I decided that, starting today, I want to dedicate my Saturday blog entries to share ideas for stories, poems, movie scripts, etc.  This will be a place where I can show some of the crazy writing ideas that have popped into my head from time to time.  Let me know which of these you would like to hear more about.

Today's is a story idea that I had largely forgotten about, but was reminded of as I was reading one of my history textbooks (Yankees in Paradise) from college.  Note that I didn't say "rereading."  Now, I did skim the book way back when, and a particular historical situation caught my attention: the Nootka Sound Crisis.  I know that I read the section before, but I also know that we discussed it quite a bit one class session and I think most of what I know about it comes from the discussion.

1789 was a pretty big year.  Our Constitution, created two years earlier, went into effect in March.  The Bill of Rights was narrowed down from a list of twelve to ten Amendments (Don't worry about the other two; one became our 27th Amendment and the other one would have made the House of Representative either about twice or eleven and a half times as big as it is now).  The crew of the Bounty mutinied.  The French stormed the Bastille.  And a small sound on the Northwest Coast of America saw a confrontation that very nearly started the first ever world war.

I won't go into details, but it brought the declining Spanish Empire toe-to-toe with the growing British Empire.  The first American ships in the Pacific were there.  There were spies, ships flying under false flags, daring raids, suicides, and murders.  All of which came to pass due to the worldwide demand for the pelts of sea otters.

That isn't the story that I want to write (although it could be cool).  While listening to the story in class, and doodling on my notes (as I often do), I wondered what this story would look like in a sci-fi setting.  Great space empires in competition for a small world.  My original day-dreamings saw that the conflict would be over that world's native population of creatures whose fur could reflect and refract light in such a way as to make them either radiant or invisible.  I have since thought that it could be a world where organisms that regenerate are found.  Once removed from the world (neither species can be transplanted), their miraculous healing properties only last for a short time.  Unfortunately, the world is in a distant part of the galaxy, a place largely uncharted.

In this story, humans would play the part of the Americans.  They would be new to hyper-light speed travel and are more exploring their options.  The empires would be played out by other alien powers who have seen great conflicts before (and will in the future), but who are trying to gain or hold power through more diplomatic moves.  The planet itself also has an indigenous, sentient species, but as they are not space-faring, they are largely ignored except as help in collecting the healing (or invsi-fur) creatures.

The project is a bit ambitious, which is probably why I lost track of it while I was in college, but the story is one that still has a hold of my imagination.  Like most sci-fi and fantasy, I don't doubt that similar ideas have been written about (parts of it do sound like that Avatar movie), but I think that enough of it has unique elements.

I think I might have taught you some history today.

While I was growing up, I looked forward to our yearly summer garage sale.  At some point, I realized that I could sell toys that I no longer liked or played with and buy new toys that were in those strategically placed yearly brochures.  Somehow, I also learned about the idea of running a lemonade stand.  My parents did not require Jennifer or me to pay back the price of the lemonade or cups, so each purchase was pure profit for us.  Garage sales used to mean money.

Now garage sales mean clearing out our stuff.  With several years without garage sales due to our girls' proms and graduations, our basement has been nearly impassable.  This year we decided that we needed to do something.  Our garage is filled and we still have boxes filling our office, and the basement is still almost completely clogged.  Right now, the money is just a bonus.  I am hoping to get rid of as much of this stuff as we can so I don't have to truck a bunch of it to various charities (as well as the piles of trash that need to be taken to the dump).

Our neighborhood's sale is always the first weekend in May.  It's a bit cold and drizzly.  Yet there's still a part of me that thinks its incomplete without a lemonade stand.

... I'm really in the mood for lemonade now. 

What are you afraid of?