Winter. Snow on the ground. Winter for sure.
Status Report 2022-01-10
It’s been snowing here. Not a lot, but some. It’s snowing right now, in fact.
I live just above the snow line, which is very odd, as you can see a strip land on the hills everywhere around here where it’s green below and white above. Yesterday’s didn’t settle, but it has overnight. Hoping it’s not another year like last year, where it lingered for months. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like snow, but when it turns to slush then black ice, well me and snow have big problems.
This week’s title comes from the spoken intro bits from this, one of my top three Morrissey/Smiths songs from his solo debut before he went mental:
Last Week
My main focus last week was writing the first big chunk of SECRET SCI-FI PROJECT, and then editing what I’d done. The going was much slower than with crime books, which is interesting and helps me plan for more of it. I had an outline, obviously, but it turned out to be a very sketchy outline at best. The character stuff is pretty good and I’ve discovered more about them as I’ve written the book, beefing up the relationships and tensions between the cast.
But the physics…
Man. Where the outline failed big time is in the reality of spaceflight. I had a sort of vague notion about what happens when you enter an orbit, but when I looked into it, I discovered so much more. I assumed it’d be pretty easy to, but I was wrong. Turns out there’s many ways of doing it, so I chose the Aerocapture method, which involves using the atmosphere of your destination planet to slow you down by converting the kinetic energy into heat, much like during re-entry to Earth, e.g. at the end of MOONRAKER (ha!). And this gave me a couple of solid story ideas, which I really liked and added tension. But I wanted to know what it’d feel like for an astronaut on the ship, the sensations they’d go through, which is way beyond my ken. Luckily, one of my best pals (Katerina Diamond, check out her books) has a son who graduated with a Physics degree in the summer and he’s been awesome at answering questions. Huge thanks to Oliver for that.
Cullen doesn’t have to deal with that nonsense!
The reality is that I’m actually really quite enjoying doing that research, it’s making me focus in a different way and is keeping me on my toes. Anyway, I’ve managed to write over 12,000 words, which I’m pleased with. It’s not going to be the longest book I’ve one, for reasons that’ll come clear, but it’s not going to be very short, either.
A few weeks ago, I downloaded a notes app called Obsidian, tried it and deleted it. Then I listened to a podcast where someone described what it actually did. It’s a personal wiki, so you can sit it on top of a set of documents and link between them for your very own wikipedia. So I’ve populated a “vault” (these crazy apps and their crazy names) for SECRET SCI-FI PROJECT and its many novels, including characters, locations, ships, etc. Very interesting and gets me thinking about stuff in a different way. I’ve got another tool that’ll help me populate something for my crime books, which is a massive, sprawling nest of vipers and completely out of control! A few days spent getting that house in some semblance of order will be time well spent.
Speaking of crime, I’ve had that weird thing where once I’ve committed to an idea and a plan of attack, my commitment can wane. There’s nothing like kicking the tyres on something to see how you really feel. So, I’m sad to say that Hunter 4 won’t be happening, at least not this year or any time soon (read: never). But Dodds 5 will be. Basically, that series has got some momentum from the efforts I’ve put in over the last two years and is doing pretty well, so I should double down on that. Hunter feels like going backwards in a way. This all started when I had an inkling that I should do another Dodds, but the story idea seemed to fit Hunter so I honestly thought that would work, but the more I think about it and look at the data, the more I see it’s better to commit to one series and keep that fresh.
Sorry, Craig, but Vicky Dodds will return in THE GUILTY at some point this year. I’m actually excited for it and have got a book blurb and everything!
You might recognise this cover from the draft of the Hunter prequel I’ve abandoned. Nobody’s peeing in the street this time. Ahem. I might refresh the Dodds book cover this year to match that style.
Also, I’ve done audiobooks of the first three and am just about to kick off the project for book 4. I’m aiming to get book 5 live at the same time as the ebook and paperback. Having some issues transferring the books over to Audible from the previous distributor, but that’ll hopefully be resolved soon.
And I hope you enjoy seeing my thoughts develop across the weeks and months. This is typically how I want to work nowadays. I heard someone talk about “running downhill” all the time, that sensation that you’re not planning, you’re just doing, so this last few months has been me trying to stop doing that and to focus my attentions more appropriately.
This Week
Well, I feel I’ve got a bit of a head of steam up with SECRET SCI-FI PROJECT, so I’ll be head down, thumbs up with that until I finish.
Got some notes back on LOST CAUSE, so I need to get back to that and think through what I want to do with it.
Have a good one!
Cheers,
Ed