Yesterday's post on the writing day didn't go through and get posted on Red Room. The Room didn't respond.  "Oops," there was an error, the system said with a giggle, trying to lighten the mood.  Guess the world wasn't meant to see that posting.

Sometimes life takes turns like that.  Events occur that leave you questioning whether some hand is up there, ala Ming in Flash Gordon, controlling our actions for their entertainment.  Maybe our fates are being woven, the Gods of Olympus watch us, or Jehovah knows everything we do and decides which posts will join the net as part of a master plan.  The Father knows the fall of everything keystroke.

What else can it be?

I laughed as I wrote - tried to type - those thoughts as my computer froze again.  Still freezes everyday, three or four times a day, by plan by software designers and engineers as the system checks itself and updates itself to ensure it's safe for me to proceed.  

It must be a plan, for the logs say all is well.  Diagnostics say, all is well.  Everything says, all systems go.  

Revelations, though, demonstrate how many errors are made in these plans.  In the end, these systems depend on humans to be infallible and to fully understand nature.  Human history is rich with system errors when the system said, all systems go, and everything was not well.  

Some system errors are accepted as a calculated risk as the analyzing elements look at the possible outcomes and say, that's okay.  Part of that is 'the cost of doing business' and 'the price of success' or can be attributed to 'the need to do something'.  Analysts are almost always working on limited knowledge, unaware of full events taking place elsewhere that will affect the plot.

Yes, affect the plot.  I've come to view the world as epic ongoing novels.  Every life, birth and death is a story being told, threading through other stories being created and told.

Somewhere someone is recording their thoughts about the things that went right and wrong.  Someone else is beginning an investigation to learn what went wrong.  Others are reading past written accounts and putting together information from several sources to expose what went wrong so we can avoid the same mistakes later, while others are doing the same but for entertainment.

We do all of these things as fiction writers.  In the "Game of Thrones" series, we see detailed plotting and action from multiple characters in numerous factions.  We learn of their plotting and miscalculations and results and how their characters and plans change, and the fall out when their plans encounter others' plans.  In movies like "The Matrix" and "The Terminator", there is rebellion about what has already happened and efforts to create new structures, just as in "Les Miserables" and "Lincoln".  Detective stories, mysteries and procedures look at what has happened and attempts to let us to see what it takes to catch a criminal, with the added tension that the criminal is still active, ready to strike again. 

And sometimes our stories are about answering the questions that arise about how it was done.   "Seabiscuit" is such a story.  We wanted to know how that horse with the strange gait, so much smaller than many others, exceeded everyone's expectations but a small handful.  We enjoy cheering the horse and its human companions on as the odds mount against the little horse, joining the historic crowds that came to expect success from the little horse.  

We look for heros to understand how they succeeded and failed.  Sometimes we hope to learn and duplicate their success or take inspiration.  

Sometimes, though, because we're humans, we're curious.  We just want to know, what happened?  

A good story encourages us to read more.

A good story encourages us to write more.

Time to go write like crazy.  It helps relieve my insanity.