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- Sunday, June 17: Update #1 on plot synopsis, genre, theme, setting, and main characters

Genre: Epic Science Fiction Adventure
Theme: Exploration and overcoming enemies
Setting: The Moon; inside a space station on the planet’s surface.

Moon Base Alpha: This is the first functioning full-time base on the moon. Obviously, this is set in the future a bit. The moon base is nearly completely self-sustaining. They receive additional supplies from regular shuttle trips from earth, mostly food, as they haven’t discovered a way to effectively grow any fresh food on the moon. The moon base is secured, and oxygen isn’t really an issue, it’s just accepted as how the place works. The base also generates gravity for the occupants. The base is powered by a tiny nuclear power generator, so the generator shutting off really isn’t a consideration.

The residents of moon base alpha are semi-permanent residents. There are visitors that occasionally come for a month, but in general the residents stay as long as they like (there are currently no temporary visitors). They sign up and are professors or NASA employees and stay until they find another job or decide they want to leave. This works well for NASA, as NASA is also attempting to study the longer-term effects of living on the moon.

There are normally about 20 people staffing the moon base, but that can vary by 5-10 each month. The base can easily support up to 40 people, 50 without running out of space. There are personal, private areas for each individual stationed at the base, including bathrooms for each berth. There is a dining area and food is provided by two food service people who simply serve the few options that are created there. These two people also work cleaning up the entire station.

The security team is a supervisor and a team of two. They really don’t have any real work but are there mostly to allow the others to feel safer, and “just in case.” The two workers are on alternating 12-hour shifts.

There are live, direct communications available with earth via laser communications systems. The lounge area has a common area with a TV with live feeds from earth. Each berth also has their own TV with the same feed. They also all have access to live Internet connections. They can remain in direct, nearly-instant communications with anyone on earth without much effort.

The base was also built for long-term occupancy, including many entertainment options. There is a game room with ping-pong tables, darts, and other games. There is a full exercise gym included – it is small but complete. Around the edges of the moon base there is even a tube-shaped jogging track that is three-quarters of a mile long open to all at the moon base 24-hours a day.

The base was built just into the edge of the dark side of the moon to avoid overexposure to the ultraviolet rays of the sun. Since it is near the light side, outside is often lit at a level similar to twilight on earth. Most of the space station was built intentionally without windows so the base and provide alternating fake daylight and night. There are a few rooms that provide windows to give the occupants a chance to look outside and not feel trapped or claustrophobic. The jogging track has windows spaced throughout the entire length of the track.

Main Characters:

Stone Ulrich. Stone is the station head of Moon Base Alpha, but also a geologist. He has been working for years researching the geology of the moon, so he likes to get his hands dirty and doesn’t want to just be the administrative leader of the base. In fact, he often takes shortcuts and ignores directives of NASA, especially related to reports he is supposed to file because he thinks they are a waste of his time. He is very good at geological analysis and often skirts procedures he knows aren’t really necessary: some of those protective procedures are “just for pansies.” He accepted the position at Moon Base Alpha because he is trying to escape his life on earth where he recently lost his wife in a car accident. He puts all his efforts into work to avoid having to deal with any personal issues. Since moving to the moon base, he has avoided forming any sorts of relationships with anyone there. He has an uncanny knack with music – he can identify nearly any musical melody that he hears, and he can easily create new lines of harmony and melodies without even trying.

He is quite the physical specimen, coming in at 6’2” tall, naturally strong, and as the ladies would say, “He is easy on the eyes.” He is not a typical administrator and indeed seldom stays still – he is always working, trying to discover more or learn more about the geology of the moon. He has short brown hair, usually cut in a flat-top, and he has a trimmer than he uses himself to keep the flat top looking even. He has a strong, square jaw and a solid chest. His size often intimidates many he meets. He has hazel eyes that it is rumored change colors with his attitude.

Temil Larrin. Temil is another geologist at Moon Base Alpha. He knows procedures better than anyone, and he knows he would have done a much better job as the station head. He is quite angry that Stone was named station head instead of him. It bothers him a great deal when Stone doesn’t follow the correct procedures and doesn’t act like an administrator. He is senior enough that he can really do what he wants, but what he really wants is to be station head, no matter what it takes. He is a much smaller and thin man, but many women still find him quite attractive. To him, women are there simply to be used as he works to obtain more power and eventually be named the station head. He complains, often, to anyone who will listen about his being skipped over for promotion to station head. He dreams of running the station with an iron fist and eventually getting the next station, maybe the Mars station, named after him.

Temil has a near-photographic memory, especially as it applies to the written word. He can see and remember rules, regulations, and other printed material very easily. This makes him quite the efficient rule-following administrator. While this skill is certainly useful, it usually annoys those around him as he quotes rules and directives that are to be followed at all times.

Lorin Vargas. Lorin is one of the best geologists at the moon base. She is a little younger than the others and thinks of herself as married to her science. She cares a lot about everything, but lacks discipline and direction. She likes science and geology, but she’s not sure that’s all there is to life – but that’s all there ever has been for her so far.

Mary McGowan is the computer expert at the moon base. She has a team that helps her ensure everything related to computers and communications are working at all times. She knows everything there is to know about computers and connections to earth. She also interprets results of scans the computers are doing constantly. She thinks she could lose a few pounds, but sitting staring at a computer all day makes that difficult. She spends time at the base gym whenever she can to try and make up for her sedentary job.

Tom Borden is the head of security at the moon base. He takes is job seriously. Unknown to the others at the base, he is also employed by the CIA. They are secretly trying to find ways to use the moon base for CIA research and checking it out for a potential weapons base, just in case. No one at the moon base has any idea of the extent Tom is involved, they assume he is just another government worker.

Garn and Jax are two lab assistants that are loyal to Temil Larrin. They are typical flunkies and obey Temil no matter what. They believe if they support him, they will eventually be rewarded. Also, they don’t really have the gumption and motivation to do anything by themselves. They are both good, skilled, experienced geologists as well.

Peter Bambach and Justine Carrol are some additional scientists/lab assistants at the station. They are more neutral, but they both like Stone. They see the tension between Temil and Stone, but don’t really want to be involved. Instead, they just want to analyze moon rocks and do their job.

Title (working): Moon Base Alpha
Plot Synopsis:

The story starts out with Stone at work in the lab, analyzing some new rocks the outside team has brought in from an area at the edge of the moon station. These rocks are different, and Stone is trying to determine how and why in the lab. Temil will show up and complain about procedures, his usual thing. Eventually, Stone will order some additional analysis of the area of the new rocks.

Stone will meet with Mary, who will tell him about an area in the scans that looks to be hollow – and not natural. Stone wants to go explore immediately, but, of course, procedures demand that he call and wait for an exploration team to arrive from earth. Clearly, he’s not going to wait. He consults with Tom before he goes and learns a few things about security, then he heads out and finds caverns.

He explores the caverns and discovers signs of aliens, but also has to overcome a number of additional obstacles, including Temil’s efforts to stop him. Stone will meet others and have to make some difficult decisions to discover the mysteries of the strange caves on the moon and deal with his own issues and life. Will he discover actual aliens? Are the aliens hostile? Is it all a hoax? Will Temil ever get control of the moon base?

You must really like writing about aliens.

But are there actually aliens in this story? Aha!

Sunday, July 1: Update #2 on story progress and any issues in the writing process

The story is moving along. The word count just in the story right now is 6,000 words. I don't know if I'm ahead or behind because I really didn't have a real plan around how many words to write by a certain date.

I guess my biggest issue with the writing process is that I'm writing this story very differently than I have written any other CYOA story. Usually I have the idea, a rough plot, and then I start mapping out paths -- lots and lots of paths with choices. However, when I do that, I have no control at all over the length, it just ends up being some length and I'm done with it. Sometimes they're short, sometimes they're longer.

Also, I tend to let the stories write themselves. In other words, I might have ideas and a general outline, but nothing really specific, so I don't know where the story is going to go. In this case, because of the required length and the deadline, I'm working on sections working towards certain lengths in each section. So I'm writing a nice story so far, but there's literally zero options. I'm thinking I'm just going to write a nice story and then when it's done, I'll go back in and see where I can branch off. This is going to make for either a solid gauntlet, with very few real options, or a time cave, where once you split off, you'll never get back to the main story. Well, we'll see where it ends up, because I'm not far enough along to know. I've got an outline for the main story, and I'll just write that and see what happens next.

:) I don’t mind well written stories with only a few options, especially if there is at least one option that I would do in the circumstances. I am actually used to stories that don’t give you any options, where you have to hope the main character does the right things.

Thanks! I just usually try and make lots and lots of options and endings, and I don't think that's going to happen this time.

:) An awesome story doesn’t need multiple paths and endings really, it just needs one reasonable (or entertaining) path and one awesome ending. 

As you're describing a story that would be unpublished for not being a CYOA, I question your motives in cheerleading this idea in a thread for someone's contest story.

I thought they only unpublish stories that are not awesome enough, or don’t get enough ratings.

Also, he only said he wasn’t going to have lots and lots of options and endings like he usually does. That doesn’t mean he won’t have a few. :)

Congrats on your progress! The concept looks really good (I totally missed a bunch of these start pages for some reason). Already curious what's in those caves...

Thanks! I'm curious as to what's in those caves, too.

No, really, I don't know, I haven't gotten to that part of the story yet, so I really don't know!

Twelve Thai kids and a dumb coach?

It does seem quite likely...

:D Wow! This looks awesome!

Sunday, July 15: Update #3 on story progress and what you like most about your story so far

I've done more planning than writing in the past couple weeks. I'm finding this length of story still interesting and having to write differently. Although the way the story is exploding with options, I may end with 60 branches of 1,000 words each instead of one long story of 60,000 words... well, it's not that bad, but it is splitting a lot, and I'm still wrestling with what to do with all those branches and how to deal with them. I should probably just stop the branching now and finish them all off...

I like the setting and the characters so far. It has been fun to set up the conflict and think about the different ways the conflict will appear and resolve. I'm still working on how the characters will change, or even if there will be sucky branches where the characters don't change at all because of the choices the reader makes.

Good to hear that the contest has helped you explore a different writing method.

- Sunday, August 5: Update #4 on story progress and what part of the story has been most difficult to tackle

I wrote 5,000 words... for a research project I'm working on, does that count?

I'd say the most difficult right now is this darn site. At the rate the site has been bouncing around the last week or two, I figure I need to start copying and pasting my story next week in order to finish by the deadline. And if it's this bad near the deadline, I'll totally miss it because I really get annoyed at sitting and waiting for a minute or two, then seeing "Service not available," and having to reload again and again. I'm starting to suspect the site is on its last legs these days and may not actually make it to the contest deadline.

The story itself is fine. Been traveling the past week so mostly just wrote more in my head, but yeah, we'll see where this goes.

Still hanging in there?

Sunday, August 26: Update #5 on story progress and how you've managed to stay motivated

Well I guess this is still going on, huh?

It's going to be a tough ending for me. I suspected I was getting into a little too much. It isn't the story, I have it planned out, lots of options, dozens of endings, and so on. But a story of this length usually takes me more like 8-12 months to write simply to find the time to get the words on the paper (like in my profile).

I'm still having a hard time finding time. I knew August would be bad, as I was working two jobs all month. I thought the start of September would be easier, but I've already gotten 3 business trips scheduled for the first three weeks of September, and likely another in the fourth week. So it's just going to be a serious challenge to just find the time to put the words in my head on the paper. It's a nice story, hopefully readers here will get to see it, but we'll see how time works out in the next couple weeks.

Update 5.5:

Yeah, I'm not saying I'm dropping out, but I'm at the point where I think I'll surprise myself if I actually get this in by the deadline.

It's not that the story isn't good, I think it is. I like the story, I like the characters, I like where everything is going. I even like the 30+ endings that I've got in the story. And sure, there should have been enough time, but I just can't get that many words down on the page in a day. I have this weird thing where I feel like I can only type so many words in a day and once I reach that limit, I'm just done. And unfortunately that seems to count for ANY words I type, including these right here.

So I like the story, I think I've got a good story, and I'm going to keep writing the story -- I'm just thinking it isn't going to make the deadline because just getting those words typed out takes me too darn long. We'll see...

Well, best of luck Ogre. There's something to be said for the few who have been working on the same story from the start and making at least a bit of progress every week.

I get that same problem sometimes. It helps me to just sit somewhere quiet and distractionless and not let myself stop until I've made real progress. That sometimes means disconnecting my computer from the internet and putting my phone on silent too. Sometimes it feels like I just can't write anymore, but if I pause and think then there's usually something in the story I can go expand on while the writer's block fades away. You probably already know this stuff but I hope it helps. Good luck with your entry!

I know exactly how you feel. I have that very same problem. I've found that the best time to write is when I can barely see the page due to not having slept in over forty hours. Going cross-eyed makes it look like you've written twice as many words so if you do it enough times, your brain just takes it from there after you've slept enough to take the edge off and attempts to hit that same goal. I've been told that a good brew sometimes loosens things up, too.

You've got way more endings than I have right now. I don't think I'll be able to manage half that many by the deadline, in fact. I know you can do this and I'll be seeing you at the finish line.

- Sunday, September 9: Update #6 on story progress and editing plans

Well here we go.

First, thank you for all the encouragement from different people throughout this contest. It really did make a difference. It was really helpful each time.

At this point if I were just writing a regular story, I'd set it aside for a bit. Maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months. But I've been in it so deep recently, I'd just normally take a break. But with it being a contest, I'm still pushing ahead, or at least trying to.

That said, I'm going to give it about a 4% chance I'll make the deadline.

I mentioned the work I had before, and I have to make another damn trip this week. On top of that, I just found out I've got to make yet another trip the week after and might be without Internet that last week. So I had figured with all the copy and pasting this was going to take, I really needed to be completely done with the writing by today. Well, I'm not. So I'll continue writing and see where this goes. I'm going to keep on plowing ahead. I might make it, but seriously doubt it.

I'm not sure what I'll do when the final time shows up. I might continue plowing ahead, depending on where I am, or I might just put it up for a bit to finish it a little later.

Again, thank you each for all the encouragement throughout this contest.

4% is better odds than a lot of us, don't give up yet.

It's not a total surrender. At this point I almost want to hire a starving college student to do all the copy and pasting while I write more. I'd hire someone here, but we all know the odds of that working out...