Got Something Written

My plan for May was to keep writing and finish off all of the stories I began in April.  Then on the 2nd I went with friends to see The Avengers:  Age of Ultron, and afterwards they helped give me three new story ideas:  Murderbot 146, Old Boy's Club, and Secret Crisis Wars.

During the week I managed to actually finish one story:  All the Trauma You've Been Craving.  But I came up with three new story ideas:  Sisterly Love (about a sister city to Frosthaven, NJ), Number One (a tribute of sorts to Kim Jong Il -- and a story about who is really Grandpa's #1 fan) and Pharmacopia (about a villain whose name was, at first, Big Pharma).

Over the weekend I came up with yet another story idea:  Doom, about a super group in the Grandpa Anarchy universe that is a bit like the Doom Patrol (ie very weird).  I can't help myself, and I'm kind of going backwards as far as completing stories that I've started since April.  I complained on Twitter late Saturday night that I'd failed to get anything written, then I stayed up hours past Midnight finishing a story that I retitled Lesson, and working hard on Number One, which I finished the next morning.  I did a lot of work on Murderbot 146 later Sunday and hope to get it finished today.  So that's progress!

Murderbot 146 comes from Ultron.  After the movie we were discussing the origin of Ultron -- I didn't know he (or Vision) were from the comics for sure, never having followed any Avenger-related titles.  Chuck explained that Ultron was created pretty much as in the movie (and Vision also, created by Ultron).  In the comics, every time Ultron reappeared he had upgraded himself and was given a new number, so "Ultron 2", "Ultron 3" and so on.  Eventually they dropped that numbering system, but the idea of a robot nemesis who had upgraded himself dozens and maybe hundreds of times and still couldn't manage to defeat his creator appealed to me.  Also, we thought it would be funny if his attempts at upgrading were lagging behind the pace of technological innovation, so that he was actually falling further and further behind the curve.

I worked on this Sunday night, but I don't really have a punchline for it yet.  After I went to bed I got back up twice to add more lines to the story -- so it's kind of percolating in the back of my mind.  Maybe I'll come up with a good ending for it, we'll see.