I believe the children are the future...

[DrRocka]

Ho - kay, now this post will likely appeal mainly to those squaxx who, like me, are in the forties, have read the prog since we were kids, and are getting on with raising young squaxx of their own.
And look, I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet or get you to love me or anything, but tonight my 10 year old daughter has literally blown me away. I mean, flabbergasted me in the most wonderful manner. And it's like this...
You see, I'm a musician and a writer. Never had anything published, beyond a couple of short stories and poems in various underground magazines. I write songs, hop into a studio, record 'em, then bugger off on the road in my wee camper van (still can't beleive I had a whole conversation with John Wagner last year about camper vans and neither of us once referred to them as Mo Pads) and play gigs and get rewarded with beer and sheckles. I pop my books on amazon and while I'm far from rich, between this and working three days a week down my local, I do alright.
So tonight, me and Small Rocka pop down the local (I need a quick word with my Gaffer), have a J20 or two and a couple of pints of Guinness (guess who had what), and then...
..Small Rocka suddenly began to outline an idea she'd had about a House Cat called Jasper. I told her that that may be a bit derivative, so Jasper became a superhero cat called CATMAN. And his owner was The Librarian. And The Librarian was a SUPERVILLAIN. So Catman spends his nights secretly undoing all the supervillain's nefarious plans. And Catman's greatest enemy is Sharpclaw, who's owned by the world's greatest Superhero, and who spends HIS nights undoing all the superhero's good deeds.

Fast forward half an hour, we're back home from the pub, Mini Rocka is on the laptop typing as fast as her fingers will let her, while I'm pacing the floor with a cigar in one hand and a glass of red in the other, firing out ideas, and together we're coming up with the outline for a seven book series that's pulling in everything from Empire Strikes Back to the Killing Joke, via Dredd and half of the prog's output of the last forty years.

And that's when I realise. THIS IS WHAT I DO. WITH MY MATES IN THE BAND. WITH ANYONE I WRITE WITH. I pace the floor, drink and we fire out ideas at one another.

Only now, I'm doing it with my 10 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER. And she's firing out the ideas!

My God, has anyone else had this feeling? It's breathtaking. I'm a single Daddy, and all of a sudden, this tiny thing that was the length of my forearm is now upstairs at midnight scribbling frantically in a notebook while I tap at the laptop down here trying to figure out why Microsoft Word will no longer let me edit things I download from Onedrive (so we can both work on the novel, independently).

It's an amazing feeling. Time was, I'd have been hollered at for being up at midnight at age 10, but hell, she's fired up, scribbling frantically and coming up with some DAMN GREAT STUFF. You can't cut that shit off, you've gotta feed it.

So, has anyone else got any similar stories? I swear to God, once the first three books of Catman's amazing adventures are in the can, I'll option 'em to Tharg.

Cheers for listening. I really hope this makes sense.

[sheridan]

while I tap at the laptop down here trying to figure out why Microsoft Word will no longer let me edit things I download from Onedrive (so we can both work on the novel, independently).

No experience of Onedrive, but I do like google drive for collaborative working...

[DrRocka]

For some reason, the Word app on my iphone's telling me I don't have the necessary permissions to edit the work I've saved on Onedrive. I've switched to using WPS office and that seems to work, but to be honest, you can't beat a pen and a damn lovely looking notebook!

[positronic]

For some reason, the Word app on my iphone's telling me I don't have the necessary permissions to edit the work I've saved on Onedrive. I've switched to using WPS office and that seems to work, but to be honest, you can't beat a pen and a damn lovely looking notebook!

Possibly it has something to do with the iPhone Word app, but you can try this:

1. Before saving your Word doc to OneDrive, go to the File tab. That should bring you by default to the Info page (if not, then click "Info" on the lefthand sidebar). Then click on the box that says Protect Document, and choose Restrict Editing. That should bring you back to the Word document proper with a righthand sidebar with various choices. Under "2. Editing Restrictions" make sure there are no restrictions checked, apply the changes if needed, then make sure you save it again on your computer before saving it to OneDrive.

2. If that doesn't work, then the formatting of the document extensions on the different versions of Word you're using probably aren't the same and are incompatible, so it might be better to save the document in one of the more basic Word format extensions that have less formatting options. That might resolve the issue when opening the document in differently-formatted versions of Word. Always go with the Word format that has less editing/formatting options, that you're using on one of your devices.

[Bolt-01]

Rocka- I have had a great many car journeys with nano-bolt where we have done pretty much that. She's got an actually really good idea for a shared setting for stories, where all the various things she's written over the years will sit side by side and interact. The rambling during the journey normally is accompanied by her frantically typing notes into her phone as new ideas for things are mulled over and refined. It really is a grand feeling and one that I, personally cherish.

[sheridan]

Rocka- I have had a great many car journeys with nano-bolt where we have done pretty much that. She's got an actually really good idea for a shared setting for stories, where all the various things she's written over the years will sit side by side and interact. The rambling during the journey normally is accompanied by her frantically typing notes into her phone as new ideas for things are mulled over and refined. It really is a grand feeling and one that I, personally cherish.

Would any of it fit in to Futurequake?

[IndigoPrime]

..Small Rocka suddenly began to outline an idea she'd had about a House Cat called Jasper. I told her that that may be a bit derivative, so Jasper became a superhero cat called CATMAN. And his owner was The Librarian. And The Librarian was a SUPERVILLAIN. So Catman spends his nights secretly undoing all the supervillain's nefarious plans. And Catman's greatest enemy is Sharpclaw, who's owned by the world's greatest Superhero, and who spends HIS nights undoing all the superhero's good deeds.

That actually sounds excellent.

[JayzusB.Christ]

That really does sound cool.  Would work as a Pinky and the Brain type Nickelodeon cartoon as well.  The future of comicdom is in good hands!

Though... and I hate to point it out, but I found this when I was researching a mural I did last month... maybe a new name would be a plan. 

[M.I.K.]

There's also already a Cat Man in a Nickelodeon cartoon.

If t'were an issue, she could always just change the name to CatGuy or CatBloke or something.

[Mardroid]

Or Man-Cat (hyphen optional, although I think it looks better with one rather than concattenated words in this case) since it's actually a cat doing people type things.

Okay, maybe not, but I love the story idea and I'm sure you both can come up with another suitable name. 

[positronic]

And the same Golden Age comic book character Jayzus mentioned appeared in Dynamite's Project Superpowers, and has since become feral and changed his name to... Man-Cat. So there go both of them, for trademark purposes, I suppose.