I missed the deadline. My attempt to wrap up the story by yesterday didn't exactly go according to plan. Was it a disaster? Maybe. Was it useless? Absolutely not. I need to stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and figure out where I got stuck. ### Searching for the Right Frequency Writing fiction, for me, has always been an attempt to tune an old radio. There is a part of my inner world that lives a thousand parallel lives and pushes to get out. Writing—much like drawing or game design—is how this part of me claims its right to exist. But expression has its rules. Like a muscle, it needs exercise to avoid atrophy. Over the last two years, I’ve written a lot, but almost always non-fiction: technical articles, design reflections, structured posts. It is "functional," clean writing that aims to convey information. Narrative fiction is a different beast entirely. It requires descending into the dark basement of emotions to see what moves in the shadows. I needed a shock to the system. I had just finished reading _The Gambler_ and found a detail I couldn't get out of my head: Dostoevsky wrote it in less than a month, under the crushing pressure of gambling debts, frantically dictating it to the young stenographer Anna Grigor'evna (who, thanks to that fiery month, would become his wife). I told myself: "Why not?" If he could do it in 1866, I could try too. I gave myself an impossible deadline and a precise goal: **rewrite that classic in a Sci-Fi key.** ### Zero-G Russian Roulette  The idea came immediately, almost forcefully: take Dostoevsky's text and drag it bodily into a remote future. No more 19th-century German casinos, no more Roulettenburg. Gambling has evolved. **The Setting.** We are on **Roulettenburg Station**, a space station carved out of an asteroid in the Main Belt. People don't bet money—an obsolete concept—but _time_. The currency is life itself. You play to earn cellular regeneration cycles, to push death away for another day, another year. Those who lose age prematurely. Those who win live forever. **The Protagonist.** My "Alexei" is Alex, a Tutor in debt up to his neck (literally: he has few years of biological life remaining). He works for the "General," a fallen man who has lost all his vital credit hoping for an inheritance from an aunt who simply refuses to die. Alex is there out of love, or perhaps obsession, bound to Polina, the General's stepdaughter. He wants to save her, he wants to redeem his honor, he wants to change the fate of a cold war being fought at the asteroid's gaming tables. On paper, everything works. The Matriarch (Dostoevsky's "Grandmother") has become a decrepit but incredibly wealthy noblewoman, one of the few elected castes with access to technological immortality, having survived centuries of side effects. The setting is dark, decadent, perfect. So, what is the problem? ### The Revolt of the Passive Protagonist  The problem is Alex. Or rather: the problem is that Alex is a spectator. I wrote three chapters. They work to explain the world (the _worldbuilding_ got a bit out of hand, I admit). They work to introduce the Matriarch, who enters the scene with the power of a supernova. They work for Polina. But Alex? Alex watches. Alex comments. Alex endures. Looking closely, this is the structural defect of Dostoevsky's original novel: Alexei Ivanovic is a leaf in the wind, dragged along by the passions of others and his own addiction. But in a 19th-century psychological novel, passivity is a theme. In a contemporary science fiction story, it is lead in the wings. I've been trying to rewrite the opening for days. I try to make him _do_ things. I try to give him a gun, a secret plan, an active choice. But the more I try to make him proactive, the more he refuses to cooperate, remaining anchored to his nature as a sorrowful observer. I am facing an unforeseen structural obstacle. The first three chapters are redundant because they lack an internal engine: the protagonist's desire. If Alex doesn't want something strongly enough to burn the page, the space station remains just a beautiful painted backdrop, and nothing more. I missed the deadline, yes. But I found an interesting problem. And as someone wiser than me once said: writing isn't about solving the problem, it's about understanding which problem is worth facing. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to Roulettenburg Station. I have a score to settle with a tutor.