FIELD NOTES

Folio

FROM THE DESK OF JOSEPH BRINDLEY

JUL 2025 - JUN 2026

What if there were two of you?

JUNE 7 2026
CATEGORY: Fiction

What if there were two of you?What if there were two of you, separated by stars and circumstance. The first "you" - the original - is taking the slow path on Earth. But the second "you" is a scan of your entire self - a map of your brain, memories, choices, and traumas. The second "you" is thrust across the sky as a data stream to a different world, a different society, and different civilization.In a future where faster-than-light travel remains impossible, humanity and sentient AI have solved the distance problem another way: scan yourself, transmit, and arrive as a copy housed in a new synthetic body.Both are you.Both are alive.The original keeps living, and the copy starts over.What if there were two of you and you could give yourself the chance to start over?When a woman chooses to transmit to a distant colony, before making the journey herself in a torpor ship, she arrives years later to find her copy has already built a life, changed her politics, and become a symbol in a societal conflict over what humanity is allowed to become. The man who traveled with her faces the same split - except his second self didn't adapt.It radicalized.Others aboard the ship find their own copies in their new home, while some expect to find a familiar face when it's actually long gone.Showing up with the face of a dead loved one to a new home you aren't familiar with, where everyone remembers you - when you were never there...Project Zero is a science fiction novel set in a future where the hardest questions aren't about the stars, but about what you owe to yourself when there are two of you. Does humanity's next chapter belong to the people who remember where they came from or the ones who got there first?

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Transmission Signal: Re-established. Transmitting.

MAY 22 2026
CATEGORY: Writing Life

It's always hard to start something isn't it? Almost as hard as it is to stop. Life has a funny way of starting over and over again like a butterfly eating itself. Sometimes it is a comfort to know we are such an infinitesimally small piece of this incredibly stupid universe we are stuck in. Part of a community, a culture, a nation, a planet, a solar system, a galaxy. Every day communication gets a little faster and the stars get that much closer.As for me, I'm just another speck of dust in the last sloppy dregs of sunlight. I've lived, and I've been hurt. I've been hurt by many and more than most. And just when I thought things were starting to take an upturn, a new trauma, exponentially worse than the rest combined, slammed me against the floor like a hammer made of diamond and regret and tears and a thousand unknown substances that boil me from the inside and freeze me from the out.But despite how much I may beg of this stupid universe to just let me off this ride, I'm still moving. I'm still going.All I can do now is try to be who I was born to be if I am even capable of being myself ever again.I am a science fiction author. I am a poet. I am an essayist. I am a screenwriter.I am a storyteller.And I have a story to tell you.

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Twenty-Six to Go...!

AUGUST 14 2025
CATEGORY: Writing Life

Working on polishing and finishing up the last few sections of Black Butterflies for its release at the end of the month! Got a lot done this week here and there, and really proud of a couple of the pieces. More samples coming this week! Also, next week... cover reveal!

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Neon Stream - Half Dot Dash Poetry Form Sample

AUGUST 13 2025
CATEGORY: Poetry

Rain on the glass gray, lights in a row day, steam from the pan spray, Hands at the cart day, smoke in the archway, coins for the tray play. Rain keeps the hush green, steam veils the street scene, feet find the lean sheen, Late crowd thins slow green, smiles fade to cold queen, bikes pass the screen preen. Rain slides to stop blue, hands wipe the bench through, wind breathes the true blew, Cook locks the latch shoo, night walks the block too, we head for home soon you.

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Poetry Form - The Half Dot Dash Couplet

AUGUST 12 2025
CATEGORY: Poetry

The Half Dot Dash Couplet Overview The Dot Dash Couplet is a two-line rhyming form built on a fixed syllable pattern of alternating short and long beats, developed for narrative poetry that moves in self-contained bursts. The structure is patterned after Morse code ("dot" and "dash"), with each unit representing a syllable, and each "dash" sharing a consistent rhyme sound within the couplet. The form's compression creates a strong, rhythmic drive that suits both light and dark subject matter. Structure Stanza Length: - 2 lines per stanza (may be used as a standalone or repeated modularly)…

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