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Crafting Generation Mars 3

I use Scrivener. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best fit I’ve found for my process. The ability to drag scenes and chapters around and to visualize the emerging manuscript in different ways is invaluable during development.

Much of its functionality could be handled with plain old files and folders, but that gets increasingly difficult for longer projects. Scrivener just gets more helpful as the project grows. 

Of particular note is the ability to compile into different formats. I use this for manuscript printing and for digital (Kindle) preparation. For book printing, I use Scribus for layout, but that’s a topic for another day. 

Within Scrivener, I keep a folder called Research with subfolders for topics that come up in the books. For the current project, I have folders for Communications, Starvation, Orbital Dynamics, Food, and Space Weapons. In those folders are links and documents and quotes. 

I also keep a folder called Notes and a folder called UnusedFragments. More on those later.

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Wishing Shelf reader comment for Air (#3)

Here is one more comment for Air from a young Wishing Shelf reader. I like this one a lot. I sometimes imagine that The Martian and The Expanse occupy the same universe, with Generation Mars sitting somewhere between.

“I just watched The Martian film which I thought was amazing. This is like that but for kids. I thought this book was very different to most, as the author wants the reader to understand Mars and how it might be possible to live there, but we´ll need to solve a lot of scientific problems first. That´s a good message. This book will make children think a bit.” Girl, aged 11 – with a little help from mum

image: Illustration by Luis Peres Children’s Books Illustrator for Air

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Halloween excerpt from Water

At the edge of the crevasse, Cas gave everyone another climbing lesson, this time incorporating the silent rope signals. One could never assume they would have comms.

“I will go down first to see if this thing takes us anywhere we want to go,” she said.

On this side of the crevasse, there were broken blocks they could use as belay anchors. Tony set up as before and Cas tied in. When she was ready, they exchanged their calls and Cas, once again, backed over the edge of a crevasse and descended into the darkness.

If this crack went as far as the one above, it should cross L6. It might even go to L7, near the location of the shelter, though they did not have enough rope to go that far in one pitch.

She slowly picked her way down. They had been in the mine long enough that she had become used to the eerie groans and pops of the ice. But as she dropped further and further from her friends above, into the darkness, into the unknown, she began to notice them again. Some, she could actually hear, as the sound waves in the thin air around her vibrated their way through her helmet and the thicker air inside. Most, she could only feel through her hands and feet where they touched the crevasse wall. She had been climbing for several minutes when she realized there was something different about those vibrations.

She paused at a small ledge, helmet pressed against the ice. She could hear a faint rhythmic thump. That’s weird, she thought. And it was. Everything she’d heard so far had been random noise made by the ice as it sorted itself out after the quake. The sounds were often startling, but they made sense. But this… she could not for the life of her think what would make such a regular thumping.

She realized she had been standing on the ledge for some time. She checked her O2 level. It was low but still safe. So, not hypoxia, she thought. I must just be tired. She shook her head and continued down. Several meters further, she paused again and leaned her helmet against the wall. The thumping was louder. Whatever was the source of that sound, she was apparently getting closer to it. She wasn’t exactly scared by this thought. More curious than anything. But she was also a little scared. She continued down.

Several more meters and she felt something touch her back. She jumped but did not lose her hold on the wall. She took a deep breath then turned to see what was touching her. She was surprised to see her helmet light reflected back by ice just centimeters from her visor. Between her concentration on the climb and rumination on the source of that thumping sound, she hadn’t notice that the crevasse had been getting narrower. She looked down. The crack continued to taper below her. She would not make much more progress there. She looked around. To her left, the crack widened a little. She climbed left and looked down. Still narrowing, but it looked like she could go a ways. She continued down.

A few meters more and she had to traverse left again. This time when she looked down her light was reflected up at her. Was that a bottom? Could it be L6? A wave of relief washed over her. She leaned her helmet against the wall to rest a moment and was greeted by the thumping, louder than ever. The relief vanished. Ok, she thought, time to face the thumper. She continued down.

When she reached the bottom, she realized she was in a grid tunnel. She had made it to L6! Shadows shifted in her light as she looked around. One of them moved differently than it should have. Her breathing froze and she backed away quickly, falling over an ice block. She scrambled to her feet and cast her light in the direction of the weird shadow. It was a figure. In a suit. Lying on the floor of the tunnel. In one hand was a block of ice. The figure dropped the ice and Cas felt the thump as it landed, just like the thumps she had been hearing. The figure raised the hand in the air and waved at her.

There was something wrong with the helmet the figure wore. It was smeared in black such that Cas couldn’t see a face and there was a thin stream of mist jetting out where nothing should be coming out, ever.

 

(excerpt from the first draft/WIP of Water: Generation Mars, Book Three)

image: created with Stable Diffusion

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Climbing kids

Every time I wonder if I’m asking too much of my main characters, eight-ish and ten-ish years old (Mars time is complicated), something like this comes along to reassure me. Kudos to Sam!

(And, yes, there is climbing in the next book.)


8-year-old boy becomes youngest person to climb California’s El Capitan | CNN

8-year-old boy becomes youngest person to climb California’s El Capitan | CNN

An 8-year-old boy became the youngest person to finish climbing El Capitan in California’s Yosemite National Park on Friday, according to his father, who has been by his side and cheering him on since the pair began their journey earlier this week.

CNN CNN
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Rocket launch

I was sitting at my oldest kid’s soccer practice yesterday, typing away on a scene for the next book, when I looked up and saw this. My first thought was “that looks like a rocket”: not a common sight in Tucson, Arizona. I checked my Next Spaceflight app and, sure enough, SpaceX had just launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, 590 miles northeast of where I was sitting. After taking a few pics (if you look carefully, you can see the first stage as it falls away), I brought up the live feed on YouTube and watched both at the same time. What a magical time we live in.

“This is the space age, and we are here to go.”
-William S. Burroughs

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Ingenuity problems

NASA lost contact with Ingenuity on May 3. The little copter is having problems recharging its batteries due to dust accumulation and the short days of winter. NASA instructed Perseverance to stop all science activities and spend a full day listening. 24 hours later, Ingenuity had built up enough charge to reestablish communications.
 
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Marsquakes

The lack of a magnetoshpere on Mars plays a key role in the latest book, Shelter.

The magnetic field around planets like Earth is the result of a geodynamo around the molten core. Because Mars has no magnetosphere, it has long been thought that very little happens in its interior. This study suggests that there is active movement of magma inside Mars after all.

From the article:
“Knowing that the Martian mantle is still active is crucial to our understanding of how Mars evolved as a planet,” says geophysicist Hrvoje Tkalčić of the Australian National University in Australia… “The marsquakes indirectly help us understand whether convection is occurring inside of the planet’s interior, and if this convection is happening, which it looks like it is based off our findings, then there must be another mechanism at play that is preventing a magnetic field from developing on Mars,” Tkalčić says.


Mars Is Rumbling With Mysterious Quakes We've Never Detected Before

Mars Is Rumbling With Mysterious Quakes We’ve Never Detected Before

It turns out that Mars is rumblier than we knew.

ScienceAlert ScienceAlert
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Niger Vallis

“I’m open,” said Nyla. Cas looked up and saw that her mother was standing with knees slightly bent, ready to receive. Cas passed her the ball, and her mother trapped it and dribbled to another spot before passing it back. They continued this—laughing, dribbling, chatting, and passing—until their shadows grew long and the fat blue Sun fell behind the rim of Dao Vallis, far down-canyon from them.

Shelter: Generation Mars, Book Two
Coming in March
(image: Niger Vallis near confluence with Dao Vallis, composite from Google Earth Pro – Mars)
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House of Eternal Return

There is a house in Santa Fe that isn’t right. Reality has fractured and worlds are colliding. Surprisingly, it’s not that bad. Pleasant, even. Visit Meow Wolf and see for yourself. Just keep track of your kids.