Writely or Wrongly

Tonight I experimented with a collaborative writing session. Using Writely (www.writely.com) a friend of mine and I collaborated on a story. So, this is Version 1. We're going to make some refinements to the rules and produce another unique piece soon.

This was a trial.

Here's the blueprint:

1. A mutual friend provided a seed sentence.
2. We each wrote a sentence in turn to add to the story.
3. Go to 2 until everybody gives up.

The idea was to write a story with several different styles mixed up. Version 1 had a few interesting twists and turns as we got into the project, but I'll provide an analysis of that later.

Meanwhile, here is Version 1 of Ganymede Dreams:

When he saw her rounding the corner he immediately nanocleaned the collard greens from between
his teeth. She had just returned from the colony on Ganymede, and he knew she would be looking for a man, a real man, not some android like last time.

He thought back to the "last time." Things were going swimmingly, until it started to rain. He accessed the network using his internal connection and entered a request for a little local sunshine. It wouldn't do to have her freeze.

As the weather magically cleared, she walked past him without so much as a glance in acknowledgement. He turned to watch her retreating figure. Heels. Legs. Skirt. Shirt. Hair tight in a bun with long steel looping pins. Weapons, obviously...the legs, not the pins.

Disappointed by the rebuff he pulled the InsulTek tighter around his neck. Even though the temperature was minus 270 degrees, it seemed to drop just a few more.

He shivered and sighed. His breath froze and dropped to the surface with a tinkle. He turned and strolled back into the bar where Chartreuse waited for him. In a bottle.

Chartreuse on the rocks with a splash of methane and a soft ginger cookie on the side. He swirled the green liquid, took a bite of the cookie and thought about home. Far away. A long time ago. A hot planet with a beach of sand. He felt the sand curl around his toes as he wiggled them deeper and deeper until the waves lapped at the bottom of his shorts and he felt one with the kelp.

He had never really experienced water, but he liked it. He liked the motion of it and the rapid change from hard to soft. He wrapped his legs in latex whenever he walked the beach.

The beach. She strolled down the beach. The distant sun hung over Jupiter like a dim pearl hung around the neck of a galactic Nubian princess with a huge, striped breast. Gazing at the stars she pondered the infinite, the wheeling of galaxies light years away, surrounding her in a slow waltz (as it was impossible to imagine galaxies doing the watusi which would really wreck the red shift) and, stirred by an almost religious feeling a single thought rose to the surface like a lotus blossom, frozen in liquid methane: Dork.