Newly-found Freetime: The Plan

Okay, so my last post was a bit of a sob story. Clearly, I have a lot of new free time opened up by lack of Scrabble. I should probably devote it to applying for jobs, but that's a bit depressing, so instead I'm making other plans.

First things first, when I get bummed out, I get into the kick of creative writing. I've still got a lot of research to do to work on my novel, so I think I will focus on the blog idea I had a while ago. (If you're a potential employer reading this, don't worry, I don't want to be a novelist, so I won't quit a job you might give me so that I can market a book someday).

My main complaint about this current blog is that it's sort of random babble. It's not really very meaningful for people who aren't friends invested in my life. It's my outlet since I live 5 hours away from my family, and my friends are even further away. I get to feeling isolated from people.

Back to the new blog though. Some time ago, I had the idea to create a blog of what I call "speculative responses." I would write flash speculative/science fiction in response to articles I read. I would also include brief summaries and links to articles. It's the way I like to engage with ideas--creatively.

I've always worked on longer works, so developing flash fiction will probably be rough for me at first, but I really want to get this going.

In the spirit of that, I'm going to start reading more interesting articles. My subscription to Scientific American Mind should start appearing soon, so I should be able to get some fuel there. I have the original story idea sparked by an article from the Atlantic.

Right now, I'm reading stuff in New Scientist, currently "The Hocus Pocus that Made Quantum Theory Work." I will admit  this particular magazine is often a bit too hard science to get me thinking because I prefer to engage with the social implications of ideas. I won't be writing any hard science fiction.

Mostly, I get my ideas from stuff I find on Twitter. My twitter feed just sort of hands all sorts of interesting articles to me. I just need to use my reading to spark some creativity, then I need to actually apply that creativity. Time to get lost in my own imagination since I'm not enjoying my reality right now.