Alastair Mayer’s T-Space Blog

I find I haven’t talked about the process of writing nearly as much as I thought I might when I started this. That’s going to change. I’ve been a little reluctant up until now; I know there are many aspiring authors out there, but there are quite a few sites, with authors more experienced than I, offering excellent advice. But perhaps I do have something to offer, if only another viewpoint that might click with someone a little better. (Or, worst case, as a bad example.)

On that note, let me mention a slim (64-page) book of excellent writing advice, Writing to the Point, by Algis Budrys. Algis was a well-respected author and editor in his own right, and served as the managing judge for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. (Don’t let Hubbard’s name put you off. If there is any connection between the WotF contest and the Church of Scientology, it is by no means apparent to any of the contest participants, and the contest, its online forum, and award events are excellent.) In this little book Budrys offers up brilliant advice in easily absorbed chunks. He distinguishes between a story and a manuscript. A manuscript is one way of presenting the story. The story itself is a character, in context, with a problem, and the attempts and final success in overcoming the problem. Other authors, including Orson Scott Card and Marion Zimmer Bradley, have offered similar advice, but Budrys nails it in fewer and clearer words. Other chapters cover everything from agents (sell your first book first) to ideas to manuscripts to some specific advice on writing science fiction.

I had been stalled out on a novel in progress, and after reading this book I realized that I had stalled because I didn’t fully understand the main character’s central problem (a story beginning is a character, in context, with a problem). With that realization I saw where the novel needed to go, and also where I could take an individual chapter and create a stand-alone short story from it. (This offers not only the chance to get paid twice for essentially the same work, but the short can help build a market for the novel.)

If you’re at all interested in writing fiction, I recommend this book. One thing, when I went looking for it on Amazon they only had a couple of used copies at an asking price of $499.98 (!). It is, however, available directly from the publisher (Action Publishing) for only $10.50 plus a couple of bucks shipping. I got my copy in just a few days. (And no, I’m not making anything by linking it, I just think it’s a worthwhile book.)

As if I wasn’t already spending too much time on other people’s web sites instead of getting writing done, I now find myself  in a few Yahoo! groups (relevant to a writer’s workshop coming up in June), Livejournal, (because Eric Reynolds, my editor for Footprints, was there, as were a few co-contributers) and now Facebook (again, several co-contributers to Footprints and a number other authors I know, and a few family members).  Problem is, I just spent (I won’t say “wasted”, since it wasn’t totally unproductive) several hours on Facebook instead of getting things done.  Like finishing the short story I’m working on, or writing the new scenes for Venaticorum Archive to bring it up to saleable length.  Sigh.

Speaking of Footprints, Eric now has a proof copy and posted a picture of it of Facebook, it looks great.  I can hardly wait to my hands on a copy.

The workshop I mentioned above is being presented by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, both prolific and award-winning writers. He just sent us details on accomodation, and there are still a few slots left.  If you’re interested in selling a novel or becoming a professional writer, it could be worth your while.  They did a very abbreviated version of the “Kris’n’Dean show” at the Denver Worldcon last summer, it was fantastic.

I just received the proofs for the anthology Fooprints, where my story “Snowball” will be appearing. It looks great! I’ve only skimmed it so far, but there a lot of wonderful stories in there. I’d buy it even if my story wasn’t in it. (grin).

As promised earlier, I’ve added a page on Alpha Centauri to the “T-Space Encylopaedia”.

I’ve added a page on the star system Delta Pavonis to the T-space pages. I plan to add pages there on a regular basis. They give the astronomical facts about the star (or other location) and some detail about how it fits into my T-space stories, and other writer’s stories too, occasionally. As best I can I want to keep things consistent with what we know about other star systems, but that still leaves plenty of room to play in what “hasn’t been disproved yet.”

Next up will probably be Alpha Centauri, a popular location for countless stories (being our nearest neighbor, and all). It’s possible, astrophysically, for both the main components (Alpha Centauri A and B) to have habitable planetary systems. I’ve also just found out something odd about it that has serious implications for T-space: its galactic orbit is very different from ours.

Eric Reynolds has just announced the final cover for Footprings on his blog. It’s the same Apollo photograph as the concept cover in the earlier post, with some added text. Co-contributors getting cover credit are Brenda Cooper, James Van Pelt, and Lawrence M. Schoen. You can see the full-size cover here. I think it looks great — although it would look better with my name on it too (grin).

I got the news a couple of weeks ago, but wanted to wait until the official announcement: my short story “Snowball” has been accepted for the upcoming Footprints anthology from Hadley Rille Books. The pictures below is a concept cover, the final book may look different.

The theme of the anthology is summed up by Jay Lake, co-editor with Eric T. Reynolds: “Long after our species and all its works have turned to dust, the Moon landing sites will still show evidence of our time here on Earth. Imagine future explorers from among the stars interpreting that. The astronauts’ footprints should last longer than the fossils in the Olduvai Gorge have.” (–Jay Lake, ca. July 2008) My story isn’t nearly as far in the future as Homo habilis was in the past — and the Moon isn’t the only place the aliens find artifacts. I hope you enjoy the story, and I’m keen to see what my co-contributers did with the idea.

The book is due out this summer — with any luck in time for the 40th (40th!) anniversary of Armstrong and Aldrin’s Apollo 11 landing.

As I write this, NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is kicking off as the world turns under the midnight line. It will be November first here in Colorado by the time this gets posted. NaNoWriMo’s web site will do a better job of explaining it than I want to take the space here to, but essentially it’s the opportunity to get together virtually, and in many cases in real life, to try and crank out fifty thousand words of fiction in a month. There’s a lot of cameraderie and you can learn a lot just from the effort. Nobody expects the result to be of finished quality, that’s what editing and revision and rewrites are for, and they come later.

I’m taking the opportunity to get a big chunk, at least, of my Apollo 18 (working title) done. It’s a technothriller about a secret mission to the Moon shortly after Apollo 17, to investigate a secret Soviet landing (the N-1 explosion was faked), in parallel with Project Jennifer (the attempt to recover a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine). Yes, figuring out how to stack and launch a Saturn V in secret a bit of a trick.

I see from the clock in the corner of my screen that it’s just ticked over to 00:00. Time to post this and fire up the word processor. If anyone’s interested I may post snippets as I go. We’ll see.

Speaking of Mars and the Great Martian Novel (see the item below), I’ve just posted an essay that talks a bit about how Jim Baen got me started on that, and where it’s at now.