Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with collapse

novelfilter

spacefire — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 12:48:23 -0800

New Year resolution: write a novel this year. Need some resources -motivation. I have a full-time job, how can I make sure I write at least a page/day on average?
-information: the novel will be about the decline of civilization due to global warming and its effects, described through the main character's diary. As a long-time fan and reader of post-apocalyptic literature, I am pretty familiar with the topic of total collapse, but via catastrophic, quick events. I plan to describe a prolonged, agonizing collapse of basic services and disintegration of the social fabric under the threat of nature - the novel should span about two-three years.
-characterization: I want to make my character believable, I want him to evolve, and I want to flesh out the other characters in the novel with quick, striking descriptions that allow the reader to 'know' them without long expositions - remember, this is going to be an epistolar novel.

How do you deal with the anxiety around the economic and global clusterfcuk?

onanon — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 02:07:00 -0800

How do you deal with the anxiety around the economic and global clusterfcuk? It's been keeping me awake for years, and increasingly so. I recycle, I write my representatives. I eat local, organic, take public transport.. I just can't not feel trapped and sometimes just completely terrified. I have a history of panic attacks in my immediate family, was diagnosed with the ubiquitous Depression at 16 and fought it really hard until I learned some basic meditation techniques and got some good cognitive therapy. Now I still fight a light current of anxiety, but I can usually still fight it until somebody spooks me with something apocalyptic... Then it's all over.

Collapse fiction

rolypolyman — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 10:27:39 -0800

What are some good fiction or SF books that plunge the reader within a severe economic collapse or Malthusian catastrophe in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world? I'm finding this to be an interesting genre, but the problems I've found are:

Problem #1: It's too centered on narrative with little background about the collapse; lots of stereotyped gangs and hordes. Example: Mad Max

Problem #2: It exists largely outside the collapse amongst the fortunate, elite, or influential. Example: Soylent Green... the cop is so much better off than the citizens.

Problem #3: It's set in what's essentially a fantasy world or universe. Example: Asimov's Nightfall -- it's another planet.

It seems there's a lot of fertile ground here... the struggle for survival, the adaptation of the criminal element, unforeseen actions by what little government is left, average Joes trying to pull things together, the new Dark Age or new Renaissance, etc. Surely someone must have written these stories.

Good examples:

- Perhaps the best sample I've read is shelved not in SF but in fiction: Random Acts of Senseless Violence. Poor economic policies cause the country to descend into anarchy, and the life of a girl in Manhattan gets progressively more difficult.

- Wolf and Iron. This overlaps survivalist fiction a bit, but the background fabric is economic collapse and it follows one man around in his escape from the Rust Belt.

- Lucifer's Hammer - This is a meteor story that is essentially pure disaster, with no real story of how people adapted or how society changed. But after the dust has settled it's actually passable for my criteria.

Bad examples:

- Earth Abides -- damn good book, but this deals with a huge absence of population. The struggle is of a far different kind. King's The Stand has a similar theme.

Anyhow I hope you can see where I'm coming from. The past several years I've been reading mostly historical nonfiction, so maybe I'm missing out on something in this genre.

My partner had a weird seizure type thing!

Anonymous — Mon, 08 May 2006 03:01:09 -0800

My partner suffered a collapse yesterday, perhaps someone can enlighten us as to what she experienced. Firstly, my partner is a 30 year old woman with multiple sclerosis (although fortunately it doesn't affect her a great deal).

This has happened twice now, though this time was more worrying. She called me up, angry, and argued strongly with me over something very trivial. This is very unlike her, as she normally only gets mad when it's justifiable, and never gets that angry.

Call me an asshole but I hung up - it was a really trivial matter, and I thought she was being silly about it. Talking to her didn't help over the phone, and I didn't want to get riled up (I also dislike arguing). I figured she would work it out, and I would talk to her when I got home a couple of hour later and smooth it out in person.

Soon after I got an SMS saying `I'm not OK . help' I called and just got incoherent sobbing. I dropped what I was doing and raced home, to find her on the floor next to the phone. She was kind of crying, not breathing too well.

She later described it as losing control over her muscles. I managed to get her sitting up, talked to her, got her to breath more calmly. She could respond but not clearly.

She didn't want an ambulance, and within 20 minutes I had her on the couch where she regained the ability to talk properly, use of limbs etc. An hour later she was okay, but feeling `hollow', lacking energy.

This happened once before where she became angry out of proportion to what was going on, and far more than she normally would. She then lay on the couch for about half an hour before I realised she was in a weird state, and I talked to her and sat her up.

That time, as with this time, she was not really aware of the passage of time.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? We don't know if the outburst of anger is the cause or a symptom. Could it be related to the MS? Could it be a pseudoseizure or `hysterical fit'? Any answers appreciated.

Since I won't be replying, I'll just say that we plan on checking this out with a doctor.