? Porn imbedded with subliminal messages—addictive.
Illegal drug. Kills brain cells but new one plants a virus in human brains. Lux loses family member? Lover? Or is this her job?
Big business. They are ready to pack up shop and move. Have planets- low population—lots of hiding places… How would she trace them?
Damn. It’s cold.
Invent a tracer? What if she uses their code? Rewrites it to follow it back… Does what then? Burst through the line? Please! It’s not a B horror flick.
Or, she jacks the system directly into her brain and lets her mind leave to track back through the lines? Spent years putting together her revenge. Loses everything.
Then it would have to be a child she lost.
They got to her kid. She gives up her own life. But what does she do to them?
Don’t let on why she’s so crazy until end. Maybe, she was tapped into her child. Experienced it? She recorded the terror and injects it into their minds. Ouch!!!! Do I even want to go there??
“A little, healthy porn is one thing. Doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s fun. It’s when they took it further… created an addictive virus. With some people, chemicals in their brain react and they have psychotic episodes. Some never recover. Some die.”
The daughter had something wrong. What?
What if Lux had invented a way to virtually go inside her daughter’s head to help? It was during the time she’d opened her daughter’s mind—made it vulnerable—oh… how sad, but it would explain her loss of rational thought.
Lux had researched others like her daughter. Lots of damage. Ended up finding a cure for the anomaly but realizes that she’s left them all open to these viruses. Only one way to stop it. She uses her daughter’s psychotic break down to figure out how to cure them but she also knows it might break them…
Nah. Nope. That’s not it…
Crap. Why is it so cold in here?!?
Think! Injection directly into mind… Open minds. Vulnerability. Responsibility. Responsibility for many.
Is she a future scientist? Does she have supernatural abilities? Can she transplant her own thoughts? Wait… she would have to permanently enter the system. Give up her body? Yes! She will stop and look back at her body not knowing how long her conscious mind will survive. Should be as long as the body survives—set up long term coma.
She goes to a complete mental state permanently to trace and track down every single member of the group. (Need cool name!)
Okay. She sees the terror of her child. She feels it. Ouch again! The virus eats through vulnerable minds. Her child has already suffered much. A child with a beautiful spirit, conquering hardships… Will Lux’s hate added to the child’s terror be enough?
She’s approached by a man who lost a child this way. She shares data.
Don’t use the name Lux. Better name. Find better name. Think…
Crap. It’s freaking nipply in this room!!! I should go back to my hotel room. No, don’t lose the trail! Tough it out. Jeez.
Okay, time to throw out words, dialogue, ideas!
Valen—now that name is cool– curled her lip and swerved at the last second. That nasty Environ had probably pissed his flight suit. She couldn’t die yet. Had one more task.
Dark metal encasement on a planet unable to sustain life. Like a biodome (no, dumb movie reminder) or an envirodome… what’s another word for biosphere… biota? Biotadome? Cool.
Recycled air…
Last line. “So, I must ask. Define normal?”
Nah.
Is this going to be all in her POV? A story without dialogue?
Wait, wouldn’t the crazy part be better coming from someone else?
Crap. Just write and see what happens.
“Valen worked the controls with precision. Five years on this sorry excuse for a planet. Five years of planning. Preparation…”
There you have it. My crazy brainstorming session. I was cold and I like the word “crap.” You should see the one I’m doing now for another short story. Here’s a taste.
On my home planet, ancient cultures prepared their dead for whatever lay beyond. If they wanted their afterlife to be one of wealth, they buried them with gold and jewels. One of craft? They gifted them with the materials needed to create.
Why did these creatures bring me such things? Every day, a new box. Boxes I can’t touch. I traced the faint webbing of painful tattoos on my leg with burned fingers. I shouldn’t have touched that first damned box.