I'm going to try this concept of going out and describing how I wrote my collection of short stories/short novel, Lightspeed Chronology. I want to hear what you think about what writers have to go through to get a story out. I also think someday, it will be interesting for me to look back on this and draw some conclusions. Anyways, I'll try and get a post every once in a while to state why I was thinking what I did at the time, and my hope is you'll comment on this and say "Oh, I agree/disagree, because...." and also I hope it will make you want to read the story (it's a long one; take it with you on the bus or plane.)


Part I: Lightspeed I: Hit and Shatter – 12.01.06.

I got the idea of writing Lightspeed Chronology while I was watching music videos on my PC back in late 2001, while I was in tenth grade at Baldwin High School in Pittsburgh, PA. Being a fan of Star Trek and the Air Force, I tried to reason what would be the best way to approach a project where I would write a story about space flight, and be imaginary about it. Sure, I would probably stretch the truth a little bit, but it was going to have to have some organization to it, in a sense.
Being the fact that I don’t usually plan out plots very far ahead of time (my biggest thing as I write and for my entire life, is to adlib the whole damned thing) I tried to think about how I would characterize myself. All the stories I had ever written to that point were first-person, so I figured Lightspeed was going to be exactly that – first person. And so , in January of 2002, I set on the task.
It only took me about a month to pen Lightspeed, but there are few things that I tell people. My aforementioned inspiration was watching Mandy Moore’s video “Cry” from A Walk to Remember”. The one scene in which Mandy was flying through the stars, her hair blowing into the camera – it made me think of a scene I would put in a movie. And so, I set into it.
My initial fear with Lightspeed (and became a true fear later on) was that I was really loading down the dialogue and never putting any plot to it. I had to get past the fact that I was trying to make a screenplay but in a much shorter form. And it was incredibly difficult, especially with the fact that I was in 10th grade and not that incredibly experienced at writing, period.
The biggest character, I think, was not the main one, Captain Steve Rhodes. Rhodes was meant to be the arrogant ass who discovered his inner feelings through leading his ship to success. Rhodes was meant to be like an egg – hard on the outside, but like jelly within. Nope, I didn’t even think about it, in retrospect. I had the idea of making a romantic interest somewhere within, and it was Kris Simpson. Simpson was modeled after a young Mandy Moore (again, don’t let this strike you as weird, but I had her picked for Kris’ role a long time ago. Robert DeNiro was Steve Rhodes, Mandy was Kris. Period.)
Anyways, the whole plot of Lightspeed was primarily based on the tragedy of something that I think would have been more fit for a Hollywood movie, but had the taste of too much flavoring and not enough flash. (Later, I dissected Lightspeed after I finished the last part, and rewrote this story.) It was meant for all its glory and had a lot of respectability, but it was still too short. Being that I am the type who writes a short story but once per year, I had a lot of time to worry about it.
Lightspeed was finished in March of 2002, and I was ready to rush it out to everyone who wanted to read it. I was kind of ashamed to give it to my own mother, who (for some reason) I didn’t want her to see what kind of writer I was. I gave it, though, to my English teacher at BHS, who let it sit prominently on his desk for at least a month before I yanked it. And in some sense, I didn’t think it was that great anyways, so I just let it go.

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