What Are You Working On?

In social gatherings, I rarely say I’m a writer, unless I’m at a writer’s meeting. It’s much easier to say I’m a private English tutor, or I make money from affiliate marketing, or I do some voice-over work. Telling them I’m a writer instantly leads to the next question. Now, if I was a romance writer, it would be easy. But, I’m not.

So, here’s my attempt at answering that question. If you plan on becoming a science fiction writer, you might find this helpful.

So, what do you do?
I’m a science fiction writer. I write short stories and novels about aliens.
Really? Sounds cool. What are you working on at the moment?
Oh, it’s a bit complicated.
Try me!
Well, if you’re sure. <deep breath> My latest novel is about an interfrequency starship with a crew of 300 different alien races that has been sent back 2.5 million years and across millions of kilometers to Andromeda where they encounter a conscious planet that has control of the entire galaxy, while in the year 2133, a rogue plant-alien is working to connect across space-time to tap into that planet-creature’s power, and use it to shift the Milky Way Galaxy into a higher frequency, and if the plant-alien does that, it will mean the end of the Solar System, so the ship in the past and the people in the present of 2133 have to find a way to stop it.
Oookaaaay.
That’s in part one. It gets more complicated after that.
Riiiiggghhhtt.

Well, that’s what I should’ve said. Instead, I said something like
Oh, just a simple space opera. A bit like a Doctor Who, Star Trek, Babylon 5 mashup, with some plant-alien enemies! What do you do?

Have a great weekend!