Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Promises, promises...

Ah, as Robert Burns said in his poem To a Mouse, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley..." (in modern English, The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.)  So it is with my best laid plans to myself about writing a blog on a weekly basis.  It started out well, but then fizzled.

My plans to write at least an hour a day did not.  That "hour a day," however, has stretched to six, eight, and occasionally twelve hours a day, leaving little time for blogging.  Add to that research that can take an additional several hours and one has a recipe for long days and no blog.

How is it possible to spend that much time writing and researching, one might ask?  The answer is simple, if the complexity of the writing and researching is not.  The persona of my alter-ego edits and writes scientific books that entail a significant amount of research, careful construction, and, because I serve as the primary editor for my co-author, a monumental amount of time reviewing, editing, and commenting on the text.  To say that takes time from more relaxing and pleasurable pursuits like blogging is a gross understatement.  That is not to say writing scientific books is without pleasure, but it does lack some of the freedom of expression and pure fun provided by writing fiction and blogging.

The book we are working on is a follow on to The Cosmic Wanderer, dealing with the theoretical physics of relativistic propulsion, life support requirements, and spacecraft design for extended deep-space missions.  It is not science fiction, rather it is a book of principles and concepts on near light speed spacecraft supported by physical and mathematical models.  We hope to have it completed and published in the next two to three months.

In addition to that, true to my schizophrenic approach to writing, my illustrator, Julie Rodriguez Jones, and I are awaiting publication by Sage Words Publishing of a children's book we worked on together called "Beau's Dragon."   If you are interested in children's books, Julie built a nice web site for the book at http://beausdragon.homestead.com/index.html.

All of this being said, I have revised my blogging expectations.  I'll do two a month... unless writing intervenes, which it probably will since there is another book on space in the works and there's that novel I want to finish, plus another children's book I have in mind.

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