I have entered my draft manuscript in an Amazon/Penguin backed competition – actually hosted by CreateSpace.com – an e-author portal subsidiary of Amazon. Well why on Earth wouldn’t I? $15000 first prize and a contract with Penguin. I will let you know how I get on. They are taking first 5000 entries and then gradually eliminating through until June.

Only problem is that it is for unpublished works only so I have to hold off publishing now until I am eliminated or I win. It’s very interesting reading the T&C cos they go through in detail how you will negotiate the contract with Penguin if you win. It all sounds very pleasant.

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Well. A coupla interesting things.
It’s a bit depressing – on the face of it – that Obama has cancelled Constellation – the open-ended project stream that would have resulted at some point with men on Mars, but reading between the lines, it’s not so bad. There will be a move more to privatised companies doing the lift bit into space and supposedly a move to find more efficient means of getting to Mars (propulsion-wise). I do find the tone of the speech(?) or document by the Mars Director a little false though and I am not sure how many of their employees will buy into the ‘mood’.
What worried me most is that, as some commentators have pointed out, for many of us, a part of our hope in life is carried by NASA projects. This may be dubious in that NASA was founded on a combination of aeronautics reseach in the USA and Nazi scientists at the end of WWII but at least casting your eyes upwards to the stars provides some kind of common frontier – a reason to ‘collaborate’ rather than fight.
Without this we are in danger of becoming a species ‘looking inwards’ and this introversion, I think, seems to correspond with periods of increased conflict. Continue reading “NASA’s Project Constellation cancelled” →

So, I am starting to research the sci-fi story and very pleasant it is too. I was thinking about locations for the various parts of the story and remembered those ‘big wheels’ from the 60s and 70s – those things that float in space and look really good from the inside. I found out that the most popular one is called the ‘Stanford Torus‘.
You get views like this. It all looks quite utopian but of course it wouldn’t be.
Anyway I then found that in actual fact, whereas I thought these were simply figments of sci-fi writers’ minds in those days, NASA did do quite a detailed study about their viability (NASA content no longer available).

It makes interesting reading. For one thing, the cost would be astronomical – 50Bn in those days. I am not sure what that is now but I would guess at least 4 times that – so 200Bn. At first I thought – well who would fund this and why was NASA even thinking seriously about it? Perhaps, since the Cold War was still on, they were thinking about evacuating people. But actually it’s not that much. I found out yesterday that a certain City’s banks are preparing to pay out 50Bn in bonuses this year.

Now I need to start thinking about what life would be like on one of these colonies and what sort of political environment would it be. It will be interesting to think it through.

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What a relief. I managed to do a lot of editing yesterday (Sunday) and I am feeling that relief one gets when moving out from the focus on a piece of creative writing.
Actually I chopped almost 10,000 words out of the story – fairly harsh editing, but not as harsh as I would have liked. It’s just so hard to find any one part that you can completely delete. Anyway I am just working on finishing touches now – some secret codes that go on Chapter Titles and a few names left to do.

It’s strange how a name can cause you so much difficulty – the name of a detective or the name of a hero. I am still struggling over the latter although he is not the main character in the book.

This may be a short post as I can’t really say too much more without revealing too much of the plot. Anyway I am hoping to get it to a small, select group of readers this week so I can get some feedback, which will almost certainly involve some more editing.

The sci-fi story idea is going around and around in my head – quite delightfully actually. There are so many ways of telling the story – just a matter of finding the right one.

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I found myself on the day before New Year’s Eve (New Year’s Eve eve) watching TV and to my amazement saw two of my all time top 3 films showing back to back on ITV2 (could be been ITV3 or 4). Well. I settled down to watch ‘633 Squadron’ and ‘The Wicker Man’ (original version with Christopher Lee, Edward Woodwood and Britt Eckland) with glee. Wrapped up warm on my bed, I could just drift back to my childhood.

But about half way through the first film, I began to wonder why they had both turned up together. Surely too much for coincidence? It must be, I thought, because I conform to a certain demographic. Are there really any other men (or women) out there who really like these two films (my third fave is Gladiator but surely there isn’t anybody else out there who would choose all 3 as his or her top films?)? And if such a demographic exists how come I have never in my life met any of these people?

Also a mystery is why they would choose my demographic on the day before New Year’s day. Since I guess most of us would be baby-boomers, it seems surprising that some scheduler has figured out that most of us will be out on New Year’s day and thus better show us our films the day before. Or perhaps I am just overestimating our importance here. Whereas The Wicker Man used to be shown about 3am on New Year’s day, perhaps now that demographic is ranked lower in importance. Still, its nice to be important enough to be catered for on the day before. A second-ranker is not too bad. Has any body else noticed themselves in such a TV demographic and did it surprise you?

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It’s the day after New Year’s Day
Yes – I was writing yesterday but I found it tough. Actually I intended to just edit, thinking I had finished the writing but then found I had forgotten an important detail in the plot so I had to go back to this. Anyway, every time I was close to getting on the PC something would come up and I just couldn’t get there until late evening. It messed my day up and messed with my head. I often feel that someone or something is trying to stop me. Its a weird feeling but not unlike the feeling the guy in the book has. I guess that’s why I wrote it. Nevertheless, I wish I didn’t have to go through these trials. I did complete the main story and now I am back on editing. I am making good progress so I hope that I won’t have that feeling any more.
I have a sci-fi idea for my next book – at least an idea which I think would best be presented in a sci-fi format, and I am optimistic that this will be easier to write. I need a break from the intensity of writing this last book.
In editing it I am cutting out large chunks which do not work but it is a pleasure to read again the bits that do work. I will soon be looking for reviewers of the book (in draft form) so if you are interested, get in touch.

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Hi All
I am approaching the end of the process of completing another book, and so I felt it appropriate to start a blog as a way of keeping people informed about what I am doing. That is the altruistic reason but there is another. Writing this book has been a very difficult process – writing about good and evil can never be easy if you really want to portray evil the way it is, and it has been a lonely process too. Try as I might I cannot really explain to my friends just how difficult it has been and continues to be. Perhaps writing about the process will help me here.

So where am I? Well based in London, and writing in my spare time, this will be my third completed book although I have already published the first Volume of a 2-part novel – the first I wrote (on paper). The problem here is that I still have about 50,000 words to type and I am not a keen typist so who knows when that one will be completed for publication. Continue reading “My first Post on WordPress.com” →