The Future is Not Now

I'm back to writing science fiction, and yesterday I wrote a scene in which our hero completely botches a rescue to the point of the whole thing becoming physical comedy. I find myself wanting him, in his sarcastic internal dialogue, say, "Willy E. Coyote to the rescue!"

There are so many reasons why I can't.

The biggest is the most obvious. This is the future. My son only knows about Willy E. Coyote because he's been watching the DVDs of the Warner Brothers cartoons via Netflix (which he finds hilarious, btw.) There's no reason, however, to assume that these cartoons will be consumed by the generation after him or the generation after that.

This is one of the reasons I write urban fantasy at the speed of thought, but it takes me forever to write science fiction. The "Willy E. Coyote" line would have been a gimme in a Garnet book. I either have to abandon it entirely or come up with some alternative that runs the risk of being a "smeerp."* And, being me, because I can't use it, I stare at the screen for at least four minutes mourning the opportunity for easy humor, and then go write a blog about the whole thing.

All I have to say is that the future is not now.

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"To call a rabbit a smeerp" from the Turkey City Lexicon