Story Time

As some of you may know, I am planning on going to Central this fall. I'm also planning to pay my tuition... somehow. I've researched scholarships and I found this one that seems like I could possibly have a chance of getting it.

It's the L. Ron Hubbard (yep, the Scientology guy) Future Authors Award. You're supposed to write a science fiction or fantasy short story and then four winners each year receive $1000 and then of those four a grand prize winner receives an additional $5000. Sounds great, right? My only question was: how am I going to write a science fiction or fantasy story that's good enough to win such a prestigious award?

The rules of the contest state that you can't use worlds or characters created by other authors (plagiarism, who knew?) so there goes my Pride & Predator idea (Lizzy Bennet takes out the Predators- they've been on Earth since, like, 1823 or something, remember? So it wouldn't be that much of a stretch- and then maybe we'd find out that Caroline Bingley is a Terminator). I assumed that Greek Mythology was public domain, and I thought it might be fun to play around with, but I couldn't really come up with a story based on it that wasn't completely lame.

But then, last night during my shift at Maple Valley Library, I noticed a book titled Time Lord. I was intrigued, so I pulled it off the shelf. The subtitle is "Sir Sanford Fleming and the Creation of Standard Time." He's the guy who came up with the Prime Meridian and time zones. Interesting... from time zones, a fascinating and very real concept, it's just a small leap of the imagination to time travel, a fascinating and very science fiction concept. I can use that.

I don't really have a story yet, but I have the concept, and that's the hook. Story telling has never been that big of a problem for me; I think I can come up with something pretty good. And if the story is pretty good at least, I think I have a decent shot at the scholarship. It's just motivating myself to actually write the dang thing that I'll have to work on.

Maybe when I finish I'll post it on here. Stay tuned!