The Making of "Shelly's Story"

The Making of "Shelly's Story"

The following is slightly revised from the original written on April 13, 2010.

And now, a few words about this particular change of pace.

I think I was in high school when I first decided that "Shelly's Story" would be a fun thing to do with Captain Satellite. The tale of Cap and Shelly's first meeting, and Shelly's subsequent job offer, are also elements which have been in my head for years. I even tried to set it down on paper once in college. But, it never clicked.

You can blame/credit [Wandering Kotka] for some of my inspiration. Since I started revisiting the Captain Satellite universe on my blog in January [2010], she has inquired a couple of times whether this was leading up to something. Well, in all honesty, no, it wasn't. I have commissioned her a couple of times with regards to that set of characters, but mostly, I was just looking for content for the blog. My little set of characters seemed like good fodder for that.

Still, I couldn't get the thought out of my head that maybe I should do something beyond the profiles (which are hilarious fun, don't get me wrong). On April 12, 2010, this story essentially wrote itself in my head at work. I had to take notes to make sure I hit the high points. This was one of those times when I couldn't get in front of the computer fast enough.

Personally, I'm proud of how this turned out. It took some fine-tuning, but I got it where I wanted it. I think it is true to the characters, and hits just the right balance in my approach. I attempted to write it in Shelly's "voice," and that was a challenge on a couple of levels.

This is sort of weird and vaguely surreal for me. After over 20 years, I've finally written an honest to goodness story with Captain Satellite and Shelly Ericson. As I've implied over the last couple of years, it's written from Shelly's perspective because she is the anchor to reality in Cap's world. But it's the origin of both of them, finally set down.

Gosh.