So, time as currency! Sounds cool in theory, but how does it pan out in practice?

Well, not bad. It took me a lot of trial and error, but I found a certain European currency with a pricing-to-product ratio that matched the one I had in mind for the novel. After I got this foundation, all it took was to find the pricing of common products/services, apply the multiplier, and there, I had a foolproof way to price things in the world of the dead.

Here’s a slip from Yorde’s shopping:

1 x Milk…………………………………………….1 x 25m 59s = 25m 59s

1 x Eggs (10)…………………………1 x 29m 29s = 29m 29s

4 x Beer ……………………………………..4 x 7m 59s = 27m 56s

2 x Kali Kola…………………. 2 x 7m 49s = 15m 48s

1 x Strawberry Milkshake………………….1 x 9m 29s = 9m 29s

2 x Wing Chips……………………………… 2 x 34m 59s = 1h 9m 58s

3 x Yogurt………………………..3 x 6m 49s = 18m 27s

1 x Sliced Cheese…………………..1 x 14m 59s = 14m 59s

1 x Chickpeas (1kg)……………………1kg x 23m 29s = 23m 29s

Being born to the luxury of the high floors, our protagonist isn’t the smartest spender. Still, the knowledge of losing 30 minutes of his life by biting into a warm mustardy hotdog often brings him to a stop—especially early on in the novel, when his lifespan is counted in hours. And to remind the readers of his awful predicament, I put a countdown with his remaining time before every chapter!

As to how the time is distributed throughout Necropolis, who controls its flow, and what happens when your time runs out, you gotta read the book to find out! I’m happy with how it turned out; the currency added an interesting aspect to the worldbuilding and elevated the capitalistic undertones already present in the novel.

See you in 1488 hotdogs!

Today’s topic will be the currency of Necropolis, which is time itself. “…you earn time by working, you pay for food with time, you rent a flat with time; you loan time from a bank, and if you’re late with payments, poof” (meaning: you cease to exist).

I don’t remember exactly where the idea came from (before you ask, no, it wasn’t from the 2011 blockbuster action film In Time starring Justin Timberlake, which used the same concept as an excuse to push the shooty shooty plot forward, thank you very much). I could’ve dreaded getting a job after finishing my studies, or I might’ve heard the saying “time is money” one too many times. Either way, I thought of putting the idea into practice.

In a capitalistic sense, the saying “time is money” is very true. In theory, the more time we spend working, the more money we could earn. But time is also the currency of life: we have a limited amount of it, and when it runs out, the lights go dark. So how about we cut the middleman—the coin? What if our lifespan was irrevocably linked to our capital, what if it was our capital? Now, that’s a dystopian scenario I could work with.

In our society, if you don’t earn enough for a shelter, you can still live as a homeless; it’s a difficult and often miserable life, but at least it’s something. In Necropolis, everything other than your capital is secondary—if the next loan installment is due and you can’t repay it, you die. There’s no luxury of simply existing from day to day—those who do meet their end rather soon.

In the next part, I’ll cover the logistics of implementing time as currency in a novel.

In the last month we’ve been to Sri Lanka and Nepal! In Sri Lanka we got to enjoy some paradise-quality beaches (I swam with a turtle, wooo!), while in Nepal we hung out with the locals (the people were so chill!) and breathed in the fresh Himalayan air… instead it wasn’t so, because the wildfires in the area were so extreme we were stuck in our hotel room for a week due to air pollution. Yup. Still, I’ll always remember this time fondly: it was then, sitting by a tiny table in our room and gazing into a white sheet of smoke outside, when I finished writing my novel!

This achievement alone infused these sulky days with a special significance. And how could it not—I spent around 5 years working on this thing, so when I wrote the final sentence, I felt like I was finally free. Now comes the hard part: getting it out there.

But alas, this can wait. The sky has cleared and we’re going on a pretty long hike (maybe to climb Mount Everest? Who knows?). I’ll write another post when we get back!

Let’s pause the book rumination to update you on our India trip. Well, it’s going great! We slept under stars in a desert, petted tens of cows patrolling the city of Jaisalmer, and flew to Mumbai, where we ate our cheapest lunch yet for 0.15$.

We also saw Dune II in the cinema! (I loved it so much I should keep it brief, unless I want this blog to become dedicated to Dune). To our surprise, when Feyd-Rautha was walking through the dark corridors of Giedi Prime, the screen froze. It actually always does in Indian cinemas—since they mostly play Bollywood films, which are constructed to have two distinct acts to fit a small break in the middle, Dune II got the same treatment. Also, the cinema seemed like a 5-star hotel—chandeliers, golden, polished floors, and at least 4 different stands serving not only popcorn but sushi, Indian food, and the like. Craziness.

Our next stop, and the trip’s highlight, was our stay in Kerala. The Airbnb description read: “you’ll be exalted by the presence of S., who is a guru, a philosopher, a spiritual leader, and a saint.” S. turned out to be all those things, and an awesome guy to match. I spent many productive afternoons in Kerala’s jungle, sitting in a pagoda overlooking a river and writing to my heart’s content.

In the next travel blog, we’re going to Nepal! : )

So, let’s break this book down. Starting from the beginning: Yorde opens his eyes in a shopping mall. He doesn’t recognize his place, he doesn’t remember how he ended up here, and what’s worse, he sees his corpse sprawled against a fountain disc below him, and a man in black informs him that he hasn’t only died, but he’s died by committing suicide… like what the hell?

When writing the opening chapter I was inspired by Franz Kafka’s Trial, where the protagonist, K., is prosecuted for committing a crime, the nature of which is revealed neither to him nor to the reader. I wanted to elevate this “fish out of water” scenario to the extreme—Yorde isn’t prosecuted, he’s already “sentenced” with death, the nature of which he likewise doesn’t comprehend. All the clues point to him committing suicide which, despite his depressive moods, he had no intention of doing whatsoever.

Since some details don’t match, the bureaucracy of the world of the dead could be at fault. If indeed it has made a mistake, it would be a catastrophic one—after all, what’s a bigger offense than being “mistaken” about a person’s very nature of existence?

Kafkaesque motifs also appear in the later parts of the book; I found the idea of the afterlife as bureaucratic hell quite compelling. However, in the earlier drafts, I made the mistake of leaning too heavily on Kafka, resulting in a story that didn’t feel like mine. I realized I should take my inspiration for what it was—a music in the background, elevating some aspects of the world, but not stealing the show. The story gained a lot from that: there can be only so much narrative ambiguity in a character-driven adventure.

In the next part of the diary, I’ll talk about Yorde’s survival in Necropolis and what it entails. See you then!

Before diving into anything specific, let’s take a look at the world as a whole and some of its many moving pieces. Here’s a glossary:

A Short Dictionary of Acronyms and Names

To help you navigate the things that are corporate, but not exactly human

DR – Death Report. A document that describes one’s circumstances of death.

NBC – Necropolis Border Control. Those men in black suits that usher your soul beyond the curtain. They’re called excorporators, but this is hard to pronounce.

DFA (or FA) – Department of Fated Authority.Ministers who predict the time and place of one’s death.

RKC – Record of Karmic Conduct. The deeds of one’s life are recorded here, with questionable accuracy.

KK – Kali Kustoms. The biggest retail chain in Necropolis, and Kali Konglomerate, its parent.

NU – Necromancers’ Union. Red-hooded gentlemen who make sure that the cogs keep turning.

The Tower – This is where the nobles decide which way the cogs shall turn.

Info Brokers – Those can, for a price, point you to the people of power.

Afterdeath, Inc. – After death, one needs to pay off their loans.

Black House – The government.

Hasty Hermes – Tells us what the government does, sometimes.

Charons – Charge more than their namesake.

Golden Promenade – It’s where your soul goes on vacation.

Afterlife Providers – If you want to go on vacation, you need a ticket first.

Waxworks – Making sure the dead don’t die prematurely.

Promenade District in South East, Siren’s Call above it, the Hook further North, Golgotha to the West, Old Golgotha a little further, Psychameron in the heart, Sabatica in the darkness, and others besides – the parts making up the body.

With this exposition out of the way, let’s break this book down piece by piece, starting with Franz Kafka.

Over the next posts I’ll discuss my recent novel—Death, Incorporated.! Writing is a lonely endeavor, so after 5 years of work, I’m very excited to finally share some details (and the book itself!) with the outside world.

Here’s the logline:

21-year-old Yorde needs to survive in the afterlife plagued by Kafkaesque bureaucracy and predatory capitalism and race the clock to find out the truth about his alleged suicide.

And in a longer form:

When Yorde, a recent film school dropout, wakes up dead in a shopping mall, he’s both terrified and pissed. Men in black inform him that he’s committed suicide, which he has no memory of.  He is escorted to Necropolis, the city of the dead, where his case is dismissed, his queries are unanswered, and he is left to fend for himself, with only 24 hours to spare. If he doesn’t sign up to an afterlife provider before his time runs out, he will cease to exist. But Yorde is done running. He decides to stay behind, challenge the system that wronged him, and live the life that was stolen from him.

However, surviving in Necropolis isn’t easy. The currency of the dead is time—you earn time by working, you rent with time, you loan time, and if you’re late with payments, poof. Yorde needs to stay afloat, make friends and enemies, unravel the conspiracy of the high floors and answer the question: is the afterlife of constant struggle the one he’d wanted to live?

Exciting, huh? Still, the pitch only scratches the surface of what I want to share with you guys. Next post—worldbuilding!

Wohoo, another short story published!

https://www.samjokomagazine.com/floating

I was inspired by Murakami when writing it, which is funny since it got acquired by a Korean lit mag. Murakami is a Japanese author, yet I wonder if it wasn’t thanks to some of the tendencies in his writing that got the story sold to an Asian market, where weird, open-ended stories are more commonplace. Perhaps the geography of literature is better defined than I thought.

In other news, I’m on a trip to India with W! It’s a wonderful country, the people are so friendly. I get many new writing ideas, though I can’t utilize them since I’m suffering from mild sleeplessness. Dogs are barking, we once woke up to a scream in the dead of the night, and people are honking constantly. If something stands in their way, be it a person, a tuk-tuk, or a possibility of a person or tuk-tuk, it takes them less than a second to slam their klaxon and BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEEEEEP the fucker out.

There was also this one situation I turned it into a horror flash-story. It was out first contact with India when we got off at the Delhi airport:

I sit down in a cab and try to pull the seatbelt free out of its socket. The driver turns to me and smiles, white teeth shining.
‘No seatbelt,’ is all he says.
I carefully put the seatbelt away. The man, still smiling, starts up the engine.

In the next post I’ll start sprinkling some info about my newest novel. Until then, safe travels!

I’m Peter Wynd, a writer of 26. My writing focuses on imaginative worldbuilding, entertainment, and, hopefully, delight.

(If you want to read something, it’s the best time ever, since my short story got published just 2 weeks ago! It’s about a milk-seller terrorizing a village with his price-changes. You can read it here:https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-36/summer-in-duncanny.html)

So, what will you find on this blog? Some slices of life, perhaps. Mostly tidbits of info about the stuff I currently write. Various things, but brief. Brief is important. I wouldn’t want to bore you or myself. I’ll aim to post at the beginning of each month, sometimes more often. Let’s start with that.

Another question: why make a blog? For the sake of continuity, I guess. It’s nice to romanticize my lonely process of writing a novel and turn it into some epic quest with beginning and end. You know, to give it some narrative… writers are crazy about those.

Managing social media as a fledgling writer is difficult, though: for the last four years I’ve been sitting at my desk and writing a book. What do you want me to say about it? How many pages I’ve cut? How the keys on my keyboard make different sounds depending on wear, or how my kkk kkkkkkkey is broken? I bet you’d rather read the damn thing when it finally comes out.

All in all, I’m not best at social media presence. For you, dear reader, it means this: that following this blog is like betting on a horse in a race, and knowing that the horse is kind of lame, weird, and with some of its teeth missing.

Bet on this horse, if you wish. In fairy tales, sometimes even a lame horse can win.

Peter