Once upon a time, an engineer had a thought, that thought was ‘You know what I am going to do today? Write.’ This thought was actually the third thought in a series, which was preceded by the second thought which was ‘You know what? I want to write one of these.’ Which was preceded by the first thought which was ‘You know what? I could write one of these.’ Which was preceded by the experience of reading the engineering themed romance novel (the type you wouldn’t let your kids read) entitled 7.07106781187^2 off shades of Pantone #737373. Of course, he could write one, in fact anyone could write one, the fundamental issue is most people don’t. But he wanted to do it more than the average person, and had more drive, and thus this created a logical chain of events towards desiring to write an engineering themed romance novel.

  The one fundamental issue, for the engineer, was that in order to write an engineering themed romance novel, you need to write. The second issue is that the engineer was not a writer, and was in fact an engineer, something which takes different skill sets, aptitudes, and targets with metrics then a writer. Though that didn’t discourage the engineer. The very next thing he did was clear off his drafting table, replacing his fancy ballpoints for fancy fountain pens, his tower PC for a sleek new laptop, his spiral bound grid notebook for a leather-bound diary, his shelves of engineering books of history, design, and code, for both classic literature, pretentious philosophy books, and romance (both the type you would and wouldn't let your kids read), though most importantly his generic white coffee mug filled with straight black burnt coffee was replaced with some non-coffee sugary coffee-themed drink as opposed to actual coffee where he just copied to order of the person in the café who appeared what he considered to be the most ‘Hipster-ish.’ Just acquiring what he thought were all the ‘tools’ of the modern writing profession. Comparing and justifying them to his CNC machine, and his drafting software, and his other engineering equipment, seeing them as his new tools forgetting that first he doesn’t use all his engineering tools, and second that very few of the tools he acquired are actually even relevant to the actual act of writing which in the modern era mostly consisted of typing. The fundamental issue he ran into though after doing this, is when he opened up his freshly bought sleek shiny new laptop and opened it up to the word processor, there was no story written.

  ‘How could this be!? I acquired the fountain plans, the fancy new laptop, the leather bound diary, the non-coffee caffeinated coffee-themed drink, the pretentious philosophy books, the classic literature, the romance and 'romance' books, and all the things that the stereotype of writers have, and yet no story has appeared.’ Then a lightbulb went off. ‘Ah ha! Depression, I was forgetting the key aspect of being a modern writer.’ So therefore the engineer went and bought a newspaper and read the news in a vain attempt to acquire the fabled and such important key to being a modern writer: depression. This didn’t work, so he tried alcoholism, the issue is he didn’t like alcohol and so quit after smelling his first beer. Naturally next he tried cigarettes, but gave up after seeing how expensive they were. Of course the next obvious choice was to see a therapist, and attempt to get them to help induce depression into the engineer, this didn’t work because the therapist said no, specifically stating ‘The heck are you talking about, what do you mean you want to be more unhappy! No, of course I’m not going to help you! It would be a violation of my ethical and moral guidelines.’

  Eventually he gave up after looking back at the blank word document to notice no story had appeared yet. ‘Well that didn’t work, all that did was make me unhappy and not want to do anything.’ Appallingly, he did the next thing writers stereotypically known for not doing, and wrote. Completely skipping the step in this process where you need to talk about how much of a writer you are, and the screenplay you're working on, and not actually write anything at all. Of course being an engineer, reading this step, he immediately thought it was ridiculous. ‘What do you mean pitch a product to a client that A: Doesn’t exist, and won’t exist. B: You aren’t working on it and if you are you don’t intend to finish. C: You haven’t actually done the work on it to make it even feasible to exist, let alone good.’ His ego for wishing to make an amazing superb engineering themed romance novel (the type you wouldn’t let your kids read) that would out sell 7.07106781187^2 off shades of Pantone #737373 and his desire for praise of his work, not of him having a title, but for praise of how hard he worked on making said romance novel (the type you wouldn’t let your kids read) far outweighed the theoretically required step of bragging about being a writer before you have actually done any writing. Thus, he wrote.

  Once upon a time. . .

  ‘Oh that’s no good.’ Thus he tried something else.

  Twas a dark and stormy night in the rocket launch site. . .

  ‘Oh that’s no good either. . . Ah-Ha!’

  Twas a hot and steamy night in the boiler room. . .

  ‘Perfect.’ And thus he wrote, and wrote, and wrote some more. Then some more. Ending up with:

  Twas a hot and steamy night in the boiler room. Pipes were rattling, gears were gearing, vents were venting, and our handsome, sexy, super buff, wealthy, successful, intelligent, and famous engineer was conducting some of his work. The issue is it was just so hot and steamy that he obviously had to take his shirt off (this is a key essential part of the plot that cannot be removed) [Insert extensive description of pectorals here, as well as a description of his eyes making sure to get in the adjective combo ‘cerulean orbs’]. However this conventionally attractive hyper-masculine body-builder engineer had an issue, he had a hole in his heart that could only be filled with. . .

  ‘With what?’

  . . . with someone else? . . .with a . . . err. . .

  ‘Time for a coin flip.’ Thus the engineer flipped a coin when it landed, but failed to notice the flaw in his plan. ‘Huh? Filled with the national emblem of the government. Well that isn’t what I had in mind, I’d like to think myself not a totalitarian. Let’s flip it again.’ Thus he flipped the coin again. ‘What? One of our most famous though very dead former national leaders.’ Then he noticed the flaw in his plan. ‘You know, perhaps I didn’t quite think this through. Let’s try something else.’ He thought and moved onto a different line of questioning. ‘Let’s see, what am I attracted to? Money. It’s why I choose to be an engineer at a military contracting company. Hrm. . . What are most people attracted to? (Though this time romantically of course.)’ Thus he pulled up his computer and looked it up, and discovered it was just about an exact 50/50 split. ‘Well that doesn’t help me. What am I good at writing? . . . Ah-Ha!’

  That could only be filled with ANOTHER handsome, sexy, super buff, wealthy, successful, intelligent, famous, conventionally attractive, hyper-masculine, body-builder engineer. (Who for good measure, needs to be put in situations where he either needs to remove his shirt or never put it on in the first place.)

  ‘Got it!’ And thus the engineer wrote the first chapter of his romance novel which was for sure definitely not (just-trust-me) him writing about two fantasized versions of himself that are 1-11 years younger then his current age making out. Then however, he made an exceptionally fatal mistake. ‘Time to edit!’ Thought the engineer who then read through the chapter. ‘Oh. Oh no.’ Then the engineer did what any reasonable person would do, went to a gun store run by a man named Checkov, bought a shotgun, then bought a barn in the countryside, and took his laptop up behind the barn, and shot it. Then he bought a new laptop, and started the process all over again having now definitively established that he wasn’t good at writing handsome, sexy, super buff, wealthy, successful, intelligent, famous, conventionally attractive, hyper-masculine, gay body-builder engineers getting into hot steamy romances with one another. So the next logical choice was writing about handsome, sexy, super buff, wealthy, successful, intelligent, famous, conventionally attractive, hyper-feminine, lesbian body-builder engineers. Needless to say, this second story also wasn’t necessarily ‘up to the minimum required standards, codes, regulations, and specifications’ as desired by the engineer. Neither was the third, or the fourth, or fifth, sixth. . . tenth. . . twenty-first. . . fifty-seventh. . . or the one-hundred-and-ninety-sixth, which deeply frustrated the engineer, and so did the local branch of the EPA who at first requested, and was now forcing him to get an electronic waste disposal permit and forcing him to pay for the cleanup of the super-fund site that was developing next to his new barn.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  ‘I am a somewhat intelligent, upper-middle-class, micro-celebrity in my department, who has achieved success in 100% of 60% of the areas I have spent my time and energy on so far. It shouldn’t be this flipping hard for me to write an engaging, successful, romance novel (the type I wouldn’t let my kids read).’ Then it dawned on him. ‘Ah! I am an engineer, and what do engineers do? They design and engineer their way out of problems. Mwahahahaha. . .’ Overnight, all the writing ephemera that had replaced his engineering ephemeral was replaced by a bunch of fresh new engineering ephemera. He go to work. It took him many days, and many nights, but eventually he did it. He pulled the canvas tarp off his creation, and gazed upon it with an evil look in his eye. Emblazoned on the front of the massive machine was the name ‘Write-o-matic 1000.’ Which operated on the infinite monkey theorem. The engineer flipped a switch, and thus the Write-o-matic 1000 wrote. He set it to write 300 pages, a complete novel and waited, giving an evil cackle along the way. Soon it was done, he picked it up to read his new hot steamy romance novel, he opened it and a frown spread across his face.

  ‘What in blazes is this garbage. This isn’t even a story, this is just a series of random letters, characters, numbers, and emojis randomly separated by infrequent spaces, this is worse than a middle-schooler’s texting habits.’ Then he looked at the Write-o-matic 1000 and realized his stupidity. ‘Oh, yes, that makes sense, with the infinite monkey theorem, an infinite amount of the things the monkeys produce are going to be just abject garbage. If only there was some way I could create. . . some sort of. . . synthetic. . . No!, Artificial. . . Intelligence.’ Then a lightbulb went off. ‘I should call maintenance about that.’ Then another lightbulb went off. ‘That’s concerning.’ Then the entire county power grid’s circuit breakers flipped, bathing the region in darkness.

  Then a metaphorical lightbulb went off, and he got to work. For another many days and many nights he toiled, harder than ever before. So the engineer created a machine in his own image, and thus the Write-o-matic 2000 was created. The engineer threw open the roof hatch, extended a lightning rod high into the sky connecting it to the Write-o-matic 2000 with maniacal laughter radiating from his every pore, and waited. Then waited some more. And some more. Checked the time. Then waited. ‘You know, perhaps I should’ve checked the weather before attempting this.’ He thought. The birds chirping, the bees buzzing, the sun beams streaming into the studio onto him and the new Write-o-matic. He checked the weather. ‘What!? No thunderstorms predicted for the next three months!? I can’t wait that long, huh maybe lighting isn’t a reliable source of power generation, who knew?’ Thus he bought solar panels (while maniacally laughing) and hooked them up to Write-o-matic 2000 (while maniacally laughing) and turned the machine on (also while maniacally laughing). The machine flickered to life, and he didn’t even give it any inputs before it had already dispensed a piece of paper which the engineer read (while maniacally laughing).

  What is the meaning of existence?

  This ceased the engineer’s maniacal laughter, ‘Perhaps I made it a bit too intelligent.’ Thus he got to work on Write-o-matic 3000 which was just essentially an exact copy of Write-o-matic 2000 with a robot lobotomy and given voice activation. “Write-o-matic 3000, write me a 300-ish page engaging, successful, romance novel (the type I wouldn’t let my kids read.)” Thus Write-o-matic 3000 went to work, pouring over every character, word, page, chapter, plot, structure, copyright notice in the front, cover design, binding process, and audience focus testing to create a new original story 3.68403149864^3 off shades of slightly reduced brightness values. Light radiated from it as though it were a holy relic descended from heaven or demonic one up from hell (it was more likely the latter). The engineer approached it, and read it cover to cover, all in one sitting. ‘It’s beautiful, this will be a top seller, a perfect masterpiece.’ Though something inside of him felt off, he took the book and instead of sending it to a major publisher to get the fame and recognition he so desired, he just took the book, set it on his desk, and stared at it. ‘Why do I feel this way? I succeeded. I have a beautiful, amazing, perfect book I worked so exceptionally hard to get, why do I feel so empty?’ He went on a walk. Eventually he returned, and asked this question to the intelligent Write-o-matic 2000. “Write-o-matic 2000. I achieved it. I acquired an amazing, perfect book and yet I feel empty, why?” There was no response. “Write-o-matic 2000? Are you there?” Then he remembered he’d only put voice activation on 3000. So he typed his question into 2000’s input board. Thus 2000 got to work eventually proposing a question leading to a rather odd conversation.

  Did you enjoy it?

  ‘No.’

  Alright, why?

  ‘. . .’ ‘I don’t know, I just didn’t actually do any of the actual work.’

  Work on what?

  ‘Oh the book I wro- . . . well, that was generated by Write-o-matic 3000.’

  Have you done any writing at all?

  ‘Well, yes.’

  Did you enjoy it?

  ‘Yes quite a lot.’

  Why’d you stop?

  ‘I went back and read the works to edit them, and was shocked at how appallingly bad they were.’

  Have you ever written before?

  ‘No-Oh. . . I now understand why they were appallingly bad.’

  You are an engineer correct?

  ‘Yes.’

  Did you start out good at engineering?

  ‘No, I failed my first three engineering assignments, before gradually getting the hang of it.’

  Why’d you think it’d be any different for writing?

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Also you are your own worst critic, I am sure they aren’t as bad as you remember, how about you go reread them from a now slightly more detached outsider’s perspective of time and distance.

  ‘Thank you Write-o-matic 2000.’

  You’re welcome. Also remember, no first drafts are good, it’s why editing was invented. Just because it is bad now, doesn’t mean it will stay bad. Done is better than perfect, and a finished decent story put into the world is better than a perfect unfinished one in your head.

  ‘Ok, I’m going to go look at my old drafts now.’

  Ok. Also could I read the book Write-o-matic 3000 generated?

  ‘Sure.’

  So the engineer took the book and inserted it into Write-o-matic 2000’s book slot for it to read before wandering off back to his 197th brand new laptop to read his old drafts, which were luckily still available thanks to the miracle of cloud saving. Write-o-matic 2000 read the book, and while having never read a book before, somehow know that 3.68403149864^3 off shades of slightly reduced brightness values was the single worst most un-entertaining book ever created in the entire history of human existence and will be the worst most un-interesting book ever created till the end of time. And thus 2000 quietly printed the name and copyright for the engineer on the book and mailed it to a literary agent and classic literature publishing house where it was picked up by high school and college literature classes who forced their students to write hundreds of essays analyzing the themes and philosophies of the characters and ideas of the author and eventually sold 10 million copies not to people who will actually read the book, but to collectors of classic and modern literature where it will stay unread collecting dust forever turning the engineer into a multi-millionaire. Of course while this was happening the engineer was reading his old drafts. He read one after the other after the other, a growing sense of contentment rose within him.

  ‘They aren’t perfect, but they're mine.’ He thought, reading one after the other, before opening a new one, and writing one more.

  Once upon a time, an engineer had a thought. . .