The book I’m writing was not supposed to drip so heavily with symbolism!!!!
I planned this book last August, and the main characters were always intended to end up on a water-filled space station where they’d need breathing masks.
THE MASKS WERE NOT MEANT TO BE ALLEGORICAL.
Look, this books series is starting to feel like an exercise in The Lathe of Heaven — two years ago, I wrote that my main character’s beloved spaceship was destroyed, and that same day, my mom sold the house I grew up in.
I’d known that was coming… but the exact same day?
Last fall, I wrote a robot rejecting the gendered pronouns that had been assigned to zir, and the next day, my elder child came out of the closet (literally, because they have that kind of sense of humor) and announced that they’re non-binary.
Back in early March, I wrote that the living spaceship the main characters travel with — along with a whole pod of other living spaceships — started getting sick from a highly contagious virus, and then the pandemic shut everything down in real life.
And just this week, after weeks of writing up to it, my characters arrived on a water-filled space station run by fish aliens, and on the same day (for reasons involving mold allergies and an extremely stubborn snail) we finally got a new betta fish after half a year without.
Clearly, I need to write about the leader of the space station being overthrown and replaced by a much more democratic government that suddenly cures the illness spreading through the pod of living spaceships and also gives everyone UBI, universal health care, and reparations.
Okay… so… that end to my book series actually sounds pretty good. I should get back to work on that.