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Some Random Observations
Read more: Some Random ObservationsIn this blog posting, I just want to make a few observations on a couple of aspects of writing. To wit: First, I stopped at a local Barnes and Noble bookstore this afternoon to get another science fiction book. I wandered down the aisle where the sci-fi/fantasy books were shelved and, as usual, glanced briefly…
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Ideas
Read more: IdeasA few days ago I watched the second half of a movie from 1974, called “The White Dawn,” about three whalers, two Caucasian and one African American (played by Warren Oates, Timothy Bottoms, and Louis Gossett, Jr.) who get trapped in the Arctic, and have to rely on the local Eskimos to survive. The movie takes place…
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The High Tension of Life
Read more: The High Tension of LifeIn this blog post I want to talk a little about putting tension and conflict into story telling. I’ve just completed reading two science fiction novels (written by the same author) in which I believe the concept of tension was handled badly. I’m not identifying the novels or the author for two reasons. One, this is not a book…
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Good Enough To Be Published
Read more: Good Enough To Be PublishedOver the past eighteen years, I’ve written three science fiction novels, each about 125,000 words. That’s just the word count of each of the manuscripts as they exist today, and doesn’t take into account all the re-writing and revisions I’ve made over the years, especially to the first. The total number of different words I’ve put into…
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The Next Two Hundred Years
Read more: The Next Two Hundred YearsSeveral weeks ago I chanced to see a Facebook post about some predictions an artist had made in the early 20th Century of what life would be like a hundred years later, i.e., in the early 21st Century. (I’m talking about the time around 1910, here.) The predictions were interesting, but what came through for me…
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A Serious Lack Of Imagination
Read more: A Serious Lack Of ImaginationI believe there is a serious lack of imagination in science fiction today. At least in one particular facet of the genre. To illustrate what I’m talking about, let’s take a look at some recent results that have come from the world of astronomy. For more than four years, the Kepler Space Telescope has been…
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A Trip To The Bookstore
Read more: A Trip To The BookstoreI usually write these blog posts on Sunday afternoon, after my regular stop at one of the local bookstores in the Albuquerque area. Today was no exception. The first thing I check after entering is the magazine rack of news journals to see what people are saying about national and international politics. (Right now that’s the 2016…
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Hobbies
Read more: HobbiesMost of the time now, I’m retired from a life of research. I worked with viruses most of my professional life. Now I’ve moved on to trying to write science-fiction novels. Writing is more than an excuse to keep busy, though; it’s a permanent part of my life and I enjoy the time spent in front…
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Haven’t You Got Something Better To Do?
Read more: Haven’t You Got Something Better To Do?I’m a writer. I specialize in writing fiction, especially science-fiction novels, but I’ve written several short stories, mostly with a sci-fi bent, if not outright. But fiction by definition is a story about something that is not real. Fiction generally uses made-up characters and plot lines, though real people can appear in a fictitious work. Even…
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The Logical Structure Of Science Fiction
Read more: The Logical Structure Of Science FictionI write science fiction. I also read science fiction—the two go hand-in-hand. Most of the sci-fi I read has been published by well-known publishing houses, and is reasonably good, though it can vary from very good to mediocre. But what I want to talk about in this post is one of the things that helps…