Gearing Up...

In the morning yesterday, I thought of this nice idea for this year's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I usually come up with story ideas based on "things hitting the fan" because that can bring on the climax of the plot.

I thought up a ship name: RedShift, and thought of the idea that it would be a civilian commerce ship. The story will be about how the crew is trying to maintain the ship and afford to stay in business as wars at the fringe of human colonized space begin to affect the economy. The crew of the RedShift will transport cargo and civilians and then discover that a batch of cargo isn't what is declared on the cargo manifest. But to really make the idea catch, I've decided that this revelation should not occur until the ship is being inspected by the Colonial Administration Armed Forces who are stopping random ships for inspection.

This is not a good place to get caught with illegal cargo, even though the commander could show the official manifest and get the crew out of trouble, the load might get confiscated and create a breach of the contract for shipping the cargo. There's still details to be worked out and things to revise and change, but that will happen in the crucible of NaNoWriMo next month, and not right now.