Breakdown

Ironically enough, I had a meltdown the other week. Screaming, crying, the whole shebang. I’m not telling you any more of it because my privacy is my own (said the man writing a blog). I’m fine now, but it’s a wake-up call. I felt drained afterwards, listless, all shallow breaths and wiping my face and angry at myself for crying in the first place. My parents were there for me, as usual, giving me some good advice.

Namely, if you’re allowed to collect your thoughts, take it. Don’t try and power through, you’ll just get more stressed. Also, bow out gracefully if something turns out to not be your thing.

In any case, this next story is a long one. Or it will be a long one. Right now it’s a bare-bones pile of notes and an outline, the name being one I got from a Breaking Benjamin song (go look them up, good band). I started writing the notes after I got let go from McDonalds. I’ve a notebook in my room that’s mostly full of notes on this story. A journey through a sci-fi world with a theme of [checks notes] connections. I wanted it to be a journey because I’d just read book 1 of LOTR and liked the idea of having it be less about character interaction and more about seeing the world. I might have put a bit much of myself into Pate: enjoying solitude but not wanting to be lonely. While also being rubbish at keeping people around.

When I say last legs, it’s a way for there to be fewer people for the protagonist to have to talk to on his journey. Yes, he! I’m making a male protagonist in a book! Which… honestly isn’t that impressive in my actual writing compared to my tabletop/roleplaying characters, but at least I won’t get asked why I’m writing a woman again. Also, it’s just easier for me to write.

The protagonist is Pate, a factory worker who decides to meet up with a pen-pal of his after his apartment burns down. The trouble is, the pen-pal’s all the way in Ireland and he’s in West Yorkshire. And he doesn’t have a driver’s license. And there’s not much public transport going on. Better start walking! (Because I want him to walk to places. Lord of the Rings wouldn’t be the same if they could just drive through every area.)

The science fiction is far more grounded than Chikage’s story. There aren’t any giant, mutated insects or superhumans. Instead, there’s old pen drives, 2000s era computers (God, remember having monitors that thick, said the 24-year-old) and a cult trying to make themselves into cyborgs (with varying degrees of success), ala the Adeptus Mechanicus from Warhammer 40k. Pate has a rather horrible run-in with them early on that I won’t spoil because I might get around to writing this someday (I know it sounds very non-commital, but I don’t want to do more than one project at once).

Most of the book is about Pate walking through England and seeing the world. The setting could be best described as dystopian. The world is on the back foot and on a downward slide but there’s always hope that things can get better. Because I don’t want to write a total misery-fest.

And frankly, I wrote this idea down a while ago. I’ll either rework it to be more hopeful or write something else entirely. Things are looking up for me and it’s nice to say so (as of writing this, they kind of went downhill but it’s not the end of the world). The theme still has merit, and I’m not just writing the story for the sake of wanting it to be cool. It has a point that matters, and I’m no misanthrope (as much as I’d be tempted to be one). We all need people in our lives, as basic a piece of advice as that might be. 

Once again, thank you for reading. Stay tuned and please share this. (I hate big outros. The point of the piece has been made, just wrap up quick and let people move on, though that’s more with youtube videos.)