An abandoned project finds new life
My Project 2068 is based on a dystopian world I started building in 2008. Originally, my concept was a series of nine, loosely connected short stories called “2028: The Complexity of Coalescence.”
At the time, I was working for a newspaper as a writer and really struggled with writing the stories after spending all day cranking out news reports. I managed to develop an overall story arc as well as plotting out each of the nine stories. I also completed rough drafts of the first three stories and managed to do a couple of write throughs on each one.
I gradually worked less and less on the project until the work just stopped. Over the years, I revisited the project a few times and did a little more world building and rewrote portions of the three rough drafts.
During the pandemic, I began watching various scale modelers on YouTube and eventually got back into scale modeling. In the spring of 2022, I decided to start work on 2028 again. Since so many years had passed, I decided 2028 had become a little too much of a near future, so I reworked the project into the year 2068.
The scope of the project has increased to encompass a lot more than the original nine short stories. I’m reworking the original Complexity of Coalescence stories and will publish some of them in a flash fiction format, which, I think, will fit my blog format a lot better. Three of the stories – Ambient Light, A Primitive Sun and Margarita Sunsets – will be combined into a novella which I plan to publish in a PDF format. I’m still undecided on how I’ll publish a couple of other short stories – A Murder of Pawns and Redline Marionettes.
I’m also working on a series of mini-dioramas which follows travel blogger Ella Arrington on her journey across the dystopian Abandoned Lands of northeast Alabama and northwest Georgia. I’ve also got a few other diorama-type projects in the works – Ace’s Garage and the towns of Whiskey River and Redstone.
My goal with Project 2068 is for the written work and dioramas to complement each other and create a more vivid written and visual experience my vision of a dystopian Deep South in 2068.
I’ll make a Project 2068 world building post on Mondays, but I’m not really setting a specific post date or schedule for these. I’m a one-man show here, and it takes a while to make sure all of the background history and associated lore forms a seamless world.
These posts will establish the lore of 2068 as well as describe the ideas behind some of the 2068 diorama projects. In my next Project 2068 post, I’ll discuss the worldwide events that helped forge the dystopian world of 2068 as well as some of the key military and scientific technological developments that reshaped the role of corporations as well as state and national governments on the world stage.
If you’re interested in Project 2068, please consider subscribing to the blog to get post updates.
Boondock Bight 