Finally working on writing a book

I've always wanted to write a book and I've made a couple of stabs at it over the years. My current, aborted effort is called "10 Rude Things I Learned to Do with my Mouth", which lies 1/3 completed on my hard drive.

Coming back from Columbia on Friday, I had an idea I liked so much, I flipped open the laptop and started writing an outline. I mentally worked out the major plot lines, then started writing a timeline to fill in a few of the missing events. This triggered a period of Focus for me, a time when the entire world vanishes and I'm fully concentrating on whatever I'm doing. When I came out of it, it was 6 hours later, I was at JFK and hadn't slept a wink on my red eye.

At dinner Saturday night with Jim I went over some of the basic story elements, detailed part of the timeline and asked for feedback. He was surprised at how it hung together and encouraged me to write more of it down. Yesterday morning I got up around 8, started writing, looked up a few minutes later and it was 2pm. Drove home from the cape and started writing again last night. I sent a copy of the draft to Geoff and reviewed it with him over the phone. The plot is such that it contains many elements I thought would upset his political sensibilities and figured he'd be a harsh critic. Instead he said he thought the offensive elements were handled in a sensitive way which were required for later events in the plot. This surprised me. I've since sent a copy to one or two trusted friends for review.

So what's the book about? Well, the Future. One of my favorite books in the 90s was a collection of NYT front pages for important dates in history. It was cool for several reasons. One the page where the headline reads "Lindbergh cross Atlantic!" it was a bunch of smaller stories where you can see the economic problems of the 20's and 30's shaping up. Hints if you will about what's coming. Obvious in retrospect, but not at the time. I always thought this would be a great way to study history.

So, that's the form of my book. It's a retrospective of the period from 2006-2156, as seen by the further future. Given my travel schedule and work, I figured I could commit to a page a week in this style and I'll be able to publish each page (or two or three) on my website each week. Each page will be the front page of the New York News, and will document America's history through 150 years of development. I have thought a lot about the future, the rate of change of technology, the course of science, politics, religion and entertainment, and I think this is a good way to express some of those ideas from a higher level than is usually involved in a narrative plot. There are some basic rules:

1) No magical technological breakthroughs. All the science is as real as I can make/understand it. Any scientific or medical advance must flow logically from what has come before.

2) No Deus Ex Machina plot devices. You may not always agree with how I resolve some crises, but it's done through the usual organs of power the state has (or will have as I think there will be some new organs which get developed).

3) Not every article on the front page is Important. In fact, most are not, just like a real paper.

Okay, so what will the plot involve?
Some hints (not in chronological order):

The political world though 2020 involves many of the usual suspects.
At some point, a major world power which is not the US, lands on the Moon.
Life extension technology is developed, but has some surprising consequences
Congress becomes a tri-cameral legislative body with the addition of the Corporate Senate.
Climate change becomes an important topic
America fights another Civil War.
The Fatima Prophecy happens.
A method of cheap access to orbit is developed
A major country manages to send and return a probe to several nearby stars.
Several major churches split off new, different churches
The US loses a major city to a nuclear terrorist
A kind of "digital telepathy" is invented and allows people to see what others are thinking.
A man wins the lottery and claims he sent the winning numbers to himself from the future
The Russians die off
A president is assassinated.
Clarence Thomas becomes the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
An asteroid is due to hit the Earth in October of 2028...

and a lot, lot more.