I've not written any fiction in a long time, unless you count expense reports (joke!) or todo lists (unfortunately not a joke).
Part of my motivation behind the Perl XP Training Project is to build a game where I can tell a story. Sure, it's a hack and slash, but it's a persistent world with characters and conspiracies and plot motion. It might not turn out as tonally beautiful as Thief or as layered as Babylon 5, but I think I have a couple of good stories in me.
Maybe it's the way I've locked myself in my bedroom for three days, fighting off a cold, but tonight I sat down and plotted out two groups of characters. Then, just as I should have been reading Quicksilver before falling asleep, I wrote a 1500-word short story set in the universe where I imagine Cyberspace Game to take place.
Even if Neal Stephenson killed cyberpunk in 1992, I think there's still room to examine the human condition through the genre. Maybe that's especially true because we're a few short steps closer to imagining what the future may be.
Anyway, it's called Qualifying and it was fun to write. At least tomorrow I can blame cold medicine and sleep deprivation for any embarrassing blunders.
