Closet Spaceship Part 1

(NOTE: This is the first of several fictional snippets I plan to include in my blog, to give you a better idea of my writing style and what my characters are like. I plan to title all of them Closet Spaceship with a number so it's easier for you to read them in order. They should all appear on the page The Crew if you want to catch up without going through the whole blog.  Enjoy!)

I have a spaceship in my closet. Actually, it’s better than a spaceship because it can travel through time as well as space. How fun is that?

The official name of my spaceship is Macintosh SE and it’s taken me into the future more than once to meet a fascinating set of people there. Sadly, it’s in the closet because it died a quiet death last year (2012), after over twenty years of service. It’s also in the closet because it will be a while before I can bear to get rid of my trusty companion for so many years. Its replacement, Dell, is proving that it can travel just as well as its predecessor, but it has yet to win my heart in quite the same way.

For one thing, Macintosh SE used to offer a smiley face to me every time I fired it up. This puts one in the right frame of mind for travel, let me tell you. For another, in those ancient days, the Word program didn’t presume to tell me how to spell or punctuate, unlike the somewhat arrogant version we have these days. If there was a typo, it was my fault and my fault alone, but at least I didn’t have to grumble at some colored underline trying to make me feel bad even when I knew I was right. Word never met Reggie Hawkins, so how could it know how he talks?

I went on a few short trips with Mac first, so we could get used to each other. I learned how the controls and instruments worked, while it learned how I fly, so to speak. We were compatible, it seemed, so it wasn’t long before we went on our first long journey together. The time-travel component of Mac let me do it without anyone here noticing my absence (my husband had some concerns once in a while about how long he went between sightings of me, but he thought I was in our computer room so he didn’t worry too much).

And what a journey it was! I saw things I never expected, such as space colonies, a diamond mine and a lot of gun battles. I met some rather remarkable characters, too, and I’m happy to say I’m going to continue to spend time with them for a few more years.

If you’d like to meet them, I suggest you read my first novel, Outsider, where I make introductions and also share what I witnessed on my journey.

I’m working on the sequel now, but in the meantime, I hope to share some of the conversations I’ve had with the crew between their adventures. We can get to know them a little better together. What do you say?