Morning all. December 15th is upon us and it is time for the morning writing prompt. I know some people have asked me why I do these every morning and while there are many benefits of doing a writer’s exercises in general. I find the sentence starters are a little bit different. The one thing they do better than any other exercise I’ve tried is that they get me in the habit of writing everyday. Even if the writing prompt result is the only thing I write that day, I have spent fifteen minutes that day writing. Often it leads to other writing, but it is instrumental in creating the write every day habit. So now that I have covered that, let’s get to today’s prompt. Timers set? Good I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.
You know I liked this one. Clearly I know nothing of the topic and I don’t think it is one of my personal favorites but it does illustrate a point, several actually. Obviously if I were to break this out as an actual story I would need to do research. Just as clearly I was able to get the bare bones of the story started without that research. If I were to continue, I would go back, mark the places to research so it was accurate and realistic and still write as I figure out what my story is. I know we discussed this at length before but I think its a nice illustration of the balance needed between research and writing.
Tuesday, December 15th: It was a shocking miscalculation.
It was a shocking miscalculation. As someone who checked and double checked his figures, the miscalculation stunned him. Greg could only watch in horror as his preprogramed robotic engineer slammed into the side of the replica of the space station. The practice run had been going smoothly until that point and Greg had high hopes that his new creation would soon be launched into the atmosphere, it’s nature allowing it to take care of duties that were too dangerous for humans to perform on a routine basis.
But now, his hopes looked as crumpled as the remains of his robotic creation. Greg frowned and shook his head. He had no idea how he could have miscalculated so badly. A warning siren sounded and the simulated space station started venting gasses into the chamber where the test was being performed.
“Damn it,” he heard from behind him. A button was slammed with the flat of a palm and the alarm shut off. The thick glass between the chamber and the observation room prevented sound from escaping and it was ominously quiet. Then behind him, he heard expelled breath.
“So what happened?”
Greg shook his head, his eyes continuing to follow the floating parts of his decimated creature. He knew they would have to clean out every little piece lest it impact any other future test run in the chamber as well as to determine what could have possibly gone wrong. Footsteps sounded and Greg felt the warm presence of his supervisor behind him.
“You ran the numbers?”
Greg nodded. “Three times,” he said, wanting to get it on record that he was not negligent. Truthfully he was fairly certain he ran the numbers at least five times before committing to them and then triple checked the program before bringing it in this morning.
“These them?” he was asked.
Greg tore his eyes from the metallic carnage in front of him to look at the items being pointed out. While others preferred to works solely off of computer screens, Greg always printed out a hard copy before doing the final check. The habit had earned him the eternal ire of one of his eco conscious coworkers so instead of trashing the pages when he was done, he shredded them, took them home and added them to his compost bin. There they mixed with coffee grounds and egg shells to become the compost for his small vegetable garden. The results mollified Doug somewhat, but still earned him occasional dark looks.
“Yes,” he said. He watched as his papers were lifted, studied and then lowered. Keeping them in his hand, his supervisor walked over to the console. With a heavy sigh he settled himself behind it and checked the printed numbers against the screen. His frown deepened and Greg felt some tension inside easing.
“This should have worked.”
Greg nodded. “I know.”
“According to this there was at least half a meter of extra space.”
Again Greg nodded. He programed the extra space to allow room for his robot’s arms to extend and perform the repairs it was sent in to accomplish. The test never got that far, the collision occurring before the arm extension could be tried.
“Wait,” Kevin, his supervisor said. “Did you change anything else?”
“No, I used the general parameters as they are. I wanted to test standard before I started attempting variations,” Greg said. Not only was it good practice, but it was protocol.
“Then someone else has been mucking about with the system.”
Greg lifted an eyebrow in surprise. The list of those with access was short and other than himself and his supervisor, none with access had been in the building for at least two months.
Ten til Midnight 