Monday 9 April 2012

Falling Behind Fast Tech

A while ago I wrote a post on how writers can keep up with such a fast-paced technological age. For my lastest WiP I had to journey into the contemporary world and use not just current technology, but high tech stuff. It's scary because I know it won't be long before this "high tech stuff" is outdated.

I was doing fine at first. I wrote about animatronics and state-of-the-art robotics and glasses that allowed you to use the internet...

Glasses that allowed you to use the internet.

Google, you've done it again.

Now, I need these glasses. They are imperative to the storyline. But they need to be awe-worthy in terms of technological development, and by the time I've found an agent and a publisher and this book hits stores, the glasses will be a thing of today, not the future. And a few years from then, they'll be a thing of the past.

I'm sure plenty of you have come across something like this before. When I tweeted my woes, I had more than one sympathetic response that came with a similar story. I guess I can count myself lucky that I've come across it this early in the drafting stage. It can still be changed.

But how?

Well, this is where the brainstorming comes in. (After the curled-up-in-a-fetal-position-crying, anyway.) Thanks to an idea from my lovely boyfriend, I'm keeping the glasses but using them in conjuction with internet-based contact lenses. It will require further thought to cohesively fit it into the storyline, but it's something.

And that's the thing, isn't it? Living in a time like this, the only choice we have is to keep up, keep changing, and stay one breathless step in front of the people who are working much too hard to make the future today.

And Google, don't steal my idea until the book's out, got it?

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