Greg's Blurty

The Next One I'm Not Going To Write
I think I may be done with the series I started not writing earlier this week or last year or whenever it was. The one about Art and Jo that I already have four volumes of, even though one of them isn't technically part of it but I'm the only one who recognizes that. Or maybe I'm not done with it at all. How am I supposed to know? I'm just the one who didn't write it. For the answer, you'd have to ask someone more intimately tied to the project than me.

Anyway, whether that series is done or not, I need a break from it so today I'm not writing a novel that has to do with the economics of time travel. I know I've used that theme many times before and it shows up in every work that involves time travel even when it's not a major theme.

But this time, I'm adding something new: The concept that maybe the reason that everything is inflated now is that it's by design and we might be better off if we were still making $10,000 and everything cost proportionately less. I came up with this idea for two reasons.

One is that big numbers are stressful. The other is that I noticed, a long time ago while researching another project, that adjusted for inflation figures often show that we really aren't better off and that got me to wondering if the whole thing was done for purpose as a smokescreen to keep us blind to the fact that we're being held back.

So this one is about a guy who manages a currency exchange counter and duty free gift shop in a major Time Port. In this novel, time travel is just like going to other countries, you have to have a passport and declare everything, blah blah blah and all this happens at Time Ports.

He notices, by accident, that cigarettes are really pretty much the same price in 2008 as they are in 1958, when the figures are adjusted for inflation and that leads him to wonder if the big tobacco companies created a health scare on purpose to increase profits, much in the same way a chess player might sacrifice a queen to win a game. And then he notices that other industries are doing the same thing...in other ways but it amounts to the same thing.

I can't say much more than that at this point, so if you want more, you'll just have to wait till 7 tonight when I'll be finished not writing it and not read it then. And I know that one of the first things you're going to say is, "Come on! Time travel isn't like that! You don't have to go through customs!"

And that will force me to say, "That's why they call it fiction."

Current Mood: depressed
Current Music: Coast To Coast AM----Tuesday June 24th, 2008