Howzat?
Copyright S. Bradley Stoner
Fred lives down the road. Occasionally he stops by on his weekly walks. He claims he's "just checkin' the water." His water flows through irrigation ditches on my land. I saw him out there, inside my fence, standing beside my trees, leaning on his shovel.
"Hi Fred," I yelled. "Whatcha doing?"
"Howzat?" he asked. Fred is not hard of hearing. Nobody who can overhear gossip a half mile away is hard of hearing. He just wanted to get me closer. "I read yer column last week," he said. when I got there. I was flattered. Fred is not known for reading much of anything outside of the weather report.
"What'd you think?" I asked.
"Dunno." I was deflated. I bit down on the stem of my pipe. He spit and looked at the sun. "Hot, ain't it?"
For a while I thought Fred had petrified. Then he startled me by speaking. "How'd ya come to call yer column 'The Square Peg?'
I made a mistake. I thought Fred really wanted to know. So, I proceeded to explain. "When I was a kid, I was raised in the city," I told him. "I liked riding horses. I liked raising animals, even though I was restricted to the mouse-sized variety due to lack of acreage. I liked hunting, but didn't dare shoot off my gun at home. The neighbors had a strong dislike for flying missiles and an extreme fondness for their own health. I did try a bow once, but my Mom took it away when I dead-centered the roof on a house two blocks away. I liked to fish, and I didn't even mind cleaning them. I didn't mind pooper-scooper chores. I just pretended it was horse manure."
Fred watched a small cluster of pine needles swirl down the ditch. "Then I grew up," I continued. "I went to college and got a degree. But, I still liked the idea of the country, so I moved to Montana. Now, I like to read a lot. I buy books... lots of them for that reason. I sit inside and write when it's nice outside. Willie Nelson is okay, but I like Bach better. The rodeo is fun, but I'd like to see a good play instead sometimes. See what I mean," I concluded. "Sometimes I feel like a square peg in a round hole... you know, out of place."
Fred shifted his grip on the shovel and mopped his brow. I allowed him time to digest the meaning of my words. Finally, he looked up blankly and said, "Howzat?"
I looked deep into his eyes. There wasn't anybody home. I spit. "Hot out, ain't it?" I said.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Monday, June 8, 2015
A Blast from the Past
It's been a while since I posted on this site. Okay... it's been a YEAR since I posted. I've been busy. I've been writing. Just recently I ran across a set of column articles I wrote (and never published) entitled "The Square Peg" while I was living in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana in the early 1980s. Somehow, a lot of them still seem relevant today, so I thought I'd share them with you. I'll try to post a couple each week. Here's the first one. I'm sure some of you out there can relate.
A REAL JOB
Copyright S. Bradley Stoner
My brother came over last week. My brother is a lawyer. He makes good money. His wife is a lawyer. She makes good money. Together, they make REALLY good money. I am a writer. I don't make really good money. A lot of the time, I don't even make good money. That's how it is sometimes. I don't mind it. They do. "Dale" (not his real name) keeps asking me when I'm going to get a REAL job. My sister-in-law hopes I find my niche.
"What have you been doing?" was Dale's first question.
"Working," I responded. I told him how I had put in a minimum of twelve hours a day for the past month. Sometimes fifteen or sixteen. And that's on top of trying to keep up the thirty acres, feeding the animals, and building an office to work in. He folded his arms, frowned, and harrumphed. I didn't take it personally. Lawyers do that a lot.
"Where are you working?"
"Right here. I'm writing"
He scowled. Lawyers do that a lot too. "Are you making any money?" I was afraid to answer. He took that to mean exactly what it did. "What you need, he said, "is a real job."
He isn't the only one. I get strange looks from almost everybody when I tell them what I do. Some think I'm crazy. Some don't believe it. Some just look at me for a moment then break into paroxysms of laughter. I couldn't figure out why one particular neighbor of mine kept looking at me like I'd lost my mind. I stopped by his house yesterday and understood immediately. He had one book in his house. It's on the coffee table and it has no more than two hundred words of text. Nice pictures, though.
He has a real job. He makes good money too. He keeps offering to "have a word with the foreman" so I also can have an honest to God REAL job. I said, "No thanks." It's not that I'd mind the money, but every time I see him, I get the willies. He works at the sawmill. He credits the mill with all he has today. He has one eye that wanders off on its own ever since he got hit in the noggin with a block and tackle. He's missing three fingers and his left big toe because he "got a little friendly with the trim saw." He has a back that won't bend because it got smacked by a runaway log. He has insurance. It's a good thing.
I got a call from a friend in Chicago just the other day. After all the preliminaries, he asked me what I was doing. I thought fast. I thought about telling the whole, naked truth and decided I'd better not. I didn't need any more advice. I told him I was keeping busy working my ranch. What with the animals and all, it kept me pretty doggone busy. I was trying my best to sound like a REAL rancher.
"I thought you were writing," he said.
I broke down and confessed. I told it all. I told about the novel. I told about the features. I told about the fillers. When I paused for breath, he said, "When are you going to get a REAL job?"
-End-
A REAL JOB
Copyright S. Bradley Stoner
My brother came over last week. My brother is a lawyer. He makes good money. His wife is a lawyer. She makes good money. Together, they make REALLY good money. I am a writer. I don't make really good money. A lot of the time, I don't even make good money. That's how it is sometimes. I don't mind it. They do. "Dale" (not his real name) keeps asking me when I'm going to get a REAL job. My sister-in-law hopes I find my niche.
"What have you been doing?" was Dale's first question.
"Working," I responded. I told him how I had put in a minimum of twelve hours a day for the past month. Sometimes fifteen or sixteen. And that's on top of trying to keep up the thirty acres, feeding the animals, and building an office to work in. He folded his arms, frowned, and harrumphed. I didn't take it personally. Lawyers do that a lot.
"Where are you working?"
"Right here. I'm writing"
He scowled. Lawyers do that a lot too. "Are you making any money?" I was afraid to answer. He took that to mean exactly what it did. "What you need, he said, "is a real job."
He isn't the only one. I get strange looks from almost everybody when I tell them what I do. Some think I'm crazy. Some don't believe it. Some just look at me for a moment then break into paroxysms of laughter. I couldn't figure out why one particular neighbor of mine kept looking at me like I'd lost my mind. I stopped by his house yesterday and understood immediately. He had one book in his house. It's on the coffee table and it has no more than two hundred words of text. Nice pictures, though.
He has a real job. He makes good money too. He keeps offering to "have a word with the foreman" so I also can have an honest to God REAL job. I said, "No thanks." It's not that I'd mind the money, but every time I see him, I get the willies. He works at the sawmill. He credits the mill with all he has today. He has one eye that wanders off on its own ever since he got hit in the noggin with a block and tackle. He's missing three fingers and his left big toe because he "got a little friendly with the trim saw." He has a back that won't bend because it got smacked by a runaway log. He has insurance. It's a good thing.
I got a call from a friend in Chicago just the other day. After all the preliminaries, he asked me what I was doing. I thought fast. I thought about telling the whole, naked truth and decided I'd better not. I didn't need any more advice. I told him I was keeping busy working my ranch. What with the animals and all, it kept me pretty doggone busy. I was trying my best to sound like a REAL rancher.
"I thought you were writing," he said.
I broke down and confessed. I told it all. I told about the novel. I told about the features. I told about the fillers. When I paused for breath, he said, "When are you going to get a REAL job?"
-End-
Friday, June 6, 2014
Recharge those batteries!
Ah, sweet respite! I have taken a break from editing and writing for the past week. I did mundane things like mow the lawn, clean the garage, putter in the gardens, and (gasp) read a few books. It's been WONDERFUL! Don't get me wrong, I love to write, but when one writes day in and day out and edits others' writings, well let's face it, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I needed to play hooky for a while. Smell the roses... soak up some sunshine... go fishing... you know, stuff like that.
Taking a mini-vacation from any kind of work can recharge your batteries. And to be completely honest, my batteries were so low they were almost flat. To a writer that is deadly. Sure, you can still write... it's the discipline... but most of what you write with flat batteries is probably destined for the round file. It generally lacks punch and joie de vivre. There's nothing worse in my book than laboring over a passage half a day, only to look at it later and know that what you have produced is crap. It was time to quit wasting my time... time to "tiptoe through the tulips," as it were.
Sooo, I spent some time in the Texas out-of-doors. I talked to my furry and feathered friends that frequent my back yard. I have a pair of eastern cottontail rabbits that blithely ignore me as I wander about the yard doing whatever it is that needs to be done at the moment. One is an adult female, Babbit, and the other is still in bunny stage... about half the size of Babbit. But, bring out the mower and pffft! they are gone.
On our Texas sage one can often see Ruby-throated, Calliope, Black Chinned, and Broad-tailed hummingbirds vying for the nectar in the tiny crimson flowers that cover the bushes. That is when they're not fighting over the blooms on our Ceratonia (carob bush) in the front yard. A pair of Lesser Goldfinches have appropriated one of our small fountains as their personal bathing facility. The female particularly enjoys her "spa time," splashing about and sending water flying in all directions.
A mated pair of Mockingbirds has declared the backyard their domain as well. They are particularly drawn to our Pride of Houston bush that has already flowered and is producing tiny green berries that will turn orange when they ripen. This, of course, is why the Mockingbirds have staked their claim. It's their winter food supply, and woe unto that errant bird who tries to steal even one berry.
And then there's our cadre of bees and wasps that simply adore our Morning Glory bush. Yep, I said bush. It's from the Yucatan and it gets to be over twelve feet high before the end of the growing season. It just started producing the giant white bell-shaped flowers the little stingers find irresistible. The thing is, after visiting the plant, the little buzzers get downright mellow and fly funny. Now I know the Maya used the plant's sap as a poison for arrows and its root to extract a hallucinogen, and I'm starting to wonder if the bees and wasps weren't getting a bit of a different kind of buzz from the pollen.
Come to think of it, I'm feeling pretty mellow tonight. I think my batteries are nearing full recharge.
Taking a mini-vacation from any kind of work can recharge your batteries. And to be completely honest, my batteries were so low they were almost flat. To a writer that is deadly. Sure, you can still write... it's the discipline... but most of what you write with flat batteries is probably destined for the round file. It generally lacks punch and joie de vivre. There's nothing worse in my book than laboring over a passage half a day, only to look at it later and know that what you have produced is crap. It was time to quit wasting my time... time to "tiptoe through the tulips," as it were.
Sooo, I spent some time in the Texas out-of-doors. I talked to my furry and feathered friends that frequent my back yard. I have a pair of eastern cottontail rabbits that blithely ignore me as I wander about the yard doing whatever it is that needs to be done at the moment. One is an adult female, Babbit, and the other is still in bunny stage... about half the size of Babbit. But, bring out the mower and pffft! they are gone.
On our Texas sage one can often see Ruby-throated, Calliope, Black Chinned, and Broad-tailed hummingbirds vying for the nectar in the tiny crimson flowers that cover the bushes. That is when they're not fighting over the blooms on our Ceratonia (carob bush) in the front yard. A pair of Lesser Goldfinches have appropriated one of our small fountains as their personal bathing facility. The female particularly enjoys her "spa time," splashing about and sending water flying in all directions.
A mated pair of Mockingbirds has declared the backyard their domain as well. They are particularly drawn to our Pride of Houston bush that has already flowered and is producing tiny green berries that will turn orange when they ripen. This, of course, is why the Mockingbirds have staked their claim. It's their winter food supply, and woe unto that errant bird who tries to steal even one berry.
And then there's our cadre of bees and wasps that simply adore our Morning Glory bush. Yep, I said bush. It's from the Yucatan and it gets to be over twelve feet high before the end of the growing season. It just started producing the giant white bell-shaped flowers the little stingers find irresistible. The thing is, after visiting the plant, the little buzzers get downright mellow and fly funny. Now I know the Maya used the plant's sap as a poison for arrows and its root to extract a hallucinogen, and I'm starting to wonder if the bees and wasps weren't getting a bit of a different kind of buzz from the pollen.
Come to think of it, I'm feeling pretty mellow tonight. I think my batteries are nearing full recharge.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
I'm baaack!
I've been gone for a while. I suppose that's one of the hazards of being a writer and not a blogger. Ah well, such is the stuff of life. My last few months have been spent completing a work I co-authored under my given name with my friend and colleague, James Essig. It is a foray into the world of relativistic rocketry... extreme relativistic rocketry. It is, I suppose, a subject that will interest few, but those it does may well hold the hope for the long term destiny of man... or at least the hope for mankind's ultimate survival.
No, the end is not near. At least I hope it isn't... but eventually planet Earth will die. It could happen in any number of ways, but barring a major asteroid strike, a collapse of our magnetic field, or a comet smashing into us, Earth should be around for a few billion years yet. So, not a concern, right? For this, and a few generations to come, perhaps, but forward thinkers all agree that the best hope for the long term survival of our species lies in exploring the universe and finding habitable planets elsewhere. If we don't, then eventually humans will be toast... literally.
At some point in the future our sun is going to die. When stars die, they don't just go out like a light bulb... well, maybe like an incandescent one where its death is preceded by a last flash of energy. This will be caused by the rather sudden expansion of its outer layers as the sun's fuel is depleted. That will be accompanied by a contraction of the core. This is usually termed the "red giant" phase... and it will overtake the inner planets (remember we are the third rock from the sun) and fry them. If we're still here... well, adios amigo.
But that isn't the only reason people think about space and traveling the cosmos. There is something more basic, more primal in humans that drives us to look beyond ourselves and our confines. The urge to explore... to see what's over that next hill. The universe is a huge hill and we have not even scratched the surface. The stars you see every night may, or may not, actually be there. It takes their light millions, even billions of years to reach us, so what you are looking at in the night sky is the past.
In writing our previous book, The Cosmic Wanderer, we wanted to look at ways to achieve high, near the speed of light velocities, and high gamma factors - that's complicated, but basically it deals with something called the Lorentz Transformation - time dilation and length contraction. Basically, Hyperphysics. The book proposes multimodal rockets, specifically hexamodal rockets to achieve this, incorporating concepts such as solar sails, pellet runways, fusion drives, electromagnetic and electrodynamic drives (think rail gun), and so forth. Pause for breath...
In this book, we consider extreme configurations, including spacecraft built of theoretical bulk materials - those that are extremely dense - and some pretty exotic rocket fuels, like matter and antimatter (hey, even NASA is playing with that idea). The idea is to lay out some possible road maps on how to get from Earth orbit to billions of light-years distant in a very short time (from the spaceship's perspective). We take a tour of current and near term technologies, and then extrapolate to the possible. We discuss crew survivability and considerations for spaceship design. It's been quite a trip writing the book. Look for it on Amazon in both hard copy and Kindle sometime in the next month or so, and explore Cosmic Horizons with us, won't you?
No, the end is not near. At least I hope it isn't... but eventually planet Earth will die. It could happen in any number of ways, but barring a major asteroid strike, a collapse of our magnetic field, or a comet smashing into us, Earth should be around for a few billion years yet. So, not a concern, right? For this, and a few generations to come, perhaps, but forward thinkers all agree that the best hope for the long term survival of our species lies in exploring the universe and finding habitable planets elsewhere. If we don't, then eventually humans will be toast... literally.
At some point in the future our sun is going to die. When stars die, they don't just go out like a light bulb... well, maybe like an incandescent one where its death is preceded by a last flash of energy. This will be caused by the rather sudden expansion of its outer layers as the sun's fuel is depleted. That will be accompanied by a contraction of the core. This is usually termed the "red giant" phase... and it will overtake the inner planets (remember we are the third rock from the sun) and fry them. If we're still here... well, adios amigo.
But that isn't the only reason people think about space and traveling the cosmos. There is something more basic, more primal in humans that drives us to look beyond ourselves and our confines. The urge to explore... to see what's over that next hill. The universe is a huge hill and we have not even scratched the surface. The stars you see every night may, or may not, actually be there. It takes their light millions, even billions of years to reach us, so what you are looking at in the night sky is the past.
In writing our previous book, The Cosmic Wanderer, we wanted to look at ways to achieve high, near the speed of light velocities, and high gamma factors - that's complicated, but basically it deals with something called the Lorentz Transformation - time dilation and length contraction. Basically, Hyperphysics. The book proposes multimodal rockets, specifically hexamodal rockets to achieve this, incorporating concepts such as solar sails, pellet runways, fusion drives, electromagnetic and electrodynamic drives (think rail gun), and so forth. Pause for breath...
In this book, we consider extreme configurations, including spacecraft built of theoretical bulk materials - those that are extremely dense - and some pretty exotic rocket fuels, like matter and antimatter (hey, even NASA is playing with that idea). The idea is to lay out some possible road maps on how to get from Earth orbit to billions of light-years distant in a very short time (from the spaceship's perspective). We take a tour of current and near term technologies, and then extrapolate to the possible. We discuss crew survivability and considerations for spaceship design. It's been quite a trip writing the book. Look for it on Amazon in both hard copy and Kindle sometime in the next month or so, and explore Cosmic Horizons with us, won't you?
Friday, April 4, 2014
Beau's Dragon Now Available In Kindle Format
I'd like to announce that Beau's Dragon is now available in Kindle version for $3.95 on Amazon. Just go to: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JAXJ18A/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_WJUptb15EAW2R to get your copy. If you would like a personalized autograph, you can request one through Authorgraph - https://www.authorgraph.com/ and entering S. Bradley Stoner in the author search,or by visiting my Facebook page and clicking on the Authorgraph link there - https://www.facebook.com/SBradleyStoner?ref=hl.
The print version is also available and makes a great gift for the little "imaginator" in your family or friends circles.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
The Business Side of Writing
Writing is a joy. The
business of writing can be a pain in the you know what. I’m not talking about
giving interviews or doing book signings. I’m talking about the nitty gritty
aspects of the business side of the enterprise. Marketing, calculating the
costs of doing business, accounting, and... shudder... taxes. I’m going to
leave marketing for another blog... maybe. There are probably others more
qualified to talk about that than am I. I’m going to talk about the housekeeping side of business. Cost accounting, pricing, Profit and Loss
(known in the business world as P&L), bookkeeping, and the good old IRS
reporting. Let’s talk bookkeeping first.
There are fundamental aspects of business accounting that figure into the actual cost of doing business (aka CODB). A good accounting software or an accounting ledger (if you are old-fashioned) is essential to tracing income and expenses. Tracking is how you calculate your CODB, your P&L, and, ultimately whether you have a business, an avocation, or a hobby. If you aren’t making money after five years, it’s an avocation or hobby. Ask the IRS. The good news is that, with a home-based business, you can keep your costs and overhead down. That means you have a better rate of return on your investment (ROI). The bad news is, most novice writers have no sense of the business of writing, they don’t track costs against sales. A lot of novice writers would be shocked to find out that the article they were paid $50.00 for cost them $75.00 to get published, or the e-book that sold 600 copies on Amazon for $2.99 per that generated a total royalty revenue of $630, cost $700.00 to produce. That’s where good bookkeeping comes in, and that is a big part of business housekeeping.
As a former COO, I have a pretty good accounting breakout for the business of writing. The income side of the ledger is pretty straight forward... it’s what you get paid for your writing, speaking engagements, and so forth. It’s the cost side of the ledger that is the sticky wicket. Let me share the basics of that side. It consists of Direct Costs and Indirect Costs. I’ll break mine out for you... maybe it will help, but in the words of an old friend of mine, at least “it couldn’t hoit.”
·
Direct costs - these are the costs directly
attributable to the production of the final product. Usually I will assign an alpha-numeric
project number to these... it can be based on a book project (e.g. FOM6, FOM
for the title - Fishing and Other Misadventures - and 5 for the sequence in
books I have written). Where an overhead number applies to a specific project,
I will use number in conjunction with the project number (e.g., 0740-FOM6
designates postage costs specific to that book).
- DL Direct Labor (project specific - if you pay yourself an hourly rate as a function of your business enterprise)
- DM Direct Materials
- Office supplies (project specific)
- Software (project specific)
- DT Direct Travel
- Airline/Train tickets
- Auto rental/cab fare
- Lodging and meals and incidental expenses (M&IE)
- ODC Other Direct Costs
- Mailing costs (USPS, UPS, FedEx)
- Copies
- Advertising (as applied to a single book - general advertising is an overhead cost)
- DE Direct Equipment
- Hardware (computers, external storage devices, printers, monitors, etc.)
- DS Direct Subcontractors
- Cover design (single book - this may or may not be included in Illustrator cost)
- Illustrator (attributable to single book and paid only, not collaborator)
- Printer (this includes printing services like CreateSpace)
- Publicist/marketer (can be outside service or paid family member)
- Web site developer (for a single book - general author’s website development and maintenance is an overhead cost)
·
Indirect costs - these are the things that may
or may not be specifically attributable to a specific product. Many of these can be calculated into a
general overhead rate and applied to each book for a per book P&L
statement. Below the list of indirect costs I use in my business calculations.
- 0701 OH Labor (general business development, not directly attributable to a project)
- 0702 Home Office Space (calculated as a % of total living area of your home)
- 0703 Rent Office or Storage Space (off-site - this includes occasional rental of an executive suite for meetings away from your home and any storage unit dedicated to your business)
- 0710 Utilities (electric, gas, water bill calculated as a % = Home Office Space)
- 0719 Facility Repair & Maintenance (for home office space only)
- 0730 Telephone Costs (hard line, cellular, hardware)
- 0732 Repair and Maintenance/General Equipment
- 0740 Postage (includes postage machine costs and repair if used)
- 0741 Delivery & Freight (outside couriers, FedEx, UPS, etc.)
- 0744 Copiers: Supplies and Papers (this can apply to your all-in-one printer)
- 0745 Copiers: Repairs & Maintenance (this can apply to your all-in-one printer)
- 0746 Copiers: Rentals and Leasing Costs (some home businesses use these services)
- 0747 Outside Printing (copy costs, photos, business cards, etc.)
- 0748 Publications and Subscriptions (professionally related only)
- 0753 PC Software Purchase
- 0754 PC Hardware Purchase
- 0756 PC Supplies
- 0757 PC Repair and Maintenance
- 0760 Office Supplies
- 0761 Small Furniture and Equipment Purchases
- 0762 Furniture & Equipment (rentals and leases)
- 0764 Equipment Purchases (this can include things like camera equipment)
- 0766 General Field Supplies (e.g., if you do outdoor writing this can include any expendables used)
- 0770 Consultant Services (general, including accounting service, tax service, business management, general publicist, author’s website designer, etc.)
- 0771 Business Conferences (these can be conferences you attend to promote your work, book trade shows, writing conferences, even conferences like ComicCon, etc.)
- 0772 Training & Seminars
- 0773 Professional Dues & Conference Fees (Writer’s organizations memberships, conference booth fees, etc.)
- 0781 Recruiting: Interview Costs (applies to non-contract assistants both full and part time)
- 0782 Recruiting: Advertising Costs (see above)
- 0784 Employee Local Travel (this is work-related local travel to research, attend book signings, interviews, etc.)
- 0788 Fees & Licenses (this includes business licenses if required, and can include things like hunting and fishing licenses if they are necessary to your work)
- 0792 Health & Safety Expenses (can include portion of insurance applicable to your business - this one can be a little dicey for newbies - research before applying it)
Whether you are a new or experienced writer, keeping a good
set of books will stand you in good stead, and it will help you determine profit
or loss, itemize deductions, and generally keep you out of trouble with the
IRS. It’s a good idea to start a good set of books early in your career. It
forms good habits and it is a lot easier to do it at the outset than wait until
you have a file drawer full of receipts to figure it out. Another good practice
is to scan all of your receipts and catalog them appropriately, as well as keep
expense reports for travel by trip in an electronic filing system by year.
So there you have it. Maybe this will help some of you. I
hope so. It beats learning it in the school of hard knocks. Feel free to copy
the indirects if you like, just bear in mind the numbering system isn’t set in
stone. You can make your own, or your software may generate numbers for them.
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.
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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