Day 1, or, Don't Get a Mattress Delivered the Day You Start Your Novel

Actually, I had finished writing for the day by the time the mattress got delivered, so I don't really get to complain that they brought the wrong boxspring (but I will anyway!). 

More to the point: any piece of science fiction begins with world-creation.  By definition, you're writing about a world which is not the one we all live in, and the challenge of any science fiction opening is to explain some of the rules of the world without bogging readers down in a lot of exposition.  As a reader, I prefer the kind of story that drops me into the middle of the action and asks me to put together some of the pieces.  If the characters and plot are compelling, I'll do the work to make sense of the world.

So, that was today, trying to create a world one hint at a time while developing a protagonist worth reading about.   It's my hope that the opening will read like good narrative history, which presents you with a persuasive account of a time that you don't live in and figures who don't think the way you do.

Random things I learned today: Imogen is a popular name for girls in Australia, the joule (not the watt) is a measure of energy, "untuk pergi ke" means "to go to" in Indonesian, check your receipt to make sure the salesman put down the split queen boxspring.