Summary of David's Tutorial Project from Interest Form Submission:

"I have been working off and on for decades on a cycle of stories and background essays chronicling 200 years of the history and current life of an imaginary country situated in our real world that has (without any special magical, supernatural or alien intervention/guidance) balanced freedom, rough equality, courtesy, mutual support, creativity, non-militaristic, environmentally sustainable and other good things. Call it Utopian Alternative History.

Some utopian fiction can be boring: essentially a tour of the "perfect" (I prefer "better," nothing human is ever perfect) and why the way we do X, Y, and Z is better than how you do it. Better are stories that focus on how this society came to be the way it is, stories of daily life in this setting - no matter how much better a political/economic system may be, people are people and there still will be caner, alcoholism, adultery, petty and not so petty theft etc. - and challenges from external powers.

I have worked out the 200 most recent years in some detail (also earlier times but those periods are not fixed) and have several story fragments set at interesting points in that history. I have a BA in History focusing on comparative modernization, esp. 19th century Russia vs. Japan so I think the history I have worked out is plausible.

But I am 74 now and need to pull all this together into some presentable (and hopefully publishable) form but need guidance in doing so.

Currently I have purchased 4 tokens and hoping to "cash them in" in January but I figure the mentorship will continue for some time. I am "retired" but am active in 4 networks (the Signum creative writing community is one of these, the others are spiritual, community service and political -I'm not particularly happy with what is going on in my country). I do odd jobs to supplement Social Security and may have to move sometime next Spring."