IF I BUILT A DINOSAUR THEME PARK

If I built a dinosaur theme park like Jurassic Park, I have a few ideas of what to include. At the front gate, I would build a statue dedicated to Michael Crichton, the man who first presented us with the idea of bringing dinosaurs back to life. There would be a natural history museum that would rival the Smithsonian and will house fossils from all throughout history. There will be the largest prehistory themed gift shop in the world, selling anything from DVDs, books, toys, and actual fossils. The food court would have the most diverse menu and choice of restaurants of any theme park.

Now we come to the fun part of the park: the animals. For the dinosaurs, Ice Age creatures, and other large animals, there would be a series of safari parks. The vehicles that would go through the safari would be heavily armor-plated yet have big enough windows for the passengers to see the wildlife. Next, there would be a section that houses the small creatures such as prehistoric insects, reptiles, and amphibians. For the flying creatures, there would be an aviary and would house prehistoric birds, pterosaurs, and flying mammals. Finally, there would be a Sea World-like section that would house the marine creatures such as prehistoric whales, sharks, fish, cephalopods, and marine reptiles.

Overall, I am picturing a theme park that will not solely feature dinosaurs, but all animals throughout prehistory. Dinosaurs were only one section of prehistory so I would like a theme parks that features all sections. If I write a story about a prehistoric theme park, I would want it to feature all of these attractions and more.

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CREEPY OLD MAN

I remember something that was both creepy and funny from the film Intolerable Cruelty. In that film, George Clooney met the senior partner of his law firm, who was a creepy, decrepit old man who was hooked up to life support at his desk. This gave me the idea for a creepy cyborg character in my new superhero series. This guy will become a decrepit cyborg as a result of a failed assassination attempt. Unlike the guy in this video, my character will have more than a few pieces of his body missing.

100 PAGES IN 3 DAYS

I watched the film called Trumbo, which revolved around the life of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. In one scene, he was tasked to write 100 pages in 3 days. I am thinking of taking on this challenge when my schedule permits it. I once wrote 50 pages in a single day so I should be able to do 100 pages in 3 days when the mood is right. I am thinking of dividing up the work load so it is not too overwhelming. I am thinking of doing 35 pages on each of the first two days and then doing 30 on the third day. That will result in 100 pages in 3 days, which would consist of about a third of the book I am writing. Wish me luck and I will let you know when I take up the challenge!

ILLUSTRATOR NEEDED

I have sad news. Negotiations with illustrators have so far broken down. Does anyone know where I can find a fantasy illustrator? The illustrations I am hoping to make are black and white. Also, I will be on a tight budget. If anyone knows where I can find such an illustrator, please let me know. Thank you.

SUCCESSION CRISISES

Throughout medieval history, a succession crisis for the throne often led to civil war. One of the most prime examples would be the War of the Roses. In my third fantasy book, I will be depicting not one succession crisis but two and my main character will try to fix it in order to prevent a series of wars. These scenes will be both military and political in nature. I look forward to writing these scenes and developing the characters involved.

SUPERHERO IDEA: MEMORY IMPLANTS

After watching The Boys on Amazon Prime, I came to be intrigued by the character known as the Homelander. Homelander is essentially a dark parody of Superman. Unlike Superman, he never learned either morality or how to be human. The reason for this is because he was born and raised as a lab rat instead of being raised by a loving family. This made him not only immoral and sociopathic, but also dangerously unpredictable and uncontrollable.

There have been other cases of superheroes being created from laboratory experiments and those with a basic human background tend to be true superheroes. However, superheroes who we made from scratch and raised in a lab like Homelander lack that basic human background. So, if you are going to create a superhero from scratch, how do you make it mentally stable and more controllable? The answer to this riddle may surprise you.

Homelander reminds me of the Replicants from Blade Runner. The Replicants were emotionally inexperienced and unstable, which made them nearly as dangerous as Homelander. However, if you give the Replicants implanted memories then you give them the means to better control their emotions. What if something similar could be done with a man-made superhero?

Giving artificially made superheroes implanted memories would give them a sense of identity that they wouldn’t have otherwise. They would not have the traumatic memories and experiences that Homelander had, which would make them more docile. The only catch is what could happen if the superhero in question finds out that all of the memories that they have are false. If that happens, then the end result could possibly be something just as bad or worse than Homelander. They would degenerate into mindless beings with unstoppable power and destroy all before them without discrimination.

I am planning on exploring the concept of superheroes with implanted memories. It will give them a way to cope with an identity that is not their own. It will be an identity crisis of the worst possible kind.

A DAY OF HIKING

One of these days, I would like to spend one day hiking the Appalachian Trail as far as I can and as hard as I can. I don’t have it in me to hike all 2,200 miles, but if I can hike just 20 or so miles, then I will die happy. Several of my fantasy stories include sections where the characters wander through the wilderness so this will help me get even more inspiration for future writing. Also, it will allow me to be better connected with nature. Hopefully, I won’t run into a bear or two. If that happens, I watched enough Animal Planet programs to know what to do.