World building: Reality vs Fiction

There are times in life when it all hangs in the balance. Now, is one of them, at least for me. As the blurb says, I write science fact to science fiction, however, these two worlds do not always find a peaceful way to coexist. In life we always have choices even if some of them don’t seem like it at the time. And so it is that I find myself here, at one of those decisive moments. Concentrate on the scientist, or concentrate on the writer. Let’s be clear, science is what puts food on the table, while writing is a passionate pastime that is very much in its infancy.

Balance, Science, Writer, Harry Tuttle, MCD, Modern Cave Dweller

So on the science fact front I face an uncertain future. In six months time I might be out of a job OR I might be spearheading an initiative that will take most of my time for the next 15 years. There are a lot of “ifs” to fall into place for the latter. So it appears, at least for the next 6-12 months, that the “decision” is not so hard, or at least not so complicated – I need to concentrate on the science. My apologies but this will have to remain cryptically anonymous for the moment.

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A Question of Scale

What do I even mean by that? I am coming at that question from two perspectives.

  1. As a science fiction writer, one often needs to build worlds, political systems, industries and infrastructure … usually so that we have something to pull back down again. So how do these things grow, evolve, come into existence even? Usually, it is a question of scale – and all the pieces of the puzzle being there, being ready, big enough, and open to working towards a bigger goal. But is it evolution or revolution? Is there a tipping point?
  2. The other is real world – how do whole industries appear? We can also think about things like the industrial revolution, the space race, and perhaps what we call the information revolution, why not Google itself. In all of these cases, they didn’t just happen. Again it was a question of scale – and, like for my first point, all the pieces of the puzzle being there, being ready, big enough, and open to work towards a bigger goal. Where is the tipping point here?

Buzz Aldrin, Space race, Moon landing, Harry Tuttle, Modern Cave Dweller, MCD

Now, here is a question for you. Do you think anyone saw these revolutions coming? Or, did someone just decide to invest massive amounts of money and presto-magic, revolution?

Clearly, people knew. Let’s consider the space race. On May 25, 1961, President J. F. K. announced the mind blowing goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. It is clearly not a question of going out to the industrial park and asking the guys to stop making cars and build a space ship. They knew all of the necessary industries were there, albeit in varying degrees of readiness, they “just” needed a push.

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I’m Always Angry

You often see people/memes saying that anger is a bad thing. Anger is negative. Nothing good ever comes from anger. Bollocks! If you replace “anger” with the word “violence” then I agree, but most of the time people seem to confuse the two. Perhaps you could replace “anger” with “frustration” but only up to a point.

The Hulk, Mark Ruffalo, Harry Tuttle, Modern Cave Dweller, MCD

So, what am I angry about? Well, not everything – I think – but a lot. I’m angry at me, at the world, at people, sometime, maybe, possibly, even you. I am angry that we are not doing more to stop destroying the planet. I’m angry about equality. I am angry with organised religion for exploiting people. I’m angry at banks and governments … for exploiting people. OK, I’m angry at anyone exploiting people. I also get angry at people driving cars with headphones on, or who change the settings on the toaster. Mostly, I’m angry about people accepting this as the way it has to be. I’m angry with people for not being angry enough!

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A Library, but not a book in sight

I have (almost) no books in my house. That doesn’t sound right, I hear you say, especially for someone proclaiming to be a writer. But I had to say it because it’s mostly true. Don’t go away, there is a happy ending. OK, if you can’t wait, I have a lot of e-books. Anyway, for the less impatient… There are actually some books in our house but I have for most of my adult life led a rather transient existence. The consequence of which is that with all the packing and moving and lugging from town to town, I’ve often been obliged to lighten my load. Many a friend has benefited, along with various local libraries – those people really love free books.

Trinity College Library, Modern Cave Dweller, Harry Tuttle

For those of you that are concerned, you’re so sweet, I really do have quite an extensive e-library. Library is perhaps somewhat of an exaggeration. Until recently these were scattered over myriad devices and in more formats than I thought existed. So what do I do? I seem to have settled down over the last few years and might even let myself imagine that I won’t move again for a while, so do I start building up a paper library again? To be honest, I’m not sure that it won’t go all pear shaped and I find I have to move again. Also, for some time now I have been moving towards a paperless existence – partly enforced by the aforementioned inability to stay in one place. That and my apartment is only so big.

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Short and Flashy

Time is against me. Ok, it’s against all of us. I blame society … I’ve been trying to catch up on reading/living this year and have revisited or been reading some classic scifi. Which is good. But someone pulled me up on a list of books I posted on Ello the other day and asked, what about something more contemporary? My argument was that some of them were contemporary … when I read them … Anyway, the end result is that I now have a nice list of books to read and authors to discover.

Harry Tuttle, Modern Cave Dweller, Scifi, Flash fiction, Short storiesThat is not to say that I haven’t been reading contemporaries. So, while I’m distracted, here are a few things that really rocked my reading world in the last few weeks. Immersion, by Aliette de Bodard (on Clarkesworld) is possibly the best thing I have read in a long time. Also on Clarkesworld, A.C. Wise’s The Children of Main Street – actually, I’m not going to say anything. It’s a short. Read it in 10 minutes and be immensely satisfied. Somewhere in between Flash and Short story is Lacarant Plainer‘s “space opera flash fiction” serial Mission Impossible. Currently up to episode 10 and cruising along wonderfully. Okay, where was I? So that’s reading, what about writing?

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Change of Address – Long Live Harry Tuttle

Harry Tuttle, the Modern Cave Dweller.

Harry Tuttle MCDFor those that had noticed, or had been around here before, there have been a few things changing. In particular, on my journey to being an author it was brought to my attention that it might be useful if people could easily find me… Like all people, there seems to always be a namesake out there who is more famous. And so it is that I say ciao to the Modern Cave Dweller moniker for the web site. Well mostly. Given how popular my name is, obviously the domain name that goes with it is taken – although for sale at a ludicrous price. So by way of unique-afying my site, you must now all address me as

HarryTuttleMCD.com

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Waffling on a Wednesday

Alt. Contradiction is the spice of life.

As promised, this is the home and playground of Harry Tuttle, part enigma, part machine, mostly confused and trapped in modern life. If anyone has ever read more than one post then it should have become clear that I am mostly confused. Actually, in the real world, I like to feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on things… but this is not the real world. At the moment, I have to apologise because the posts are coming, or not, like a drunk trying to hit the side of a barn with a shot gun from a thousand yards out (that makes sense to me – you know, like hits but mostly misses… If I have to explain everything this is going to take some time.). n.b. I used yards so the Americans among us don’t feel left out. No, I don’t have a problem with Americans I just never understood why you decided yards were that much better than cubits but a meter is the devil’s work?! OK, I know that’s not entirely your fault either. Anyway, whose idea was it to start picking on Americans? To be fair, I was only referring to the USA. Just to be clear.

ADHD, Writing, MCD

So it is that I realise that this blog, like so many before it, has run off, like a metaphor from a poorly educated person struggling to sound like they at least went to school for a few weeks, most notably around exam time, which was a pain because it was in summer and the waves at the beach were so good and what a shame to miss out on that for what? … oh, look, a squirrel!

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Time and the Obnoxious Writer

I have recently been more active concerning social media. I have been a mostly passive consumer since the dawn of the internet, as I mostly used it for absorbing information rather  putting anything in.  Anyway, I digress. The problem I have is that I went to the social networks to find writers, to try and connect and see what people were doing. Naively perhaps, I thought that it might be inspiring and maybe I could even inspire someone else. One person would be enough. I must say that there are plenty of good things going on out there. Perhaps a little too much self-promotion, but that is the game. The one thing that is pissing me off is the attitude that:

Writers Write!

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