52 (Short Stories) in 52 (Weeks)

Story #1 - Outline - Always Falling Home

"Technically, this is already Day 4," the Muse pointed out as the Writer frowned down at her keyboard trying to scrounge up a story idea. The story mists churned around them as the Writer waffled between universes.

"I got distracted," the Writer shrugged. "New year, new resolutions-- besides, I can always whip up a drabble if things get dicey. But outline today, write tomorrow, edit Friday and I'm back on track!" Her writing desk was covered in piles of notes from all of the established universes, but so far not a single plot bunny had spawned.

"I'll believe that when I see it." 

"Alright, fine." The Writer closed her eyes and randomly picked a universe from the piles.

There was a pause.

"Now this is going to be good!" The Muse laughed. "Rabbit'verse? Really? You have to go and pick the most lyrical 'verse to speed-write in."

"It does lend itself to purpler prose," the Writer agreed with a sigh. "But we'll keep it short and sweet-- I don't have enough with Rafiq to really write him well off-the-cuff, so we'll go with all new folks."

"The 'verse leans more towards slice-of-life than action sequences," The Muse mused. "So something relatively low-key-- are we working with Firsts or someone more tangential to the alien contact groups?"

"Firsts-- wait, wait," the Writer put aside the keyboard and grabbed her doodling notebook. "What about having a new First, someone just coming into the program, meeting up with an established First who's just returned from an assignment? Set a while afterRafiq's established the training programs to bring them home again."

"So a newbie who's scared of losing themselves meeting someone who's still partially lost?" The Muse frowned down at the rough doodle of sort of lounge-atrium with sketches of a bar and some tables. 

"Yeah, have the new person just checked in, new class, is out in the cafeteria-type thing and have her run into the older woman, who's still working her way back from the alien headspace." The Writer doodles a bit more. "See, the place won't look so enclosed this way. They'd have it a lot more open while still enclosed to remind the Firsts of both sides-- it would help the ones coming back to be in nature and still around other humans."

"So... what's the point?"

The Writer blinked. "Point?"

"What happens? Why is the story important?" The Muse tapped on the rough outlines of the two main fictives who were talking to each other. "What message is it meant to convey?"

"Um, it reassures the new First that the job they are going to be doing is important? That it's worth the possible sacrifice of their own humanity?" The Writer frowned. "It's not really connected to anything else, or important in the sense of a later story-- it's just world-building?"

"Well, we have to start somewhere, I suppose."

"You aren't being very helpful, go play on AO3 or something." The Writer shooed the Muse away from her writing desk.

"Fine, fine." The Muse apologized. "So how do you outline a conversation between two people you've never met?"

"I normally make it up as I go," the Writer admitted. "So maybe we just outline the characters and the general topics?"

"Sound fair. So the topic is about being a First and their ability to submerge themselves into alien mindsets. About what it feels like to go crazy on purpose and how hard it is to come back again. About how much humanity gains from successful first contacts and how vital their jobs are even thought the personal risk is incredible." The Muse said.

"The new First will have had no contact with other Firsts or the academy, came from one of the new colony planets probably. So all they know is they scored high on a test they didn't know they were taking and now their being expected to do this terrifying thing." The Writer doodled a few more sketches of the younger First. "The older first will be coming back from, hmm, a small-herd herbivore contact that failed, so not only is she working her way back to humanity, but she's being cross-examined on why the contact failed so they can decide if they need to send someone else. She spent a year planet-side trying her hardest to learn how to talk to something that possibly was never intelligent enough to understand her."

There was a pause.

"Do you ever write happy stories?"

"It is happy!" The Writer objected, "They both come out of the conversation with optimism and enthusiasm for their jobs."

"Which have a high probability of failure and/or driving them insane."

"Well... yeah. But still!"

The Muse sighed and the Writer wrote on.