To Seed Or Not To Seed...

Having decided on a civilization having reached a level 1 status and striving for a level 2 for  the novel, PLANET, places the setting for my novel well into the future (as much as a 1000 years), but I think any less of a future technological capability by humans would make our plot untenable. Humans have to be capable of saving themselves to make it work. Anything less would be disastrous for a hard sci-fi tale!

How to populate our new Twin Earth? First we have to “seed” it. My inhabitants of PLANET are scrambling to evacuate their home planet on a great Diaspora just behind an army of unleashed von Neumann probes, those self-replicating robots that are “seeding” the galaxy with terraform, which is, changing the new chosen planet’s surface and climate to be like Earths.

Researching von Neumann probes was an intriguing journey. These amazing machines would be able to move over interstellar or interplanetary distances and to utilize local materials to build new copies of itself. What a wonderful development for the purposes of our story! The best part of living at this time in history is that so many things are being imagined and placed at our fingertips. What do you think, is this a great time in history to be alive or not?

NEW EARTH

The need for an Earth-like planet is crucial to our story: name the new planet New Earth or Earth Twin?  Depending how far away such an Earth is from Old Earth, we need to find a way to send our humans there safely. Will all humans go? Will there be a lottery?

And maybe even more importantly, how far into the future should our story be set? I’ve decided  to utilize the Kardashev scale for categorizing civilizations, the scale that uses the ability of a civilization to harness energy as it determining factor, as a guide for PLANET. I think if humans see a comet the size of Titan coming towards them, they will very quickly get to work as a team and create what’s needed to escape certain death. So, what’s the lowest level that this escape is possible so that I can still understand, as a writer at this time in history, what is possible? I think we would be reaching for second tier of the third level of the Kardashev scale (harnessing the energy of their own star) to make this journey barely possible and yet plausible. Considering that between each civilization an energy factor of about ten billion separates them, you can see the need to consider this very carefully.

Earth is, at this moment in time, at a .7 of the first level, or a type 0 as we are only able to harness energy from fossil fuels. To reach a full Civilization 1, would require getting to the point we have the capability of harnessing  thousands, if not millions more of possible energies output from self-sustaining sources. How long will this take? Expediential increments make this formula difficult to calculate as humans think linearly, but some of the best writing I’ve had the pleasure of reading thinks we can reach this point in as little as a thousand years. Perhaps sooner if we have Comet Titan coming at us! Level 2 on the other hand is thousands, if not a million years away, though level 3, through the expediential effect, may happen only a thousand years past that. Of course, it’s all conjecture, but what fun to think of it, eh!

Imagine setting the story a thousand years into the future?! How would we have changed as a species? Would we still contain the essence of our humanness or would there be too many Dr. Spocks?

Enough questions for today!!! Please comment if you have the time.
*Back on Monday!

Armageddon

The Journey of PLANET:

PLANET is going to be a difficult journey for this writer. Perhaps this is why I have put it off for some time, because Armageddon is a hard topic for humans to face. With an ice comet from the Kuiper belt, directly inline to destroy Earth, all human inhabitants have been told they have to vacate Earth by their World government. The need has unleashed von Neumann probes, those self-replicating robots that are “seeding” the galaxy with terraform, which is, changing the new chosen planet’s surface and climate to be like Earths.

Logistic questions have arisen:

How will all the billions of Earth’s inhabitants leave? Could they go in digital data streams? Or on ships?

Is the Kardashev scale for categorizing civilizations a good choice? A three level advancement or a five level advancement?

Okay, I admit, that’s a very interesting part to be thinking about, and one I truly relish. I hope you will find a little time to follow me on this journey as I report back what I learn and how it all unfolds. I will mainly discuss the scientific and philosophical questions that arise for me, rather than excerpts from the actual book.

My first Book Launch

Just two months until my first book launches and I'm getting butterflies just thinking about it! Forever Man will be coming out July 2, 2012 as an e-book from Champagne Books. Wow! Never thought I'd get here.

I thought I'd add a photo of myself today taken at the time just before I began writing, Forever Man, as I like it because it was taken by my beloved husband, Don, which brings me to today's blog. Without the support of wonderful husbands, lovers, friends, and family an author would have a difficult journey indeed! Thanks to my wonderful, precious darling for being there for me. Don is my very own Forever Man!!! Xxxooo

Who has made your journey easier?

The Magic of Storytelling!

Why write and devour romance novels? Simple, it always ends happily. I’m a sucker for a happy ending as it makes everything right with my world. And the trial and tribulations along the way just add to the suspense of how will the author make it all work out? I’m fascinated by how many twists and turns one novel can contain. . .

And even though I know it’s going to work out in the end, still, I want to be caught up in the story so much that I’m uncertain on how it possibly could!? I love the magic of storytelling.
Opening a new book is so exciting. What journey does it contain...

Why do you write romances?

http://www.champagnebooks.com/

http://www.thewritersvineyard.com/

http://www.januarybain.ca/

The Vampire Minx Appears

The evening started out like every other evening. Then, just after sundown, which I’ve since discovered in Nome is around ten o’clock at night in late August; she walked in—a gorgeous black-haired woman with porcelain skin and dark glittering eyes that seemed old and intense at the same time. Wearing a too short, black-pleated skirt showing fabulous toned upper thighs, a tight white tee stretched across a full bosom and high stiletto heels she caused the entire bar to become silent as she provocatively shook her silky, waist-length head of hair back from her perfect oval face in the bar’s open doorway and then made her way deliberately and provocatively in a straight bee-line right up to Mike!
With a throaty, drop-dead sexy voice she spoke, as she placed one long, red-painted fingernail on Mike’s broad chest, “I hear you are hiring Mike Stone and I’m desperately looking for a night job.” The sexy voice was heavily tinged by an accent that I couldn’t place. And when I’m stressed, all extraneous thought connections just go flying out of my mind…
Mike looked alternatively concerned and flummoxed at the same time. I knew he needed more night help, but this woman?
“So, what do you say Mike Stone? Will you give me a go?” The woman pushed him a little more with the annoying red fingernail as she set her very red full lips at him in a knowing smile.
One of the more drunken regulars spoke up, “Hell, yes, Mike. Give the woman a chance!”
He looked decidedly uncomfortable and raked his hand through his hair.
“What’s the matter—she too much woman for you?” The friend of the man who had first given his opinion added a low blow. I didn’t like where this was headed.
“Okay.” Mike was obviously very reluctant to agree. “We’ll give you a trial. Have you had any experience working in a bar before, miss?”
The woman stretched like a black panther and purred, “I’ve had lots of experience. And my name is Katrianna—you can call me Kat for short.”
Crap, I was immediately pissed off. Couldn’t Mike see this woman was trouble with a capital K?
Care to comment?

The Power of Healing

This excerpt from Forever Man contains one of the biggest reasons I wrote this novel, I wanted the gift of healing that our heroine possesses.


While I waited for her to return I looked out the window, admiring the view of snow-peaked mountains when I heard the screeching of brakes and a thud, then realized someone had hit a dog with a half ton truck right in front of the restaurant. The driver, a young woman in obvious distress, jumped out and cradled the animal’s head in her lap. In an instant I turned and rushed for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

As I reached the woman she looked up at me with stark pleading in her eyes. “I didn’t see him! Please, I need help!”

Crouching down beside them, I carefully laid my hands on the whimpering dog. It looked like a husky, probably a sled dog. He or she was still breathing, but it was labored and loud. I could also see blood on its soft white fur. My heart instantly melted and reached out to the poor creature with its pain-filled, whiskey-brown eyes that seemed to beg me to do something. Despite the gut-wrenching plea, I felt helpless, sheer happenstance had brought this poor animal to this end and I had no power to save it from its fate.

Hesitantly, I reached my hands out and laid them on the poor dog’s head and its eyes seemed to tell me that it knew its fate. Tears flowed and the image of the dog blurred. I felt its pain as my own as I closed my eyes in sheer anguish.

Please God, let this beautiful creature be okay. Suddenly, something came alive inside me like a dam bursting its banks, and a great tidal wave of energy flowed through me from my very core. It was so strong it made me shake and my legs, cramping in the crouch, almost gave way.
A surge of pure power seemed to drive through my hands into the dog as I concentrated my thoughts on it and then all I could see and feel was hot, white light surrounding me for a few brief incredibly thrilling seconds. The light blinded me, its power as strong as the noonday sun. A sense of pure aliveness electrified me, as if I was at the pinnacle of my strength and could rise up and fill the world with goodness and healing. Then, just as suddenly, the floodgates in my mind closed and the white hot energy retreated back into my hands that began to shake violently with the excess energy.

The sensation left as abruptly as it had come and I fell back exhausted from the effort. The dog whimpered, shook itself and sat up. It looked at the two of us as if nothing had happened, its brown eyes shining and its tail wagging as if it didn’t even remember the last few minutes of its life.

Forever Man Prologue

As our book opens, our heroine, Ellie Hightower, has arrived in Nome, Alaska looking for a fresh start. She meets up with the intriguing, Mike Stone, owner of Fast Eddie's. Little does she know what she’s about to encounter …

Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Prologue
Pure evil waited, hushed and cold in the perfect darkness. The steady drip, drip on the coffin lid above was soundless next to the crashing waves of the sea. But the creature within was aware and knew what the substance was: life-giving nourishment.

The blood was pooling, seeking a way into any tiny fissure that it could search out with thin hungry fingers. The resurrection was painstaking. Each life-giving drop dripped onto the needy beast which absorbed each molecule like a monstrous sponge as it built up, layer by layer. The vampire waited patiently—certain of its imminent resurrection.

After all, it had already waited centuries, what were a few more hours to recover what had been lost…

Prologues are tricky, I think. Do you use one regularly?

Forever Man’s Muse

A couple of years ago October (I remember it very clearly) a fierce urge to write a book overcame me. This wasn't my first try, but this was the first time I was going to give it my all. I had been watching the movie, The Green Mile, with Tom Hanks and it really spoke to me. I wanted to be a healer like the gentle giant that had that gift in the story. At the time I had just lost two dear brothers to cancer and I was grieving their loss. And so I lost myself and buried my grief in writing a novel about a gifted healer named Ellie Hightower.

As her journey unfolded I began to heal. I was the character and I could do what she did for long stretches of time. It was pure freedom and so a series was born, The Forever Series, which appears to be never ending.

What has caused you to write the stories you do?

Eclectic Muse

When my eclectic muse insisted on taking the paranormal route, I knew instinctively that the stories would include vampires. But which vampires and why?

If you could save someone, who would it be and why?

Well, the obvious choice is loved ones. But then, who next? So I went looking for important characters in history that would add something to this Earth if they were able to live forever. Some will be far less deserving of this honor, of course, because they create that all important story conflicts that keep the novels racing along.

It was an interesting journey and brought in some amazing characters from history, some altruistic, some not so much. Like Joan of Arc, (the) Anastasia, Dracula, Dr. Jonas Salk, Queen Isis, and Pharaoh kings.

Why do you choose the characters you do or do they choose you?

Finished for now

Finished the first draft of The Time Key one hour before my editor, the great Judy Griffith Gill, sent me Forever Woman for editing. (No time to be sad about finishing The Time Key and that is good timing!) The editing work has now been done on Forever Woman and I will place my efforts for the next number of days into polishing the third book in the Forever Series, Forever Clan.

I will now blog about the journey of writing the Forever Series and then continue with PLANET.

Thanks for reading!

Nearing Completion

74, 245 words.

As the first draft of The Time Key nears completion I feel somewhat sad that my characters are finishing their journey that I had the privilege to go on and document for them. If only it could go on forever. . .

Meet you on the other side

The two hero’s are now approaching the wormhole with extreme apprehension as they have no idea what awaits them on the other side.

I had an epiphany: My multi-universe story should have multiple endings. (Explains why I saw so many ways to go.) I am deeply thrilled about this development as I get to spend extra time telling this never ending story!

Timelines and reading aloud

Now at 64, 225 words. It's going well. Thinking about timelines and will the past mirror the future with the same amount of time passing at the same rate. This will affect the story. The question is swirling around my fevered brain today.

I read an excerpt (a chapter) to a classroom of grade 7 and 8 students. It was a surprisingly good experience. I chose one that contained many space-travel facts to engage the boys and some romance to engage the girls. I would certainly do that again!

Back to Earth?

Ah, my heroes are on their way back to Earth.

The only question remaining is will they make it back to their future lives or not? They've done all they can to try to prevent a time-split. Will it be enough? I hope to know soon...

What Jazlyn our heroine from The Time Key is thinking today

What my heroine is thinking about today:

Excerpt:

Jazlyn contemplated the enormous impact of such a discovery in the world. What else could now be changed? Now that information could be sent—albeit expensively—back to the past, would the outcome of wars be changed? Like every new invention there was a dark side, one that those involved in the creative process did not always gleam before it was let lose upon an unsuspecting public. She hesitated to mention this to Josh, preferring instead to consider the wonderful outcomes that this new astonishing technology that he had perfected could activate. Maybe it would help their limited civilization achieve a level one status and help them avoid the negative outcomes that so many of her fellow scientists worried about on a daily basis. It was assumed by most of her colleagues that the majority of the danger now felt on Earth would pass as that juncture. She was personally convinced that Earth’s inhabitants would make it to a level one civilization on the way to the full level three where everyone could safely leave for another galaxy when the Sun finally entered its death throes and most likely consumed Earth in fire. She was convinced because she had to be. She wanted to feel that future generations would evolve to the point that human beings would make it into infinity and beyond.

Falling Down a Wormhole and Dopplegangers

Time travel to the past has created a doppelganger in our story!

Justin Kennedy meets himself, we'll call him JJ. JJ is in far better shape that Justin as he has not under gone the tragedies that have befallen his older self.

Ah, Justin has just met up again with his wife, Angela, who is pregnant and will die in a plane crash in a few short weeks if he cannot stop it from happening. He is unwilling to worry her so he states that he came "back to the past" to share medical advances that will help everyone. Stay tuned, the characters are now in charge once more.

The split-in-time scenario has not occurred as yet as nothing had really changed the past yet, just effected it. But when, (or if) the past is changed, things will become problematic for everyone.

Moon Cruisings

Yesternight my 2 cosmic travelers began circling around a celestial body: the moon. They are looking for the wormhole left for them to find by a future (class 3) civilization. The excitement is building as I write these words and I wanted so to share the experience with fellow book lovers. I'm now holding on tight myself for the ride!

The Time Key stands at 44,769 words this morning. The chapter I wrote last week is the huge life-changing event of the first trip of the RX-8 Atlantis to the moon and the discovery of the Kennedy-Nasca wormhole. This is central to the story and sets off an amazing turn of events that will affect all the rest of the story. This week, the effects of "falling" down the wormhole will be disclosed one day at a time.

Great Books

I have been reading everything I could get my hands on about the physical realms of our amazing universe. After this wonderful journey I now highly recommend the following books:

(1) The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

(2) The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

(3) Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos by Michio Kaku

(4) In Search of the Multiverse by John Gribbins

(5) The Cosmos by Carl Sagan

(6) A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

I also thoroughly enjoyed the personal diary of an astronaut that went to the moon in the 1960's. A better understanding of spaceship travel with a rocket ship can only help my writing! It is titled Carrying the Fire.

The moon and other muses

Fabulous writing day. And especially for my lovers in the novel, The Time Key. They got to spend their weekend at The Plaza hotel in New York celebrating. Kind of envy them, though writing about it was also a good experience. I highly recommend writing as a way to escape the bonds of our Earth. There was a very pretty, full moon hanging in the western sky on our way to work (school) this morning. In all my books the moon always plays a key part.

Lovers and other muses

Our heroine, Jazlyn Martin, Jaz for short, and our hero, Will J. Hugh, have fallen deeply in love. This is a wonderful time for a writer because the characters take over completely in their desire and lust and drive the story to new heights!!! I've found this pair of lovers to be quite different from others I have known. They first met in a "mind-meld" where they explored and found each others brains to be very much to their liking before the lust hit. Perhaps because this is a pair of scientists who value intelligence and research above all things. At least until they met . . .

Duality

I have decided as a surprise twist to my story that will keep my main hero, Will J. Hugh, around to love another day! You will also get to find out what happens to our second tier hero, Justin Kennedy, who is the main driver behind the book being a time travel novel. He's travelling to the past to try to save his wife from dying in a plane crash. I won't give the dual-endings away but both parts will hopefully satisfy the reader.

The Theory of Everything

The Time Key stands at 32,000 words in six weeks.
I'm calling the transversable wormhole in the dark side of the moon Olympus 2, which seems appropriate considering that God-like events need to occur for our hero to make it through our wormhole intact.

So many things in space are counterintuitive which seems to fit my own reasoning rather well. The very nature of space should make no sense to a human on Earth, and yet great minds have figured it out, Einstein always coming to mind first. Also, still wondering about the Theory of Everything and when will it be discovered. My scientist hero in the story is the discoverer of this theory as the story is placed about 8 years in the future. Will Earth time keep up with imagined author time-line?

Computer cliches and deja vos

Very little time to write this past 24 hours as I got a brand new computer and the learning curve and setting everything up took all my attention. Hopefully, that part is completed now and I can get back to the business of writing, though I don't consider it a "business", but the way I keep my sanity!

I am wrestling with how the ending will unfold in my book. I'm considering a deja vos ending that loops back to the beginning, much like a closed time loop would do. Seems appropriate, it's just getting there in the best way that's challenging . . .

Characters and loss of control

As I stated yesterday, the characters in my novel now have the control! And it's becoming an even more exciting novel than I envisioned. This is what happens when preparedness meets opportunity. Things grow experientially and become so much more than their parts. I can hardly wait to see what else they have to teach me. I feel very blessed today, getting to take part in this journey.

Another thought:

Brian Greene was on Nova a couple of days ago discussing the "eternal inflation" theory of Alan Guth's for the universe. This theory says that new "Big Bangs" and new universes are popping up all the time! Hence multi-verses. This is quite different from the separate time-track approach my novel is taking where an event to the past creates a split in time, but very interesting nevertheless.
But if our hero from the novel gets inadvertently placed on a different time-track will he be able to find his love back in present day? Can I take that chance as a writer?

The RX-8 Rocket

What a great writing bonanza! 5000 plus words spilled out over the two days. The Time Key is now at 30,000 words in total. Things are really heating up and new possibilities are presenting themselves in unexpected ways which means the characters now have the control. In a matter of a few days there will be a test run of the RX-8 Atlantis rocket to the far side of the moon. Will the traversable wormhole be all the scientists have hoped for? This week should tell the tale. . .

Our incredible universe!

“You know what blows me away about our known universe. It’s how it’s so ideally suited for life as we know it. For example, if the protons in an atom were just 0.2 more massive than they actually are, they would be unstable and decay into smaller particles. Atoms would not exist and neither would we! If gravity were just slightly more powerful, the consequences would be nearly as grave. It would cause stars to run through their fuel at a fraction of the time and sputter out before life as we know it had a chance to evolve. In other words, the universe is life-friendly. Too many coincidences to be mere accidents according to many scientists.”

Multiverse

*Multiverse: Brian Greene's topic on Nova last evening got me to thinking. Will the separate time track that is created by the split in the past caused by backward time travel actually be a different multiverse instead? If each one is supposedly 'curled up', will a new one uncurl from this planned intervention/tinkering with the past? The show suggested that a vast number of these multiverses exist, perhaps peopled with exact replicas of you and I, but maybe a different outcome is in the range of possibilities? Opens an amazing set of opportunities for a writer. . .