| Progress Report: None |
[Aug. 15th, 2007|12:56 pm] |
It's funny. I've always maintained that writing is my first priority. Someone once asked me, what's the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning, the last think I think of before I close my eyes to go to sleep at night. And my answer? Telling stories. Writing. Taking those tales from their temporary space under my hair and putting them in their permanent home on the printed page.
But is that what I do? No. Is that what I demonstrate my priorities to be? Again, no. I haven't even "found" time to write anything here, although I have managed to find a few bits of space news to put down at my myspace page.
I've got to do better at making my demonstrated priorities reflect my real priorities.
I'll get some writing done soon! Promise.
Sue C. |
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| Mental Flossing that One Story... |
[Jun. 22nd, 2006|04:29 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Sheryl Crow, Sheryl Crow | ] |
Last February -- I mean February 2005, ladies and gentlemen -- I started on a story called "Schroedinger's Woman" about a girl a lot like me who falls in love with an intensely shy absent-minded college professor type and her adventures after he asks her to teach him how to get girls.
I've had this story in a drawer not quite finished since then, worried about whether to take it out and let it see the light of day. Well. I'm happy to announce that "Schroedinger's Woman" is going to Fantasy and Science Fiction tomorrow. I'm working on the cover letter as we ... speak.
I don't know why I've had such a problem with this one. I haven't had any difficulty plotting out my novel-length pieces; there are three or four of those on the runway. But this is that one story that's been giving me fits for years. I had the idea in the late nineties, and it took a long time to get it straight in my head. Then it took a long time for me to start. Once I started, I wrote a page or two a day, and it was done in two or three weeks. Then it became a "bottom-of-the-drawer" story. I was afraid to show it to anyone, afraid to revise, afraid to send. I put it off.
Finally, I showed it to my sweetie, who said "I don't know what the problem is. It's publishable -- I'm not the market for it, but go forth and send." Well, words to that effect, at any rate.
Have you ever had that one story that just clogs up your processes and grinds at the works causing mucho angst a-borning? This one's mine. It's good work, but I'm just nervous to get it out of here.
But tomorrow, I set it -- or me -- free.
Ready to work again,
Sue C. |
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| Surfin' with the Virgin |
[Jun. 13th, 2006|03:49 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | enthralled | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Joe Satriani, Surfing with the Alien | ] |
Check it out, ladies and gentlemen. If you have enough money and enough nerve, you can go to space. While not offering trips to outer space yet, when Sir Richard Branson's new company, Virgin Galactic, is up and running, you can book suborbital trips on rocketplanes like SpaceShip One, the brainchild of Burt Rutan.
SpaceShip One was tested by test pilots Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie. Within the next two to three years, as soon as its New Mexico airfield is complete and SpaceShip One's descendants are perfected, thrillseekers, if they have the right stuff, can leave behind their basejumping and hangliding and go where few have gone before.
For the right price.
I'm saving up! |
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| But When Do I Get This for the Car? |
[May. 24th, 2006|02:25 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Same as always | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pensive | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Sergio Mendes, "Mais que Nada" | ] |
NASA has formed a team to work on the concept of the antimatter drive and develop a model that avoids the nasty effects of potentially devastating gamma rays.
The current model for the drive will work, but produces high quantities of gamma radiation, which causes molecular decomposition in cellular matter and fragments atoms of the material used to construct the drive. The result? Anyone whose cell structure survives a trip in a vessel using the antimatter drive will be dying of radiation poisoning from the activity given off by the engine walls themselves. Thus the need for "containment" in science fiction stories using the drive.
Not a clean energy source by any means.
But the NASA team hopes to reduce the energy of the gamma waves given by the annihilation of the matter and antimatter. For a full story and explanation, see this site.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/mmb/antimatter_spaceship.html
The drive will be very cost effective once constructed. Only a few dozen milligrams of antimatter fuel will be necessary for even long interstellar trips. Not very much at all.
It'd sure be useful for engines other than star drives, n'est pas? |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 28th, 2006|04:14 pm] |
Last evening, I was talking with my sweetie, who is an accomplished writer, and frankly better at characterization than I am, and during that conversation, managed to get myself unstuck from a sticking place I'd been ... well, stuck in.
I stopped writing on Wednesday, realizing that my heroine had met her love interest, and as I typed, I realized that I still couldn't see him, and the clickety-click of my fingernails on the keys slowly ground to a stop, not to start again.
We talked for a while -- only a short while, as it turns out, before I saw him. I haven't cast him yet. that always helps me to write when I can cast my book. My lady protag is Natalie Portman, with bobbed blonde hair and a ripped stomach. But my male, well, I don't know who he is yet. Someone somewhere between Harrison Ford of 1980 and James Marsters (with the British accent - whew!). We'll see what my backbrain comes up with.
Meantime, I'm off to the races. Hope to have a completed first chapter by the time we talk next.
Ciao! |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 27th, 2006|04:17 pm] |
Like ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jpedwards, I seem to be having one of those days. It's been a long day, full of meetings and gatherings and too much heat and too much cold in the office. I got some news I didn't like this morning -- it's not really worth sharing, but it was a big pain in the neck at the time, and gave me a migraine which I only got rid of an hour or so ago. Fortunately, I went to a meeting that actually held my attention today. Usually I had to work at it.
I've decided to start attending the University Senate meetings. I've decided that I have a talent for administration (read: committee BS), so I'm going to attend meetings until someone quits the university, leaves the senate, or dies, which is about the only way there are empty spots. So having attended all the meetings and gotten my name out there, folks will naturally think, "Suze" when there's an opening.
Should it worry me that I actually enjoy the political machinations of a large university? Not really. I'm a writer. University relations involve character, conflict, and plot. What better place for me? Mwa-ha-hah...
Well, we'll see how it goes. I'm pretty much shot for the rest of the day, though. Exhausting.
Keep the faith. |
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| Updates in the Life |
[Apr. 21st, 2006|04:10 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Office | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hyper | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Oasis, "Champagne Supernova" | ] |
Hi all, it's me. It's Friday, and I'm about an hour away from going home. I have an office full of stuff to get filed and away from my desk and student papers to grade, but I just don't feel like doing any of it. I'd rather be writing -- in fact I'm itching to be writing. My leg is bouncing and I just need to get out of here and back home to my real work. Proper Breeding is about three good pages into production, and I want to multiply that by at least three before the weekend's over.
Tonight is my TV night. They've managed to pile all my favorite shows on opposite each other. Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, Doctor Who, Numbers, and my significant other likes Ghost Whisperer. Not to mention the fact that we both like the Derek Acorah ghosthunting shows on the Travel Channel. Oh, and later on, Battlestar Galactica will be back on and we'll find out if it really has jumped the shark. Thank God for VCRs and DVRs. They allow me to spread my Friday nights all across the week.
I have about an inch and a half of papers to grade. I hope I can get this done over the weekend as well, because I'm quite behind. I have high hopes for the weekend. Let's see what I can get done.
Hoping for a wrinkle in time,
SuzeC |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 12th, 2006|04:20 pm] |
Looking at my most recent entries, it looks as though I haven't updated since sometime last year. It's funny, because that corresponds, more or less, with the last time I was able to focus on anything other than real life long enough to write anything new.
No matter. That's all changed, because I'm back at work on a science fiction piece of sorts, tentatively called A Girl of Proper Breeding. You guessed it. There's some eugenics and some genetic engineering with a healthy dose of space western thrown in for good measure. Yeah, I love science fiction, but adventure and space opera is where the fun's to be had.
I'll keep you updated, dear readers, as progress continues. I hope to be able to hawk it a little bit at some conventions this year.
We'll see how that goes. As they say on SNL, More to Come...
Committed
SueC |
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| Massive Redecorating... |
[Aug. 25th, 2005|01:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | enthralled | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Steppenwolf, "Magic Carpet Ride" | ] |
Well, it looks like astronomers are revising their opinions of what the Milky Way galaxy looks like. Granted, it's not terribly easy to see what something looks like when you're sitting in the middle of it, but with a little help with the Spitzer Space Telescope and other outrageously big instruments, they've done a star survey, and it looks like the central portion of our galaxy has a dense bar across the center, something like in this picture.
photo courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
It's official, guys. We don't live in a spiral galaxy anymore. It's a barred spiral, which is a different category entirely, believe it or else.
Space Truckin'
SueC |
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| Mars Engorged? |
[Aug. 25th, 2005|10:54 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  disappointed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Little River Band, "Reminiscing" | ] |
Rats.
Being a bit of an astronomy nerd, I bought into this email that has been going around that towards the end of the year, one could actually see Mars appear to be "as big as the full moon."
Now of course I didn't believe it would seem really that big, but I thought, since it's at conjunction (meaning that the sun, earth and Mars will make a direct line) with (I suppose I should capitalize this) Earth, I thought maybe that when it rises and sets it will seem to be really big on the horizon, since both the sun and moon seem to "grow" at these times.
The growth occurs because there's more atmosphere to look through to see whatever celestial object you're looking at when it's nearer the horizon, so the light from it diffuses and causes it to appear larger. It seems to grow.
I thought I'd see a bigger Mars.
Nope. Debunked. Here's a paragraph from Sky and Telescope's website:
"Mars will not come any closer than 43 million miles at opposition in October and November 2005; that if you looked at Mars through a telescope of magnification of 100, then Mars would appear, in the telescope, to seem as large as a “naked eye” view of the Full Moon.
Anyone going out this week after 11 pm (0300 UTC) local time, you can see the reddish-orange Mars and the waning gibbous Moon."
And here's a corroborating, more detailed comment from the very dependable Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy website.
Sigh. And I was kind of looking forward to this.
Bummed,
SueC |
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| "Pick Me" Contest: We Have a Winner |
[Aug. 11th, 2005|05:33 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  excited | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Led Zeppelin, D'Yer Mak'er | ] |
Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, we have a winner. I've been working it out in my mind while following the space shuttle mission, and I've decided the story that's most bursting out of my head is the genetics story. So I guess it's time to brush up on my biology and learn a bit of genetics and how they work. And I thought I was going to be writing space opera. Sigh.
But I'm happy about the story, tentatively titled, "A Girl of Proper Breeding." I'll let you guess and stew about what it will actually be about. ETA for rough draft is December. I figure it might be a touch easier to write than the historical. Just as much research, but at least I know where to go for the information. Also, I have a daughter and niece who are both geneticists, so I can let them read the manuscript, should I run into troubles.
Wish me luck! I'm writing the first page tonight.
Looking forward to the new project,
SueC |
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| What's wrong at NASA |
[Jul. 28th, 2005|01:01 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cynical | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Steely Dan, "West of Hollywood" | ] |
Couldn't have said it better myself, folks. The corporatethink of America and its agencies has infected our space program. It's going on right now, and horror writer Brian Keene said it better than I can. See it here.
Don't be frightened off by the name of the journal, folks. The man's not a satanist (as far as I know). Just irreverent and known for a sense of humor that leaves teethmarks.
Enjoy.
SueC |
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| And where do we go from here? |
[Jul. 27th, 2005|05:09 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  listless | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Jay & the Americans, "This Magic Moment" | ] |
I'm not sure how the next few months of my writing is going to go. Or more to the point, I'm not sure where it's going to go. After the historical I'm working on now is over, I'm going to lay it aside for a couple of months before I even think about revisions. As always, I've got to let the manuscript get "cold," so I can see the errors in it when I go back through it. So I'm guessing I'll finish the first draft of the thing by the end of August, then the revisions will be done by the end of January or February.
But after that, I've got two relatively long stories ready to begin, and I'm not sure which one will win the "pick me" contest. One is research-heavy, so I suspect that'll be the one to wait. And I'm a little bit more excited about the other one -- the one that is not research-heavy -- but every time I've started the prewriting -- yes, I often do prewriting on one project before completing the last -- every time I begin prewriting, everything that goes onto the screen is unusable.
I realize that Orson Scott Card says, "I can fix crap, but I can't fix nothing," and that I should just get the words on the paper first, but I have certain standards of minimality below which I cannot bring myself to go. Meaning that if it's too bad, it's so distracting that I can't even finish the story.
So I don't intend to whine, but I'm having a bit of difficulty wrapping my head around the beginning. I'm going to try one more time this evening, and then if it doesn't work, I've got no other choice but to lay the thing aside and work on the other one.
Wish me luck. I'm not ready to learn all about genetics yet.
Looking ahead,
SueC |
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| NASA and Sexy Scotsmen |
[Jul. 20th, 2005|05:09 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Moody Blues, "Gemini Dream" | ] |
I've got mixed feelings today.
On the one hand, today is the thirty-sixth anniversary of the moon landing. I remember sitting at my grandmother's house in my pajamas, still tasting the peanut butter sandwich and Shasta strawberry soda I'd eaten earlier, just waiting for Neil Armstrong to step out of the LEM. It seemed like it had just been sitting there for hours, waiting for him to step out of it.
Then, at last, he stepped down the ladder and uttered those immortal words, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Thrilling. Even thirty-six years later, it takes my breath away.
But my awe is tempered by the loss of one of the coolest members of the USS Enterprise, James Doohan. Some of you only knew him as Scotty, the Chief Engineer with the burr. It brings a tear to my eye whenever I think about the fact that the tall, well-spoken Canadian gentleman I met at my first convention in 1977 has been forever silenced. Rest in peace, laddie. We'll miss ye. He was one of the great ones.
I got turned on to Star Trek the same year I got turned on to NASA: 1969. With an Army officer father, I'd been out of the country for years, and when I came back, I came back to the space race and to Star Trek. I didn't quite understand all the awe and mystery of what I was experiencing -- in either the Trek or the space field -- I was too young. But that year is the year that affected all the years that followed. I wanted to be an astronaut. Well, that won't happen because of my eyesight. Thick glasses don't you know. But I still look at the stars at night and wonder what's out there. What's on the planets we've discovered orbiting distant stars with the Hubble telescope and the Keck Interferometer?
And wouldn't it be boss to go there?
Maybe we'd find Scotty.
SueC |
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