eureka squared!

I just had one of those all-consuming ideas. Strangely, this is the second one this morning. What is it that causes these? I figured I’d better write them down somewhere before they disappear forever into the unused pathways in my brain.

The first one was this morning while I took a shower. I was thinking about memory… and how I want to write a near-future science fiction novel. Near-future, as a genre, is probably a hard genre to write in because your predictions are so near at hand… in ten years, my book will either be irrelevant pulp, or suffer from the “well duh” factor if I’m right.

Anyway, the plot was about a character whose “augmenters” are acting up, and he has to have them removed (a rare event, and one that immediately qualifies him for disability leave) or just live with the strange behavior. Of course, he can elect to have new augmenters put in to replace the old ones, but he’ll lose all his old memories. And his brain, untrained to create permanent memories (because the augmenters cause everyone to have photographic recall) will probably not have the capacity to create long term memories on its own. The character will be a bit over-emotional about the whole thing, and of course he’ll decide to keep his old augmenters, and perhaps even shun the doctors (or augmenter manufacturers) who are trying to help him resolve the problem without replacement. I think it’ll make for an interesting plot, even if I don’t know where it’s going to go.

OK, second idea, and one that I want to get started on RIGHT NOW (even though I’m at work, and that is obviously not possible) is a website that does for poetry what http://anexquisitecorpse.net/ does for design. Basically, you’ll sign up at the site, and immediately jump into writing collaborative poems with any number of other people. Because poetry is just text, I think we can easily automate the process of completing your poems on the site, rather than rely on email exchanges, as An Exquisite Corpse (and photoshop tennis) does. You’ll also be able to post your (other non-collaborative) poems on the site, (and/or link to a site that already does), and request that other members/users collaborate with you. Oh, and the best part I’ve thought of so far is that each poem will have a “type” associated with it, for instance, you’ll chose to start a “Haiku with three people”, and the system will prompt you for any additional information, like a proposed title, or topic, and who (if anyone) you would prefer to collaborate with.

Also fun would be something like a 10 line free-verse poem where everyone writes two lines, and you only get to read one line of what’s already been written before submitting yours. That catches some of the spirit of Exquisite Corpse.

OK, now I have to brainstorm URLs. Any ideas?