Category Archives: Writing

January 15th Space History: Spacecraft Launching and Returning

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Thirty-five years ago today — January 15, 1976 — a Titan-IIIE rocket with Centaur upper stage launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the Helios-B spacecraft on a unique deep-space mission.

Helios-B was developed by the Federal Republic of Germany, but as a cooperative program with NASA it carried both German and U.S. experiments. Its mission was to characterize the “interplanetary medium” inward from Earth’s orbit. Within only a few months, Helios-B had reached perihelion — the closest point in its orbit to the Sun — at a distance of 43.432 million kilometers (26.987 million miles, or 0.29 astronomical units), meaning that it was closer to the Sun than the planet Mercury. That’s the closest any space probe has ever gotten to the Sun.

From sending probes into space to welcoming them home …

Fast forward 30 years, to January 15, 2006, when the Stardust capsule returned to Earth with samples taken around the vicinity of Comet Wild-2.


(Microscopic view of one of the “Calcium Aluminum Inclusion” particles returned to Earth by the Stardust mission. NASA image.)

Scientists have been studying the materials trapped in Stardust’s aerogel, with surprising results including “a remarkable set of minerals that form at extremely high temperature” and the amino acid, glycine. Pretty amazing, considering the capsule entered the Earth’s atmosphere at over 28,000 miles per hour: the fastest-ever reentry of anything we’ve ever sent into space.

[BREAK, BREAK]

In other news, the first day of the MarsCon science fiction & fantasy convention went well. (Nothing like showing up at a panel to provide moral support and being invited to participate.) Today I’m sequestering myself, trying to finish writing a short story before I venture back out. That’s my next task, as soon as this post is live … wish me luck.

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On Unpreparedness

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I was not a Boy Scout for long — one of many childhood endeavors I didn’t complete, and opportunities I squandered — but I was a Scout long enough to remember the motto: “Be Prepared.”

Would that I had lived up to it last night.

It’s not that I didn’t prepare at all for my part of the “Speculative Fiction Night” sponsored by Bull Spec magazine (fourth issue on newstands now!). Before I left the house, I thumbed through Orson Scott Card‘s Characters and Viewpoint and a couple of novels to check my memory of their treatment of point of view — including, for instance, Robert A. Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast, with its multiple first-person storytelling.

Then, having made no notes and instead trusting to my memory, I drove to Durham. My intent was to conduct a thoroughly unscientific poll of the forty or fifty attendees on their reading preferences (which I did, though not well) and to ask them how much an author’s choice and handling of point of view affects their reading enjoyment (which I botched most thoroughly). That’s right: after stumbling through the first few questions, I forgot the key question I meant to ask the audience.

Overall, and despite my poor performance, the event went quite well. I chatted with several author friends and SF&F fans, and heard some nice praise from the audience for Baen Books (and especially the new Baen website). I finally snagged a copy of The Greyfriar — with a name like Gray, how could I not? — and got Clay and Susan Griffith to sign it, and also picked up Forbidden Cargo by newly local author Rebecca Rowe. If I didn’t have to go to work this morning (thanks, Tuesday’s ice storm, for throwing off my schedule), I could’ve spent more time with Samuel M. Blinn, Bull Spec editor and our host for the evening, Ada Milenkovich Brown, James Maxey, et al. But, alas, my devotion to Ben Franklin’s dictum forced me home.*

In sum, it was a nice evening — I just wish I’d done better for my part. For anyone who might have been there, I apologize for my unpreparedness. The next time I go to something like that, I’ll just plan to read from a short story and be done with it.

___
*I don’t know why I follow his advice. So far it hasn’t made me particularly healthy, wealthy, or wise.

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So I'm Officially a 'New' Writer

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This week I confirmed that my one publication in 2010 — “Memorial at Copernicus,” in Redstone Science Fiction — did, in fact, make me eligible for the Campbell Award. For folks unfamiliar with Science Fiction and Fantasy awards, the full title is the “John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.”

One story, of course, is not enough to justify actually being nominated by WorldCon (specifically, Renovation) members. But … since eligibility runs by calendar year, I wonder if I can sell enough stories to have something to show by the time 2011 winds down and my eligibility ends. Probably not at the rate that I write and submit them. And even if everything I sent out got accepted tomorrow, I doubt I would have a great shot at winning.

Still, it’s a delicious irony whenever someone my age is eligible to be the best “new” anything.

And in the end, I don’t want to feel as though I let my eligibility go to waste. So back to the grindstone I go. And to the Post Office, as soon as I print out a couple of manuscripts.

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Latest From the Slushpile: Authors, Proofread Your Cover Letters

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At Baen Books, we receive many more electronic submissions than paper submissions, and in both formats we get all manner of different kinds of cover letters. Most of them are fine, along the lines of “here’s my book, it’s this long and in this genre, thanks and hope you like it,” but some stand out — and not for good reasons.

Most surprising in the electronic slush are the letters addressed to other publishers. That’s understandable for a physical letter, at least for those of us who have mixed up letters and put them in the wrong envelopes, but when I picture the author filling out our online submission form it’s much harder to savvy.

How likely is it that an author would fill out the Baen Books online submission form at the same time that they’re filling out another publisher’s online submission form? (Forgive me for the tricky, rhetorical question.) I realize that it’s likely a cut-and-paste error from a word processing file, but when you’re on the Baen web site, using the Baen submission form, it shouldn’t be too hard to make sure your your cover letter is addressed to Baen.

Thankfully, that situation is very rare.

Much more common in the e-slush is the cover letter that offers to send the full manuscript when the author is uploading … a full manuscript. That’s right, an author submits the complete manuscript (which our guidelines request), and their cover letter ends with a statement like, “The complete manuscript is available upon request.” Pardon?

Of course, I understand what happened in those cases, too: the authors cut-and-pasted the letters they usually send when they only submit a query or a partial manuscript. Still, it’s a matter of attention to detail … and if you don’t have the details right in your 1-page cover letter, are you sure you have them right in your 500-page manuscript?

In the end, it’s not surprising that some editors skip cover letters entirely. But if you’re going to include one, make it as good as you possibly can.

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Starting 2011 Off Right … and 'Write'

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For this introvert who rarely ventures forth into polite company, or even impolite company, last night was especially uncommon: I had two New Year’s Eve parties to attend.

First was a soiree hosted by James Maxey, featuring many of our fellow Codex Writers who live in North Carolina. (Last year James convinced us all to go to breakfast together on New Year’s Day, and he’s hosted movie nights and other parties — he’s a great instigator of these get-togethers.) Terrific conversation, some truly excellent food, and of course some folks were just arriving when I was getting ready to leave for the next event. C’est la vie.

Driving at 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve is quite pleasant, because hardly anyone else is on the road. So I made good time getting to the second party, a small gathering of folks from North Cary Baptist Church. I arrived too late for the games, but still found plenty of wonderful food to eat, and it was good to ring in the New Year with family and friends.

Which brings me to this morning. As usual, I was the first person awake in the house, so after feeding the dog and the cat I decided to start off 2011 by adding a few paragraphs to the short story I’ve been writing. I didn’t write much — maybe 150 words — so the gesture was more symbol than substance, but it feels good to have started the year doing what I think I’m supposed to be doing.

And with that, I wish for all of you a 2011 that starts off right, gets progressively better, and ends with spectacular success.

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Mercury-Redstone-1A

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Fifty years ago today — December 19, 1960 — the first Mercury-Redstone capsule was sent into space.


(Mercury-Redstone-1A launch. NASA image.)

MR-1A was a suborbital flight from Cape Canaveral, designated “1A” because MR-1 had failed its launch attempt in November. This flight was intended to qualify the systems for eventual orbital flights, and it achieved all the mission objectives.

This particular launch — and especially the name of that launch vehicle — presents a good opportunity for a plug for Redstone Science Fiction, the new online magazine that published my story, “Memorial at Copernicus.” Shameless, I know … but I can live with that.

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On Reaching the Semi-Finals For the First Time

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Yesterday the Writers of the Future contest folks posted the list of 3rd quarter semi-finalists and finalists, on which you’ll find yours truly … marking the first time I’ve made it to that level of the contest.

It feels good to have made it past the “Honorable Mention” hurdle, at least this once, though my critical self has had trouble putting it in perspective. Those who know me well won’t be surprised that this milestone produced a variety of thoughts — most of them negative — in my addled brain. Listed here in the approximate order in which they occurred to me:

  • “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then”
  • “Maybe I’m getting better at telling a good story”
  • “The competition must’ve been fairly weak this quarter”
  • “If the best story I ever wrote only rates a semi-finalist slot, maybe I should give up this writing stuff”
  • “I wish I’d made one more editing pass over the new story I just sent to them”

But, as I posted on Twitter and Facebook and have told anyone who would listen, I liken this to a great drive off the tee that makes up for dozens of hooks and slices and keeps the weekend golfer coming back for more. Even a minor writing triumph like this is enough to keep me coming back.

To take that metaphor a little further, I left this story on the green and need to make a good putt to finish well. The nice thing is that every semi-finalist story is critiqued by the contest director, and her comments were direct and insightful. Now I just have to figure out how to fix the problem she found in such a way that the story has a more satisfying ending — though I wish that was going to be as easy as it sounds. But if I read the green correctly and stroke the ball well, I might yet make something of this story.

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Last Titan Launch

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Five years ago today — October 19, 2005 — the last Titan-IV rocket launched from Vandenberg AFB. (The next-to-last Titan rocket had been launched successfully about six months earlier, on April 29th, from Cape Canaveral.)


(Final Titan-IV launch, Space Launch Complex 4, Vandenberg AFB. USAF image. Click to enlarge.)

The rocket carried a classified DoD payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.

This last Titan launch was a milestone of sorts for me, for two reasons.

First, I’d worked on Titan twice in my Air Force career — at Edwards AFB, supporting Titan-34D and Titan-IV test firings, and in the Titan System Program Office at Vandenberg, managing the engineering and contracting for the facility that stored and processed Titan-IV solid rocket motor upgrade segments. (If you ever come to my office, ask me about the piece of a failed Titan-IV that sits on my desk.)

Second, I’d written a speech for the Under Secretary of the Air Force to honor the final launch. It’s not often that the speeches we write for others have to do with things that are so special to us.

Each Titan was a huge, complex machine built to carry out a difficult task. It was an honor to be associated with the program.

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An Observation on Publishing, Formulated at Dragon*Con

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At various conventions over the last several years I’ve worked at the Baen Books “Traveling Show.” I usually hand out things or help set up, and it’s always fun to see how exuberant Baen fans can be when they learn what’s coming soon from their favorite authors. This year at Dragon*Con Senior Editor Jim Minz ran the slide show, since Publisher Toni Weisskopf was in Australia for WorldCon, and the whole thing went very well.

During Dragon*Con I also attended similar shows by other publishers, to keep abreast of what to expect from the industry as a whole. I went to the Pyr, Del Ray, and Tor presentations, and in sum got a good look at what science fiction and fantasy publishers are buying.

Unfortunately, they’re not buying much of anything like what I’ve written. The only near-future, realistic science fiction I recall from any of the four presentations was Back to the Moon by Travis Taylor and Les Johnson, coming out from Baen in December. I saw a lot of fantasy, of many different descriptions, a lot of steampunk and alternate history, and even some hard science fiction, but only that one book tells a story that could happen in the next few decades.

I can’t help but feel that a subset of science fiction fans would like to read positive, realistic, near-future stories about folks exploring and colonizing our Solar system, but publishers don’t seem to buying stories like that. I guess I’ll have to keep track of how Back to the Moon does, to see whether or not my Walking on the Sea of Clouds has as much of an audience as I think it could.

I’d love to hear other opinions. What kinds of stories do you think readers would like, that publishers aren’t providing right now?

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Dragon*Con Success on Day One

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I set a modest goal for Dragon*Con this year: to buy and have signed two specific books. I achieved that goal yesterday, so the rest of the con will entail working at Jim Minz’s behest at the Baen road show, attending whatever-the-heck-I-want, and making some progress on the short story I’m writing.

The books I came in pursuit of were:

  • Shades of Milk and Honey, the first novel by Mary Robinette Kowal, one of my writing friends from the Codex writers group who also happens to be the winner of the John W. Campbell Award for the Best New Writer of science fiction and fantasy, and the current VP of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America … I was determined to buy it here because all the copies sold out too quickly for me to get one at NASFiC
  • Moonbase Crisis, the first volume of Rebecca Moesta & Kevin J. Anderson’s Star Challengers middle-grade SF series, which I talked up to whomever I could when I was still involved in the NC Aerospace Initiative

Both are now signed and safely stowed in the hotel room.

It remains to be seen whether I buy anything else here … the expression “kid with a credit card in a candy store” doesn’t begin to cover it.

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