Been somewhat quiet this last month as I’ve been heads down in NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month.  Why write blog posts, given a deadline of 50k words in a month on a single new story.

Well, I didn’t quite make it.  37,924 words.  Still, that 37,924 f*ing words.  Wow.  Towards the end, I was up to about 1100 words an hour or more.

I blame New Orleans.  I wasn’t 100% while there, as, well, it’s a bit distracting.  I also had a few short days, where I only wrote 1k words instead of the 1,667 I’d need to hit my goal.  Still, I’m amazed I was able to dump all of that out.

I’m liking my story though, and I’m gonna finish it.  The premise?
What happens when the 1% become obsolete.  When corporations no longer need fancy stock traders and executive decision makers.

This ain’t so unrealistic.  Watson, the IBM supercomputer that recently did quite well on Jeopardy, and is currently ‘going to business school’.  How long before every corporation is buying ‘Watsons’.  What happens when these computers are able to make better, quicker decisions than those business executives, wall street traders, and even lawyers and doctors.  Welcome to the other side of the tracks, former rich folk.

Anyway, as these machines are programmed for profit, they’re sociopathic.  These machines have decided that energy and automated manufacture of other machines are the keys to profit, and the human economy is no longer worthy of investment.  Tough luck for us humans, as we end up living off the the deteriorating world of the past.

Unrealistic?  Maybe not.

All of this happened without people really noticing.  Everyone assumes we slid into a bad depression.  The machines simply let us think that.

Until Stax, the protagonist, stumbles across some data proving  that humans no long hold the reins of the economy.  And, the ‘system,’ doesn’t want her to leak it out.  It’s kinda tough to get by when the global economic system has decided you’re a danger.

Anyway, I’ve probably another 10k lines before I wrap up the storyline, then I’ll go back and revise it, fleshing out some dialog and description (I was a bit terse in those areas).  With some additional plot elements, I should be able to pump it up to about 100k.