Isle of the Deserted Writer

[Abe Sargent]

I have a potential dynasty in mind, but I want to see if its any good first. Allow me to lay the scene.


I am flying internationally over the Pacific when our plane crashes. I am the only survivor on a deserted island, or am I? After I grab some containers from the airplane and bring what I can, I spend a month setting up shelter in a cave, constructing a decent bed, building holding pens for the many rabbits on the island, fencing off a garden and planting apple and orange seeds from fruit from the plane, organizing my few belongings and so forth.

Among the many things I recued from the plane are several laptop computers, a handful of MP3 players, and a state of the art desktop PC that was being shipped. Of course, I have no way to juice up these things, and I deicde not to worry about the batteries or anything.

After setting up my home, furniture, garden, animal pens, and such, I decide to finish exploring the island. I come across a rich looking castle-ish structure, and realize that someone else has been here. Maybe they still are?

I knock on the door and after a few moments, I hear steps approach. A well built man in his forties answers the door with a bit of a mad glint in his eye. "Ah, company," he says. He invites me in.

He has electricty from a generator with solar backup. He also apparently has an Internet connection and some sort of communcation with the outdoors. I hear the sounds of others in the building moving about, but nobody else comes in.

He tells me that he will provide my cave abode with Internet and electricity. He'll also ship in anything that I buy. However, in exchange, he wants no one to know about the place. He is a recluse who purchased this isle and then moved here to get away. If I do not agree, then I will get no power and no Internet and no supplies.

As he says this, in comes several rough looking security guards. They say nothing, but theior presence speaks volumes. I can agree or disagree, but I cannot overwhelm him and capture the house or anything. I reluctantly agree.

With an active Internet connection, I can resume my normal job as a writer. I set up a bank account and have all writing money placed in the account. I can then use the money to purchase entertainment for the island. Sure, I might miss soda pop and burgers, but I'm spending my precious money on that. I am going to get really bored, really fast on the island, and I need to do something to relieve my boredom.


Rules:


Using my meager resources, it is my goal to find things to purchase on the Internet that will take some time. I'll be spending around four hours a day in upkeep around the cave and garden, preparing food and eating and whatnot. I'll only need a few hours a week to do my writing (2-4 hours a week or so for articles and maybe 4-8 hours a week for extra writing projects).

Therefore, I'll have a lot of time to kill. That leaves around 78 hours a week that I'll need to fill. A computer game that can be beaten in 10 hours is not going to last me long. Sure, I can spend some of that time reading news, posting here on FOFC, and whatnot, but I'm still going to need as much time as possible to take care of these things.

1). As a featured writer for SCG, I have a weekly column publuished for 25 dollars. This is my weekly stipend.

2). As a freelance writer for a couple of Magic magazines, I occasionally get an article published. This averages around 40 dollars a month every four months. Therefore, every 16 weeks I'll get a 40 dollar bonus.

3). I occasionally am able to write a series of articles for SCG for an entire week. This is a supplement to my normal writing. This pays fifteen dollars an article for a total of $75. I am in the rotation one every three months or so. Every 12 weeks i get a $75 dollar bonus.

4). Shipping and handling is a flat seven dollars. If I order from, say, Amazon.com, then I'll have to pay seven dollars for shipping and handling.

5). If I get something that can be downloaded instead of shipped, then I don't have to pay any extra fees.

6). I'll have time to work on my writing. Every month I'll write a short story and submit it for publication. There'll be a ten percent chance it will get picked up for publication, in which case I'll roll randomly to see how much I get paid. After the first month, the likliehood of it getting picked up drops to five percent. After six months, it won't have a chance to sell at all.

7). We'll assume that every month is four weeks long and ignore any remainder in order to simplify my math.

8). Between the multiple laptops and a state of he art desktop, I have sufficient disk storage for practically anything.



I have moved the MP3s from the players to the desktop and can play music. I have a Bible. The desktop has the basic Windows games on it like Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Freecell. This is where I would begin the dynasty.

Obviously, I would welcome your assistance in the dynasty.

So, what do you think? It is crazy or what? What do you think?


-Anxiety

[Icy]

No text sims in any computer? bah, you won't last a lot in the isle.


Seriously now, i don't underestand it well, is it going to be a real dynasty? will you stay at your home/garden not going outside for anything? will you buy food, drinks, everything from the net? Do you have any real work or just that writting work? if it's a real work, i don't underestad the 10% of chances of your articles being published or not and rolling a dice to see how much do you get paid... that is the part that confused me. Until that i thought you were going to write a real life dynasty (not the island part but about not going out of home for anything, it has been done before as reallity TV show).

[sachmo71]

what's scg?

[WSUCougar]

Interesting concept, Anx. The parameters are a little hard for me to digest at first read, but I like the creativity of the idea.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by sachmo71

what's scg?

StarCityGames.com - it's the website I write for.

Icy - nope, not a real dynasty. It's something I was thinking in the shower for a week now. How could I survive and entertain myself on just my writing allowance? Then it hit me that it might be a decent dynasty. Then again, it might also suck too.

Basically, I'd do some research, and then make my orders for the week. Then I'd do the same thing. And I'd keep doing that. If I were able to find things that would take more than a week to do, I could save money and get something more. That sort of thing.


Hope that helps you understand the premise.


-Anxiety

[Kodos]

You showered for a week?