The F*ckup Factor

Real life contains… let’s call them mistakes. Errata. Things that can and will go wrong at the worst possible moment. Wrong schedules, miscommunication, assumptions, and things that one never expected to happen can mess up your entire schedule.

Case in point: Mayhem came down with an ailment that MIGHT be gallstones, and we need to see an expert about that at their earliest convenience. Since Mayhem’s improving by slow degrees, that means waiting on the Public System Queue. Which means being on a list so long that, by the time your name comes up, you may have forgotten why you signed on in the first place.

But it’s still better than paying $2K for firkin aspirin. Which I hear is the US system in a nutshell.

I usually allot some time when I’m out on plans for things messing up. What I call “the fuckup factor”.  Things going sideways at the least affordable moment.

As a direct result of all of this noise: running to tests, running around, attempting to feed nutrition into Mayhem, attempting to find some kind of palliative remedy, running to doctors, running excuse notes up to the school, running back to do all the other shiznit I gotta do in a day…

Yeah. I forgot about this for a while.

I should really have more fuckup factors in my writing. Stupid little things that should not get in the way of my heroes, but do anyway. And aggravate the situation by being a speedbump on the road to success.

It could be a wonderful way for me to vent about this kind of thing. Problem is, when I do that, I can go a bit long. Either enjoying myself too much or venting too hard. That’s what editing is for, I guess. Reigning that noise back to a tolerable amount for my readers.

In other news, I’ve written a good five hundred words in Ee the Changeling and have a solid foundation for this year’s novel. Working title: B’Nar. Humanity gets ascension almost right, and the question of whether or not they’re a moral society remains a question unanswered for the entire book.

I might end up making a lot of people angry at me for this one. It’s exploring the concept, not giving anyone answers. Or showing my judgement on it. B’Nar is deliberately a grey area. Equal parts ick factor and understandable engineering of a society.

It could be a warning. It could be a prediction. Where we go and the decisions we make along the way are the interesting bit.

It’s going to be a fun ten months, starting next week.