I had hoped to be a little more regular with my posts but this year hasn’t gotten off to a great start in that respect.

I have, however, been writing! A big chunk of it was going back through my Human Cargo notes and fleshing parts out or joining parts together. Turning the notes into a book.

I had been writing mostly in sequence, following Captain Brendan Utnytter as he prepares for the Big Send-Off, as it has become known. Delving a little into his backstory to explain how his present situation has come to be. His present situation being that he will be left awake while The Hundred Worlds go into stasis on a voyage to find a new planet to call home.

His job is to ensure that their vessel the Sorbernash, stays on course and operational. But he quickly comes to learn that the Sorbernash, with help from its fleet of maintenance bots is entirely self-sufficient…

I have adventured through the big celebration that the Big Send-Off creates, and blindly stumbled into creating the main protagonist, who became known as Amy Sollevato. She originally was just going to be one of the random pod occupants that becomes a larger part of the story, but I felt that it would make for a stronger story if she appeared before she went into stasis.

I thickened the plot and hopefully added a few chapters with Amy initially being a Remainer— she is told at the leaving festivities by Leader Royal Svikari that she is one of the few who will remain behind to look after the multiple centres owned and operated across the Two Continents by their group, Hundred Worlds.

I then moved back to Utnytter as the Big Send-Off began, following him as he goes through with his selfish plan– to go into stasis in place of another.

The next part is in need of fleshing out further– as The Janitor takes Utnytter’s place in control of the Sorbernash. Following him as he comes to grips with his newfound responsibilities and freedom. The responsibilities and freedom that ultimately drive him a little doolally.

It’s here that The Janitor becomes homicidal and starts thawing out the frozen occupants of the thousands of stasis pods onboard. OK, maybe more than a little doolally.

That is, until he gets to Amy Sollevato. In his complacency she thaws faster than he anticipates and escapes.

This is where I am in my notes and planning. Working through the legitimacy of how it works. How The Janitor can track her movements, if he even does. Is he worried about her escape? Does he look at it as a game? Does he fear what she may try to do? How will she evade him? How do the bots tie into all of this and what information is he being fed from them? How much of their systems run directly from the ship’s computer and how much of that is he made aware of as it happens.

So I have a lot of questions to answer, which I will work through this week, along with continuing to build the earlier chapters and hopefully look towards having something worth posting!

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