Nature Future Conditional

The story behind the story: Floating in my tin can

Gerri Leen makes her debut in Futures this week with her story Floating in my tin can. Originally from Seattle, Gerri now lives in Northern Virginia, where you van keep track of her activities via her website or by following her on Twitter. Here she discusses what inspired her latest tale — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Writing Floating in my tin can

I’ve recently retired due to debilitating migraines that keep me off schedule and isolated (thank God/dess for the Internet and signs of life 24/7!) and I am often stuck in the house like some suburban vampire. As with many writers, my experiences — bad or good — colour the stories and poems I write, and several of my works lately have dealt with the idea of isolation both emotional and physical.

Space is such a natural place to enforce isolation — there’s so much room to be alone in and such a high cost if things go wrong. I also like writing rebels, especially when their actions might be driven by more than just dissatisfaction with an external party.

This character is struggling and I don’t actually know what choice will be made at the end — I’m not even sure which choice I want to be made. The title is an homage to ‘Space Oddity’ — Changesonebowie was the first album I bought with my own money as a teen way back in the seventies — and the haunting imagery Bowie created in that gorgeous song. I can imagine him being one of the singers who might so desperately want out of the five federations that they run into our protagonist.

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