Friday, September 28, 2007

Alex Marcase

Well he was right. Those old scans Conner brought us -- the ones his father had been carrying around for so many years -- really did show an M-Class planet. We're here now, taking samples and running tests. So far so good, but I'm not ready to sign off on it just yet.

You know the old saying - if it looks too good to be true? Well right now, this place looks too good, know what I mean? There's got to be a snake in this garden somewhere.

Evan thinks I’m jealous.

Says that I've spent my entire career exploring the galaxy, never once happened upon a planet suitable for human colonization, then along comes this kid with some old, faded scans his dad bought off some geezer who knows how long ago, points to one planet out of precious few in this expanse of black, and gets lucky.

Well before you go making any more out of this than it is, believe me when I tell you that's all it was - luck.

Do you know the chances of finding a M-Class planet in a galaxy of millions, with the perfect blend of oxygen and nitrogen, potable water in plentiful supply, soil that can grow crops, weather patterns and temperatures humans can tolerate and a relatively low predator population?

Pretty damn slim.

The fact that we have Earth is miracle enough, but you tack on the twelve other worlds and moons humans have colonized over the centuries, and the odds of ever finding another go down significantly. I don't buy into that idea that if thirteen exist, that means they're plentiful, crap.

Not when me, my crew and countless other explorers have spent entire careers looking for them with no luck.

So the idea that this kid could come along and-- I mean, in his first try make a find like-- To think it's really that easy just makes me wanna . . .

Fuck.

All right, so I'm jealous.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Confessions of a Cereal Spiller

Remember Boo Radely, in To Kill a Mockingbird? That house he lived in, on the corner - the one they stayed away from because crazy people lived there - - Every neighborhood has one. They're typically on the corner, sometimes a woman lives there with several cats. You know the ones.

I've just discovered how those places come to be.

See, my house is on a corner lot. It's a cute little house, with an old, decorative metal fence all around. On the left, along the road, there's a tall, thick hedge running the entire length of the property, giving me privacy on that side. In the back, an alley runs down linking that side road to another side road at the end of the block. That's how I get to my garage, which isn't attached to the house. On my right are two houses, they're rentals that butt-up against each other, so that one house has it's front on our front, and the other house's front is at our rear. I have a really nice, tall wood fence between me and them.

Out front, my house sits back from the road, so there's a nice paved walkway from the front porch out to the street. There you exit through an old metal gate and you're standing on what is considered my driveway. This gravel strip runs the length of the street, and it's where residents park their cars if they don't have a driveway or garage out front.

My mailbox is there.

I have the coolest system ! When I get off work, I drive home, arriving there just after 4pm. If I take this one route it brings me to the front of the house, where I can drive up to my mailbox, open my window, get the key, and get my mail without even turning off the car. Then I drive around on the other road, enter the alley and drive into my garage. That way I get the mail every day, no muss, no fuss, park in the garage and walk to the house using the back door to the mud room.

School's in.

Cue ominous music.

That would mean nothing to me, being without children, if it weren't for Polly Purewater and her Gaggle of Mom's who PARK RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE to pick up little Johnny No-Good and Pollyanna-Sue as the school bus disgorges them.

Yeah, that's right. This school bus, the one that stops on EVERY BLOCK to dump kids out so the brats have no more than a 30-foot walk from drop-off to front-door, stops directly in front of my house.

Okay, I can deal with that. Once a day, during the school year, this behemoth of smoke and noise stops in front of my house, blocking out the sun and the mailman, sits there for a few minutes, then trudges down the road. Once or twice it has arrived as I'm sitting there in my car pulling the mail out of the box, blocking me, the daylight and most of the oxygen in the County, forcing me to wait until it pulls away.

What I can't deal with are Polly Purewater and her Gaggle of Mom's ! They sit there, usually for a good 15 minutes in their butt-ugly sedans, blocking my front walkway, blocking my mailbox, blocking my gate - making it IMPOSSIBLE for me to pull up and get the mail - let alone park in what is technically my driveway, or enter my property via the gate!

And you know what's worse? They litter.

It's not bad enough that when I'm weed-wacking the outside of the hedge so my neighbors don't have to stare at lawn flowers growing in a swatch of lawn I can't see - I'm also picking up beer cans and empty cigarette packages. NOW I get the added bonus of picking up after Polly Purewater and her Gaggle of Mom's as they toss their water bottles, granola bar wrappers and 100-calorie packages all over the front of my property !

I've asked them to stop. (i've considered all manner of other methods - including but not limited to: spike strips, broken glass and a pit-bull)

I've asked them to please park and wait for the little shits on the other road, a mere 10 feet away, so they'd be on the other side of the hedge and at least not blocking my house.

I've asked them to please, for the love of Nature itself, take their trash with them when Johnny Jr. and Pollyanna-Sue get off the bus. My garbage can gets set out in the alley, so it's not up front for them to even take advantage of.

Do they?

Nope.

And you know what really kills me? The part that's gonna be the straw required to break this camel's back?

You know the part that will be written out in black ink and bad physician handwriting on that form they show the judge when they're locking me away?

You wanna know what it is?

Mommy-dearest drives her little shitzus one block.

Only one block.

Yeah, you heard me right.

One.

Block.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Greeks and Agents, lend me your - whatever.

Who was that guy in mythology - the one who had to keep pushing that rock up the mountain, only to have it roll back down to the bottom again, forcing him to start over for eternity?

Sisyphus, yeah, that guy.

Sometimes writing feels like that. Well maybe not writing, exactly, but the act of trying/hoping/struggling/failing/trying to get published, does. It ain't easy, we know that. And frankly if it were, we'd be less inclined to try and do it. That's plain and simple human fact. Not only do we strive to do something, we'll complain that it's awfully hard, that all the cards are stacked against us and that there's really no hope at all - but we know that once we get there, we'll have joined a somewhat elite group and be glad for the fact that, in all honesty, monkey's really can't do this.

No matter how many typewriters you give them.

Would we want it any other way? No, not really. Well, maybe, sure. Yeah.

No.

What we really mean to say is, we want it to hurry up and happen to US, so we can say we finally made it. Like climbing a mountain - for those of us in not-such-great-shape, we'd love to say we climbed that mountain if we could somehow skip all the hard bits where sweat, hard work and some vomiting might occur. Then we'd belong to that knee-toe group of people who can climb mountains. As if that will lend us the respect we've always dreamed of having. (which is an entire blog-post in and of itself, one of these days) ie: Yes, I'm nuts.

I was going to rant in this post about all the cards that are stacked up against us as would-be published writers. The agencies who barely have time to read sentence #1 of your query, let alone a page or three of your manuscript. The big-name publishers who join up with Vanity publishing companies to gain kick-backs of the writers they reject (I'll let bigger brains explain this one - click my linkie-poo to Writer Beware for details). The endless waits of 6-12 months to hear back from partials, knowing that after such a long wait, it's still more than likely going to be a No.

It's bad enough most of us are writing these novels in our spare time - somewhere between the day job that pays the bills, the family, the obligations, the need for food and sleep (if not exercise) and the demands of friends/family/SO's who have no respect or understanding of what you're trying so hard to do.

Oh look, it did just become a rant about how hard this is.

Still, I'm betting there isn't one single one of "us" who made it then looked back thinking "if only it were easier for everyone else." Nah. You don't win Gold in the Olympics and think to yourself "if only it were easier for everyone to win a Gold." What good would your Gold be then? Would it thrill you as much to see your book published, if everyone on your street, in your town, in your entire family - had the same thing happen? Would it matter that your novel was high quality fiction, and everyone else's were rambling incoherent shopping lists?

Would you feel pride, or accomplishment, if you'd just done something that apparently anyone can do?

Which will bring me to the next post later this week: Just who are you trying to impress?

Friday, September 21, 2007

Stephen Cray

Call me Stephen. I am -- rather, I was -- a grad student working on a doctorate in Planetary Biology and Life Science, before the plague changed all that. I still consider myself Professor Collins' assistant. But the university was hit with the disease while we were away, and no one's opened it back up again. I'm not sure any of the higher learning establishments are back up and running just yet.

Where you there? I was. Nick was at the University of Helios giving a guest lecture. He'd sent me to Denton City to pick up some equipment we'd ordered. It happened pretty fast. I was walking from the hotel to the warehouse and people were standing around, coughing and being ill. One minute they were going to work to start their day, the next minute they're passing out on the sidewalks and streets.

Just dropping there, like they'd been hit.

It was chaotic for a bit. Some fell ill more slowly, others were practically dying on their feet. It was happening all around me, but I was one of the lucky ones.

I was -- am -- immune.

Helios was the fifth planet to get hit by this, so by the time we understood what was happening they quarantined the whole planet. Everyone had to stay where they were, no leaving the cities. It was a death sentence for many, but it saved thousands. The University wasn't hit at all, so Nick was safe there. Those of us who were immune had to help enforce the quarantines.

Some survived. I think about ten percent of those who fell ill lived through it. And if you weren't exposed, within days of the first discovery the threat was over.

Billions died overall, if you combine the planets, but on Helios there were about three million deaths. Denton City was wiped out. When the quarantines were lifted, there were fifty three of us still alive.

I never wanted to come back here again, but we're about to land right now. Nick thought we should help the raiding party, make sure they found the equipment we needed and wanted. This is going to be our only chance to get supplies for the new planet, and if we're going to be stuck there the rest of our lives, we have to make the most of this trip.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, yet. Not the stealing, I don't mind that. There's no one left there to need this stuff. But everything's different now. Everyone's plans got changed. Everyone's lives and ideals altered.

We're all missing who we were, and slowly becoming someone else.

Monday, September 17, 2007

The Tower of Doom

So yeah, got the bedroom painted (again) this past weekend. Did it right this time - proper color, sans clothing.

Friday night I cleared out the contents of the room, stacking dresser drawers on top of each other on this ottoman in the living room, then sliding the dresser out to the dining room. All the other furniture too, everything went.

Got the room primed Friday night, then put my mattress down in the living room so I could sleep there - I knew the cats would sleep with me because anything new is funky, right?

And yeah, as I was stacking these dresser drawers on top of that ottoman, I knew it was a bad idea. The whole stack reached up pretty high, and it wasn't as stable as it could have been - but I figured it was too high for the cats to get on top of, and there were plenty of other fun things in strange places to keep them entertained. Right?

Wrong.

I wake up sometime around 2:00 a.m. to a strange sound, look up (I'm on the living room floor, remember) and I see Secret standing on the top of the stack. Not only is he on the top of what I've termed the Tower of Doom, but he's lookin' to go higher and trying to reach out to the top of the cabinet that hides the TV.

I'm flippin' out, but his brother, Rumor, is holding me down - lying on my legs so I can't get untangled from the blankets and get up. I finally did, and got Secret down, but then Rumor wanted to try it.

Needless to say, I got little sleep. My boys were fascinated with the Tower of Doom all night long, since I had no where else to put these drawers and by now the whole living room is so crowded with stuff, it's all I can do to pull one of them off the Tower while the other climbs up the opposite side.

At least they had a good time.

And now I have a room I no longer call the Bat Cave. My clothes remained clean (since I didn't wear them) and there's no more Tower of Doom for my boys to play on.

Now I suppose I should go write some words, eh?

Friday, September 14, 2007

Conner Bishop

Oh, hey, how ya doin'? Listen, you're not gonna believe what just happened! We just had the Big Meeting -- you know, with the ship captains and everyone in charge of this mass exodus -- and Captain Marcase was there. He even shook my hand! He's not as old as I expected.

Anyway, I had these scans that my father used to carry around with him. See, back in the day, my father wanted to be an explorer, only he never got around to actually doing it. But he found these scans somewhere, I think he bought them off a guy, and all my life I remember him carrying them around. If you gave him half a chance, he'd bend your ear for hours about the unclaimed planets out in the black.

So when I heard we were all getting ready to bug outta here, but no one found a planet yet, I figured what the hell? Dad always swore there were good planets in those scans, and I was pretty sure no one had tried looking in that quadrant.

Professor Collins said I should go ahead and show Captain Marcase the scans, but Stephen didn't think I'd have the nerve. And I almost didn't. People usually think I'm too young to know what I'm talkin' about, and I've been called compulsive and maybe a little hyper by those who know me. But I figured Captain Marcase didn't know that. He only just met me, and seemed like a nice enough guy. And he actually took my scans seriously. Or, dad's scans.

Evan scared the shit outta me, though! I knew he'd be there, but I'd never met one before and man, it took all I had to keep cool about it.

Oh, but anyway, we're leaving, did I tell you? The war started, and they figure it's only a matter of time, probably hours, before Threshold is taken, so we're loading up right now. I'm a little freaked, to be honest. The Professor, Stephen and I are assigned to ride on the Ascalon, which means we have to go with that ship to Helio first to steal supplies.

Me. Planetary Biology student Conner Bishop, stealing.

And I don't mean slipping money out of some old lady's purse. We're taking equipment! Huge, friggin' machines, crates and crates of crop starters, and buildings. Friggin' buildings! I can't even figure out how this is gonna go down, loading buildings onto a ship in orbit.

I dunno if they'll have us help or not. But I guess I'll find out soon enough!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Oops! I did it again.

Well, not yet. Tonight after work I'm running to Lowes to buy paint. Again.

Yeppers - that color I put in my room is just way too dark. And it's not just a matter of getting used to a grown-up look, it's just dark. The color was called Country Path - I figure that's fancy talk for Dirt.

It's the friggin' bat-cave! And what gets me is the fact that I should have known better. I'm drawn to darker things, like dark wood picture frames, dark clay yixing teapots, lovely brown suede curtains and comforters . . . well you can't paint a room dark then accent it with the same dark color palette. And I know that. So what I was thinking when I painted that room is beyond me.

So I have a new color - Desert Sand. Much lighter, still very mature-looking. And yeah, this time I'm gonna have to get the primer tinted, to cover over all that dirt that is Country Path.

Tonight I'll get the paint, some painting supplies, then tomorrow after work I'll clear out the room and hopefully have the stamina to apply the primer. Then Saturday it's painting, followed by returning the room to its full glory.

I look at it this way -- In order to form a proper Theory, you have to be able to first test said theory and examine the results, THEN that test has to be repeatable, with the same results.

Which means I'm painting in the nude again, to see if I can stay clean.