I swear I didn't click on anything. Watched a couple random videos. And suddenly my YouTube feed pops up with Jdn Ptrsn, at least two other mansplainers, and vx dy himself.
(The suspects were disemvoweled to keep the One who "knows when you are sleeping, when you are bad and when you are good, and how much science fiction you buy each fiscal quarter" from deciding I need to be fast-tracked to have all my manosphere needs met.)
It is getting to be a bit like spam and the golden rule of never click, and absolutely never follow the "please unsubscribe" link. I have put any and all reviews of the latest Star Wars movies off my viewing list, for instance. Not that I was going to watch them anyway. The reviews...or the movies.
Ah, brings me back to the good old days of using iTunes as a theatre sound designer. Monday I'd need "YMCA," Thursday I'd need "Summer ist icumen in" and on the weekend I'd be checking out some independent band that I would have to be mixing Sunday. Next time I logged in iTunes would be frantically trying to find electric guitar covers of medieval folk tunes set to a disco beat because it was sure it had finally figured out which bland identical product it could sell endless slight variations of to me until I died.
***
I'm being depressed about writing again. I have three people reading the last book at the moment. One of them got as far as the author's bio (he skipped to the back). The other should be just about at the scene were Penny buys a bra and I'm wincing internally at the thought.
The "quick and dirty" was only relatively so. Took me a year, I cut some corners I should not have cut (no beta reader, no paid editor). I'm flailing around wondering if there is something easier to write than a story set in the real, modern world that cares about the details of history and culture and geography -- both in getting them right and in covering them in detail.
I have the idea traipsing through my head right now that the bulk of a near-future military SF novel would come out as fast as I could type. Once the world is built, it is all combat scenes and the drudgery of soldiering and of course shit-talking with buddies. Pity the idea I have for that is an off-kilter close-to-singularity world with strong horror elements, various trope elements, and at least one character who has spent four hundred years reading literature and it shows.
***
So I'm still nailing down plot elements for the London adventure. I have the majority of the set-piece scenes I want to do, but still figuring out the physical layout and the who knows what and who cares. The "Churchill bunker" as my notes still call it (it is probably post-war), is growing in importance and I won't be able to consider this outlined until I've figured it out properly.
And I have to change history. I knew that already. I want to make a thematic bit about a North Sea storm surge, and there wasn't one of note in the time period I'm probably using. (Most likely right now is November of 2018, which was noted for cold snap and some rains). I am also more likely than not to follow most other people and create a Tube station rather than try to re-work an existing one.
Although there is one possible candidate. In the real world, the Northern Line being built to Battersea power station and opening in 2020 or so decided against a route that would have required expanding Vauxhall. But I'm still sort of caught between multiple things I'd like to throw in, which may not be all compatible; a closed station, a new construction project, an archaeologically interesting site, a W.W.II air raid shelter, a hidden phone/switching/intelligence/i dunno bunker. And a lost river, but there are a bunch of those and nobody is going to complain if I move or even invent one.
I just found a huge new resource for underground London so I have reading material for months. That's also getting in the way. This would be a really good week to actually write.
See, writing is best done in long blocks of contiguous time. Enough to get into the flow, then enough to make it worth while. Plotting, on the other hand, is oddly suited towards the work week. I get an idea, it lead to another snag, and I think about the snag for a day or two until I have an idea how to work past it.
Sitting and staring at the outline is exhausting. So I'm wasting all this lovely time off by being where I am on this book. But, since I have no other book that is in a better place, what choice do I have?
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