I discovered an old Reddit account I had for posting stories and writing prompts was somehow still active and decided to raid it for some of the older stuff I wrote while trying to get better at writing. There isn't much but here is what there is...
I used to be a writer. Science fiction was my genre of choice because of the sheer level of possibilities it opened to me as a writer. I could build anything in a science fiction story if I wanted. I could bend, fold mutilate the very fabric of the universe to make it fit my whims if I so choose. What kind of writer doesn’t relish that kind of freedom?
Other writers had to worry about historical accuracy, or be careful to get the languages of foreign characters correct. Not I! All I had to do is make up something and nine times out of ten it went right over people’s heads. Say I want to set a story with intelligent cats? I made up the race of cats and described everything from their fur color to the way they groomed themselves according to cultural understandings. Say I wanted to swear in the book but had to work around Ms Grundy? No big deal, I just quadrooping fundaloo as much as I fripping wanted! Need a word? Make it up! Science doesn’t exist to support the core thesis? A few well chosen lines later and voila! Now it does, in a world where the laws of nature are slightly different.
I loved writing, I loved getting paid to pay with words and invent new worlds and populate them with absurd creatures which couldn’t possibly exist in the real world. It was fun!
Not so fun was getting the galleys back from the publishers and having to make all the corrections indicated when some bright boy got a bug up his butt about keeping science in science fiction. Even so, I could usually sweep whatever concerns they had under the rug with a few well placed words and get back to having fun. I always say if you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong!
That all changed last Thursday with a call from my current publisher. My editor was on the other end of the line and he was as squirrely as I’d ever seen (or heard in this case) in the entire time I’ve been dealing with him. Had me rolling with the punches from the moment I answered the phone.
"Bob you old son of a pointdexter! Give me five random numbers off the top of your head, right now! No, don’t stop to think about it, just do it." Was the way he opened.
Figuring I could go along with the gag (but wondering what the punch line was) I answered as best I could with "23 35 64 45 12" Then to be sarcastic I added a sixth number, "Oh and then 69."
He laughed and said he’d call me tomorrow to finish the discussion. I tried to ask him what this was all about but he’d already hung up on me before I could get the words out.
I didn’t think too much of it the rest of the day, figuring that he’d explain when he called me next. Only he didn’t call me the next day, he blew up my phone later that night. I had already turned in for the evening so I was quite groggy and irritated when I saw who it was. Waking me up after midnight. I was even less happy when I answered the phone and he was quite clearly drunk off his keister.
"How do you do it?" he slurred. "You did it at random and you still flubbing pulled it off!"
"What are you talking about?" I asked reasonably. "Don’t you know its well past midnight? Try calling back during office hours, maybe? Once you’ve sobered up and can explain what this is all about, I mean?"
He just roared with laughter. "You don’t even know, do you?"
"Obviously you don’t either, else you wouldn’t be calling me at this ungodly hour of the evening," I replied about to hang up.
"Wait, wait…" he interjected before I could enjoy the privilege of slamming the phone down. "Are you near a computer? Pull up today’s numbers on the lottery."
I fumbled around for my tablet and pulled up the local lottery numbers. To my astonishment they matched the "random" numbers I had given earlier in the morning. Perfectly. I got them all. In order.
"What the furk?!?" I babbled.
"That’s what I’m trying to say." My now millionaire rich boss said.
"How did. What made you. What the furk?" I babbled again.
"Yeah, I know right?" The drunk former editor of a major publishing company said. "I was reviewing the galleys of one of your shorts to send on to be published in next year’s Asimov when I noticed your notes scrawled across the margins looked familiar. Within a few minutes I managed to track it down to a news article published this afternoon. You some how managed to make up an accurate answer to the science that the real scientists didn’t manage to come up with!
"So I started looking at your earlier works and you successfully predicted the reality before the science was proven time after time. Even throw away remarks often turned out to be true. You dirty sum of a accubus and slide rule, Every time you guess it’s right!"
"Okay, so you decided to take advantage of my gift to get rich." I replied. What the need to get completely legless? Why get falling down drunk?"
His voice took on a sad note. "I told you I looked at your past work. Every time you guess you guess right. Don’t you remember the first book we published by you?"
How could I forget? It’s my first published book, featuring aliens attacking the " ….oh @#&$!" I said.
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